There has been a sudden spike in the rise of cross-platform app development frameworks in the last few years. It’s a cross-platform app development framework that lets you develop apps for any screen much faster. 

Google introduced it in 2015 and officially released it a year later in 2018. Since then, more and more companies have used it for their projects, significantly reducing their developmental costs and the workload for their developers. 

If you’ve been thinking about creating an app that works on Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, or Windows, Flutter development can be your ideal option. We will explain what it is, its pros and cons, and the future of Flutter applications. 

So, let’s start. 

What is Flutter? 

Google Flutter is a portable, open-source UI toolkit that uses one codebase to create natively compiled apps for six platforms, including Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, Mac, and the web. Flutter is a widget-based framework powered by Dart programming language; Dart is similar to many object-oriented programming languages but simple and easy. 

Flutter developers can create spectacular user interfaces by incorporating Material Designs and Cupertino widgets that seamlessly adapt to native-like experiences for your users. Modifying and using a wide range of available devices on Flutter speeds up app development while providing endless possibilities for your app designs. 

Flutter vs. React Native 

React Native and Flutter are among the top platform-agnostic frameworks, so let’s compare the two frameworks to get their differences. They’re both young and not stable yet, but they are the best alternatives to consider. So what are their differences? Let’s find out: 

Platforms 

With the release of Flutter 3, unlike React Native, Flutter does not target only the web and mobile platforms but also desktops, embedded, web, and mobile. So, if your horizons go beyond mobile app development, Flutter is your ideal choice. 

Ease of use 

Dart is approachable, especially for developers already familiar with object-oriented programming. The chances that many developers consider using Flutter will learn the Language for the first time it can have some learning edge. For React Native, if you’ve used JavaScript or ReactJS, you’ll find no hiccups while learning React Native. So, it all depends on your background. 

Performance 

Flutter is undoubtedly more advanced than React Native. But basing all your factors on which framework is more functional is not an ideal strategy. Knowing the complexity or requirements of your app is the foremost consideration for matching your needs to those a framework can provide. This difference is because both frameworks are unique with distinct strengths and limitations. 

The pros and cons of Flutter app development 

Besides the general advantages and disadvantages of cross-platform frameworks, Flutter harbours different pros and cons that are unique. So, let’s find out the benefits and the drawbacks of developing your app with Flutter. Let’s start with the advantages. 

What are the advantages of Flutter app development? 

Faster development and deployment 

Flutter community seeks to make the developer experience superb. The hot reload feature removes the developer’s headache of repeatedly loading their apps to see the changes to their codes, widgets, and plugins. Features like this will speed up the application development and make life easier for developers. 

Flutter will keep spending most of its focus on creating a better experience for developers, leading to more productivity and better results for app designs. More so, seeing promising progress on the Flutter team’s roadmap reveals that Flutter aims to better developer experiences throughout the year. 

Easy to learn and use 

Flutter is based on the Dart Programming language. Learning Dart is easy for average developers, and new users can get it quickly. Even though understanding some core programming concepts for new programmers can be challenging, you can get the basics quickly to get you started. You can try playing with DartPad to get the idea of Dart quickly. 

Using Flutter to create, test, and deploy your applications is also easier. Flutter offers quality documentation, which is indispensable for any project. The official Flutter dev can help you get started, even without prior Flutter experience. More so, the active Flutter community will always be ready to help if you get stuck on your projects. 

Feature-rich user interfaces for excellent user experiences 

Flutter is better than many others as it provides feature-rich and customizable widgets. These widgets are fast, appealing, and customizable directly from Flutter’s high-performance rendering engine.  

These widgets offer countless opportunities and improve the production speed of your applications. The layered architecture also offers delight in the look and feel of your apps across devices — and thankfully, Flutter does not sacrifice the render speed of your apps to make it happen! 

Not to forget that each UI component can be animated for even better experiences. If you want to check more about what’s revolutionary, check out this article.  

Lastly, Flutter is compatible with older devices yet retains the same level of user experience. 

What are the disadvantages of Flutter app development? 

Like many other Frameworks, Flutter isn’t perfect. While the advantages have been outstanding, it is also good to check the downsides to know how to position this technology to your advantage. So, let’s check them out: 

Larger app size 

Flutter, being self-contained with all the code required, your application size can grow more than it should, taking longer to download or update. Storage may no longer be an issue for many, but there’s still some consciousness on apps that take more space, especially for wearables and other devices having limited storage. 

Also, app size is not just a developer’s concern: users may also be sensitive to apps that take up more of their storage spaces. Users may own devices with bigger storage spaces, which are probably full because of their graphics-intensive games, videos, or other assets. 

Therefore, it can be problematic for apps that seek a mass appeal as a larger app size can affect the number of people willing to wait for your app to download, especially if their internet connection is limited. 

Limited access to third-party libraries 

While Flutter has an extensive built-in library of widgets, Flutter is still young, and access to more third-party libraries is a work in progress. And because many developers rely heavily on these third-party tools for their production, it may become a turn-off. 

Because third-party resources often save a lot of time and money, many developers will take longer than necessary during development than they could with other frameworks.  

There’s hope, though. Flutter promises a lot, and massive growth may make this limitation null, but until then, this remains a drawback to many users. 

Necessitates learning Dart 

Even though we indicated that Dart is easy to learn and that many developers find Dart easier to understand, you will still have to take time to learn it. A seasoned developer also understands that it may take way longer than you thought to master any new language, no matter how easy it seems. 

So it is necessary to be prepared for that in case you overlooked it. You may have to rethink your choices if you need a quick fix for your career. Because a seemingly uncomplicated language like Dart can slow your learning progress when learning it alongside other languages. 

Complex updating 

Updating your apps across all platforms is easier with Flutter because your apps share a single codebase. However, if there is an update to major Flutter modules, it may be a challenge for apps already compiled. This issue is because these modules are fixed elements inside your apps, thus necessitating that you recompile the apps and ask users to reinstall them to make a full update on their devices. 

While this is often the case for many other apps, it is a challenge if the update is crucial or could potentially cause breaking changes to the dynamic code accessible outside your apps. Other frameworks that do not compile their apps into native code do not face this challenge, so Flutter may not be ideal for you (yet) if your app will need frequent updates. 

Flutter’s future and the final thoughts 

Flutter’s popularity among app developers is not merited, though. The spike is quite reasonable. Flutter’s faster development features, lower learning curves, and feature-rich UI interfaces made its success predictable. 

After the release of Google Flutter 3, the framework now supports six platforms, adding Linux and macOS, just three months after adding Windows. Therefore, as Flutter keeps broadening its platform support, improving the developer experiences, and increasing the app performance, you should consider it for future projects. 

And while the drawbacks of Flutter are also considerate, there’s no perfect platform. The community behind Flutter is also working tirelessly to remove or minimize these drawbacks. Therefore, future updates may not have these limitations, or they minimize them. 

Furthermore, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages and those of others. If you want to develop a cross-platform mobile application or a custom software application for your business, consider choosing Aveo Software to enjoy the benefits of agility from our development processes.