7 Benefits of Mobile App Development Using Flutter

• By Neeta Sarkar
• 17-05-2023
• Mobile App Development

Most of the existing businesses rely on online applications, whether they are providing any service or employing manpower. Or, we could say that in order to grow any business internationally, it is crucial to create and maintain an online platform. To make this possible, new technologies are emerging every day, and Flutter is just one of them.

Mobile app development has now become an integral part of businesses today, with more people using mobile devices than ever before. In order to keep up with this trend, businesses need to create mobile apps that can run on different platforms, such as iOS and Android. And one prominent tool that can help developers achieve this is Flutter. In this blog, we'll explore the benefits of mobile app development using Flutter and the evolution of Flutter as the best framework for cross-platform app development:

What is Flutter?

For those who are not aware of the term "Flutter," let me tell you that it is a popular open-source framework for mobile app development that has been making waves in the development community since its development in 2017. Mobile app developers can use the single codebase of Flutter to develop cross-platform applications. From Android and iOS to Linux, macOS, Windows, and Google Fuchsia, Flutter has a lot of benefits, which makes it a great choice for making mobile apps among developers.

Evolution of Flutter as the Best Framework for Cross-Platform App Development

Mobile app development has become an essential part of modern-day businesses, and creating apps that can run on multiple platforms, including iOS and Android, has become a necessity. In recent years, Google's Flutter framework has emerged as the best one for developing cross-platform apps. So, let’s explore how Flutter has evolved to become the best framework for cross-platform app development.

Early Days of Flutter

Google first unveiled Flutter in 2017 as a brand-new mobile app development framework with the intention of making it simpler for programmers to create stunning, high-performing apps for both iOS and Android platforms. It was built on top of the Dart programming language and featured a unique approach to building user interfaces.

In its early days, Flutter faced some skepticism from the developer community due to its relative newness and lack of support for some essential features. However, Google continued to invest in the framework, and over time, it started to gain popularity.

Growth and Development of Flutter

As developers began to explore Flutter's capabilities, they discovered that it provided many benefits, such as fast development times, cross-platform compatibility, and high-performance graphics. These benefits made Flutter an attractive option for businesses looking to create mobile apps quickly and cost-effectively.

As a result, Flutter gained a loyal following, and the community around it began to grow rapidly. This growth led to the creation of new tools and plugins that extended Flutter's capabilities, making it even more powerful and versatile.

Advantages of Flutter

Flutter provides several advantages that have helped it evolve into the best framework for cross-platform app development. Some of these advantages include:

• Fast Development Times: Flutter's reactive programming model and the use of Dart programming language enable developers to create visually appealing user interfaces quickly, resulting in faster app development and debugging.
• Cross-Platform Development: Flutter allows developers to create high-quality mobile apps that can run on both Android and iOS platforms, with a consistent look and feel across different devices.
• High Performance: Flutter uses a powerful graphics engine called Skia to render user interfaces, providing high-performance graphics for mobile devices. Additionally, Flutter compiles code to native ARM machine code, which means that it runs faster than interpreted code.
• Better User Experience: Flutter provides a wide range of pre-built widgets that allow developers to create beautiful and responsive user interfaces, along with features like smooth animations that give users a pleasant and engaging experience.
• Cost-Effective: Developing mobile apps for different platforms can be expensive, but with Flutter, developers can create cross-platform apps with a single codebase, reducing the need for additional resources.
• Easy to Learn: Flutter has a simple and intuitive syntax, making it easy to learn, even for developers who have no experience with the framework.
• Open Source: Flutter is an open-source framework, meaning that developers can use it for free, without any licensing costs.

Future of Flutter

Flutter's future looks bright, with continued growth and development expected in the years to come. Google has committed to supporting Flutter for the long term, and the community around it continues to grow, with developers creating new plugins and tools that extend its capabilities.

Flutter's prime focus is to provide a great developer experience and excellent user interfaces. This is expected to continue, and its popularity is likely to increase as more businesses look for cost-effective and efficient ways to develop mobile apps.

With this, we can say that Flutter has evolved into the best framework for cross-platform app development over the years, offering a wide range of benefits to developers and businesses. Its fast development times, cross-platform compatibility, high-performance graphics, and cost-effectiveness make it an attractive option for businesses looking to create high-quality mobile apps. With continued growth and development, Flutter is set to become even more popular in the years to come.

Now, let's move on and talk about the most important benefits of making mobile apps with Flutter.

7 key benefits of mobile app development using Flutter

1) Single codebase compatible across all platforms

Flutter allows developers to build apps that run on multiple platforms, such as iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows, with a single codebase. This means that instead of writing separate code for each platform, developers can write a single codebase in the Dart programming language that can be used to build apps for all major platforms.

It also makes it easier to ensure that the app works consistently across different platforms, as there is only one codebase to test and maintain.

2) Fast and efficient

One of the biggest benefits of using Flutter is its ability to speed up the development process. It's hard for businesses to hire separate developers to create apps for different platforms. With Flutter, developers can easily design apps for all major platforms by writing code once. This is made possible through its “hot reload” feature, which allows developers to see changes made to the code in real time. This feature saves a lot of time and effort, as developers no longer need to wait for the app to recompile after every change.

3) Customizable widgets

Flutter has a rich collection of customizable widgets that help any Flutter developer create visually appealing and responsive user interfaces. These widgets are meant to be fast, flexible, and easy to combine, making it easy for developers to make apps that look good and work well. We can also say that everything is a widget in Flutter, including layout, text, images, and everything you see in an app.

In addition to widgets, the Flutter framework has a number of other tools that can be used to style and customize widgets to meet specific design needs. This makes it an ideal choice for developing visually appealing mobile applications.

4) Great performance like a native app

Flutter framework is known for its great performance, thanks to its unique architecture and the use of the Dart programming language. It uses the Skia graphics library to draw its widgets. This means that the UI of the app is drawn directly by the GPU, which makes animations and transitions smooth and fast.

Additionally, Flutter uses a "hot reload" feature that allows developers to quickly see the changes they make to their code in real-time without having to recompile the entire app, further speeding up the development process. Because of all of these things, Flutter is an excellent platform for making mobile apps.

5) Large developer community

Due to its popularity as a UI toolkit for building high-performance, beautiful, and cross-platform apps for mobile, web, and desktop, Flutter has a large and growing developer community. This community is a great resource for developers who are looking for help or want to learn more about Flutter. They give developers to support, resources, and plugins that make it easier for them to build and deploy apps.

Furthermore, the open-source nature of Flutter has encouraged contributions from developers all over the world, which has helped to expand the community and improve the toolkit.

6) Hot Reload Feature

Yes, Flutter has a "hot reload" feature that allows developers to see changes they make to their code in real time without having to manually restart the app. This feature can significantly speed up the development process by allowing developers to quickly test and iterate on their designs and implementation. It makes it easier to fix bugs, add new features, and improve the overall performance of the app. Hot reload is one of the key features of Flutter that have made it popular among developers.

Overall, hot reload is a useful tool for Flutter developers because it makes it easier to build and maintain high-quality apps with less time and work.

7) Access to Native Features

Flutter provides access to native features of the underlying platform (e.g., iOS, Android) through its Flutter Engine and platform channels. This means that developers can use Flutter to make apps that can use all of the features of the native platform. For example, these apps could use the device's sensors, cameras, storage, and more.

This feature of the Flutter framework makes it a powerful tool for building high-quality, cross-platform apps that offer a seamless user experience on both iOS and Android.

Flutter usage

According to Google, Flutter has been adopted by over 150,000 apps on both iOS and Android platforms. As per a recent survey by Stack Overflow, Flutter is the most loved framework by developers, with 75.4% of them expressing interest in continuing to work with Flutter. Furthermore, the framework has seen a significant increase in usage over the last year, with its downloads increasing by 89% between Q2 2020 and Q2 2021.

Many prominent companies such as Alibaba, Google, BMW, and Tencent, have also adopted Flutter for their mobile app development needs. Flutter's success can also be attributed to its active community, which regularly contributes to its development and maintenance.

Overall, Flutter's usage statistics indicate that it is rapidly gaining popularity among developers and businesses, and its adoption is expected to continue to grow in the coming years.

Can anyone match the power of Flutter in the near future?

Google's Flutter is a sophisticated and well-known mobile application development framework with several capabilities, including rapid development cycles, customizable widgets, and hot-reload functionality. While alternative mobile app development frameworks exist, Flutter's distinct set of features has made it a popular choice among developers.

It's certainly possible that another framework will arise in the future that matches or exceeds Flutter's capabilities. However, it is crucial to note that Flutter has a large and expanding developer community, which contributes to its popularity and the support provided to developers. To obtain widespread adoption, any possible competitor would need to not only match Flutter's technical capabilities but also establish a strong community around their framework.

Overall, while another framework could emerge and threaten Flutter's supremacy in the mobile app development area, Flutter's present popularity and support position it as a prominent competitor in the field.

Final thoughts: So, if you're looking for a framework that can handle all of your app development needs, consider Flutter. Flutter's popularity has fluctuated since its inception. However, changing market demands forced developers to adopt his newly developed technology, which they now adore.

The most mind-blowing feature of Flutter that makes it a favorite among developers is code reusability. They can create a similar app for a completely different platform within a matter of seconds; it's all because of Flutter.

In conclusion, we only want to say that Flutter offers a range of benefits for mobile app development. Flutter gives developers the tools they need to make great mobile apps, such as fast development, cross-platform compatibility, and access to native features. If you're looking for a framework to build your next mobile app, Flutter could be a good choice.