With more than 6 billion smartphones all over the world, mobile app development has become a crucial portion of the programming world. The apps developed by a programmer transcend to such a huge number of devices that the chances of transmuting even marginal errors are high. 

In such a scenario, you would definitely not want the weaknesses of your programming tools/languages/frameworks to downplay your development efforts. While no tool is empty of weaknesses, there certainly exist some best (to this date) options.

Flutter currently stands as one of the most prominent frameworks that support cross-platform developments and accelerate the development process without compromising optimization or UI/UX.  Whether you’re a beginner searching for a go-to tool for mobile app development framework or a professional wanting to transition to a more flexible and powerful tool, both Flutter and this article are for you.

What is Flutter?

Flutter is an open-source UI development framework, developed by Google. It can also be looked at as a comprehensive toolkit that combines SDK along with cross-platform compiling capabilities. That means a single codebase on Flutter can be used to develop mobile apps for phones and desktops, as well as for the web, with its easy-to-learn SDK.

Not only is Flutter app development user-friendly, but it also offers a wide array of features and customization options for Flutter developers. With its comprehensive APIs, Flutter allows for seamless interaction with native platforms and access to device-specific functionalities.

Due to this, around 42% of cross-platform app developers use Flutter as their primary tool, creating an ecosystem of more than 500k+ apps uploaded on the app store.

Why Should You Choose Flutter? – The benefits

While there are numerous benefits of choosing Flutter for building apps, the most appealing ones have been explained below:

1. Cross-Platform Development

As already mentioned, Flutter is a cross platform applications development toolkit. A single code base handling multiple platforms brings a lot of ease to the developers. it is especially beneficial for solo developers and startups that want to keep their costs as low as possible. And what’s better than not having to hire more native platform developers?

2. High Performance

Keeping a framework beginner-friendly along with cross-platform development has always worked inversely with its performance metric. But, the rendering engine and compiler bundled within Flutter work so seamlessly that apps become indistinguishable from the native ones even though their code base is the same, thus boosting performances across all the platforms and encouraging a fast development cycle.

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3. Libraries of Prebuilt Items

Flutter provides you with various libraries, which you can easily use to make elements like Flutter widgets. These libraries support pre-built components within the SDK to effortlessly handle intricate animations and customizations,  opening up endless possibilities for creating visually captivating mobile experiences.

4. Strong Community

Being open-source, Flutter has a large community of maintainers and developers who are quite active on the Internet. Their presence on different forums means newcomers can always ask for queries and better solutions in place of their current code. Similarly, Flutter’s beginner-friendly approach pulls a huge number of new learners, creating a strong and widespread content-based ecosystem on YouTube, X.com, etc.

5. Rich Ecosystem

Talking about the ecosystem, Flutter offers a wide range of third-party plugins that expand its capabilities and make it an ideal framework. With these plugins, implementing camera access, geolocation, and social media logins becomes a breeze and eliminates the need for writing complex code. This not only saves valuable time but also reduces the effort required for integrating these features.

6. Hot Reload

One of the most impressive attributes of Flutter is its hot reload capability, which allows developers to instantly see the changes they have made to the code. This greatly speeds up the debugging process and improves efficiency, ultimately enhancing the overall speed and flexibility of the development process. 

Why is Flutter Better than React Native? (or other frameworks)

While the app development framework market is saturated with numerous names on the list, Flutter stands out among all. Especially when compared to its biggest competitor, React Native, Flutter outperforms significantly in the required metrics. 

Some of the key differences between these two frameworks, also showing why Flutter is better than the other, have been mentioned below:

Criteria	Flutter	React Native
Performance	Generally faster due to direct native code compilation	May have slight performance overhead due to the JavaScript bridge.
Learning Curve	Easier learning curve for new and transitioning developers	Steeper for developers without existing JavaScript knowledge
Development Speed	Faster iteration with hot reload feature	Can be fast with third-party tools, but hot reload isn’t as seamless
UI Customization	More control over UI elements and rendering	Limited customization compared to Flutter due to reliance on native UI components

Though this table compares only Flutter and React Native, the strengths of Flutter hold the same significance over other frameworks like MAUI, Ionic, Xamarin, etc.

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How to Choose the Right Framework for Your App?

We already talked about the role of the right framework in your app development process. Nevertheless, while choosing the right framework for your app (mobile or web apps), you should consider some major factors. Some such consideration factors are

1. Product Type

The First thing that can help you determine your framework is the kind of project/app you are trying to build. To develop apps with simpler functionalities, why would anybody want to hire native platform developers, thus they shift their choice towards frameworks like Flutter.  But, if you are trying to build low-latency and high-performance applications like mobile games, you would want them to be natively coded.

2. Target Platform

Second or you can put it in the first place as well, the thing you should consider is what platform you’re targeting. If you’re trying to make an iOS app for iOS devices, focusing on swift programming can enable you to access more features that are not supported in cross-platform or hybrid apps. The same goes for other platforms.

Cost & Time Period of Development

Here, with a rule of thumb, if you’re an individual or startup trying to keep your cost of development as low as possible, cross-platform app development frameworks are the go-to solution. It is because you can accomplish your project within a single code base and let the rendering engines convert them into various platform-specific codes. This helps in reducing the number of developers or time required to develop the project, thus minimizing the overall cost.

Conclusion

Coming to the end, we hope this article may have provided you with the relevant information required to make you start with or transition to Flutter. Or even if we lack, you can always research more on the web.

However, in a nutshell, Flutter is really a great tool for mobile app development. It enables developers to create an appealing User Interface and has everything you need to develop visually mesmerizing mobile applications. Plus, with all the integrations you get, along with an instant viewing (hot reload) feature and a highly capable rendering engine that works like wizardry in creating cross-platform apps, you can easily get your app development job done.

Please feel free to contact and share your app idea with SCSS Consulting, and let your vision turn into an application. Develop intuitive Flutter apps with us.