TECHIEDOODS

Flutter, why should we use it?

Application developers now have a plethora of cross-platform frameworks to choose from. Despite having many options to pick from there is no single framework that ticks all the right boxes. Keeping this in mind when we talk about any cross-platform framework, the first thing that we usually question about is the performance of the hybrid framework compared to the native platform. That’s where Googles very own platform Flutter comes into play where it provides quick development coupled with the native performance which is consistent over all platforms, despite being a new player in the cross-platform framework what Flutter offers seems to be promising.

TechieDoods

What is flutter?

I am a rookie developer who was relatively new to mobile application development a year back.
What do people of one mind would do when practising a new tech? Yes, create a Hello, World application which I did on native Android.
Wait, So should I make the same application again in iOS platform? Well, not anymore, that's where we use Flutter which maintains performance and quality of visuals across platforms using a single codebase.
Flutter is a free and open-source mobile UI framework created by Google and released in May 2017 which uses Dart programming language which is novel to flutter.
With Flutter all you need is a single codebase for all platforms with its fast-growing community support lets see what Flutter has to offer!.

Advantages of flutter

Most of the cross-platform frameworks offer the essentials to get the job done but let's take a deep dive of what makes Flutter a class apart from its competitors.

1. Faster Code Development

There are many reasons where Flutter has the upper hand in development time compared to other frameworks, to name a few.

  • Dart Programming Language
    • Unlike other frameworks which use many programming languages for backend and views, Flutter uses Dart which can do both.
    • Dart has features relative to other popular programming languages, if you are familiar with any typed Object Oriented Langauge you will feel at home with Dart thus we can use the same programming language for various tasks.
  • Hot Reload
    • Coming from native Android seeing our code refresh immediately with its state-maintained instead of building the project every time is a wish come true.
    • Refresh our code within milliseconds reduces our development time by 30% to 40%.
    • Hot Reload refreshes the app structure every time we save our code by default.
  • Write once approach
    • We can write the application UI and the backend logic with the same Dart language and can build a ready to deploy version of the applications across platforms.
  • SKIA rendering engine
    • Flutter renders directly on a platform-specific canvas with the help of Skia engine, so we no longer have to adjust the UI according to the platforms which save buck loads of time.

2. Everything is a Widget

Anything you see or create in Flutter will be a widget, and we can place a widget inside a widget and so on.
Using this type of UI structure will provide the same rich animations, transitions and experience across all platforms.
Flutter offers a variety of native widgets and widget building features where we can customise the existing widget or build a widget of our own.
Due to this structure, we have a flexible and modular coding style which is easy to maintain and update.
The amount of effort required to customise a widget is less compared to other cross-platform frameworks.

3. High Performance

General cross-platform which used Javascript that compiles using JIT ( Just In Time) compiler doesn't provide a smooth user experience across platforms. In contrast, Flutter is AOT (Ahead Of Time) compiled which provides a much more seamless native experience.
Generally, the performance of applications built with Flutter framework is excellent compared to other cross-platform frameworks.

4. Well thought out framework

Do you ever wonder why every blog or article mentions that Flutter is a well-designed framework? Because it is.
From the programming language used, rendering engine and application structure Flutter excels at most if not all the aspects compared to other cross-platform frameworks.
One of the main contributors to this is the readily available examples, and well put documentation and community support.
These are some of the advantages of flutter, should we use Flutter for all the development from now on? Let’s see about that.

Disadvantage of flutter

Well, there aren’t any direct disadvantages of Flutter compared to other cross-platform frameworks per se, but we can name a few as follows.

  • Size of the application is above average compared to native development.
  • Not all web browsers support Flutter applications yet.
  • Though Flutter offers a rich material design which imitates the native components but still the look and feel isn’t identical.
  • Flutter is still immature, and google is infamous for its project kills.

Conclusion

The verdict? If you are switching from native mobile development or cross-platform framework, the experience that Flutter provides will be surreal.
Should we use Flutter in all future projects? It’s not the ultimate framework to consider yet. Still, it’s worth taking into considerations keeping in mind the low risk and Flutter is the framework that can deliver a functional application across platforms within a short period.

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Do you want to compare Flutter to its competitors like Xamarin, React Native etc., well its a topic for another day!.

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