The Good and the Not-So-Good of Flutter App Development!

If you are mulling over your mobile application or a web application for mobile devices, you might ask, ‘can we use flutter for web development,’ or ‘why use flutter for app development.’

BuiltWith reports that there are over 43,000 websites currently using Flutter, and AppBrain reveals over 25,000 Flutter apps on the market today. It is clear that the consumer and the developer community see the benefits of the Flutter Development environment.

There are many advantages of using Flutter, and we have listed some of them here.

Benefits of Using Flutter App Development

Write Code Once for Android, iOS, and Web

One of the benefits of using Flutter is that developers can write one code to accommodate Android, iOS, and web development. This one-code environment allows developers to work effectively and quickly and, allows the business to upgrade the product more easily after the product or app is launched.

It is easy and fast to make changes and launch those changes, so the mobile application can be kept evergreen and fresh, ensuring that your users will want to keep using your mobile app. The advantages of using Flutter are clear to programmers planning a cross-platform architecture. Flutter SDKs support  desktop, mobile, and web platforms. Flutter runs seamlessly on desktops, on the web and in mobile environs including Android and iOS with great hybrid capabilities. It is less expensive and time-consuming to build a Flutter mobile application. Adding features and upgrading your mobile app is simple, easy, and fast.

Open-Source Accessibility

If you are still wondering, what are the advantages of Flutter, here is another reason to consider Flutter for your project. Flutter is an open-source software development toolkit. That allows developers to connect to the community and to ask questions, share techniques and participate in forums.  Flutter programmers can learn from each other, improving the performance of mobile apps and improving return on investment (ROI) and lowering total cost of ownership (TCO).

Instant UI Update

Performance is a big deal to users! Flutter UI rendering is pixel-perfect, so developers can control the pixels and how they display on a particular device. The Flutter engine interprets the Dart code as it appears on an Android, desktop, or iOS device. The way the image or screen is displayed is dictated at the time the code is run, meaning the UI is updated instantly.

The Flutter engines engages Skia, a 2D graphics library that handles graphics for a variety of software and hardware. In addition, Flutter comprises application programming interfaces (APIs) to handle text, network, and other functions.

The user interface is created, refreshed, and stabilized for every device, screen size and resolution, to ensure seamless performance across devices.

Fast, Cost-Effective, Simple Development

For each of the other development environs, there are reasons to choose one or the other, depending on your requirements and target market, but Flutter compares favorably with all of these options with effective development tools, software development kits (SDKs) and techniques to speed the process.

• Flutter’s comprehensive library of widgets provides access to pre-built functionality, so developers can reduce coding time and cost.

• Flutter has hot reload capability to speed changes to the code, inserting code changes in Dart VM without the need for changes to preserved states.

• Flutter is a good choice for small, medium and start-up businesses with a limited budget. By developing one mobile app for use in all devices and environs, the business can limit its investment.

• Flutter is easy to learn and use and works with other languages like Python, C#, Java and other object-oriented languages and Dart is similar to what developers are used to seeing in these other development languages so developers find it easy to adopt.

• Flutter documentation is extensive and helpful, with a general developer manual, and documentation for common tasks.

• Flutter is scalable with the Google Firebase application functioning on the backend to improve scalability and optimize and minimize updates for synchronization.

• The Flutter catalog of widget is focused on high-performance application elements, ensuring that basic and complex interface components will work well in any environment.

• Flutter is ideal for Minimum Viable Products (MVP) because it is open-source, easy to test, has a single codebase and low maintenance requirements.

• Flutter works well for game development, with its toolkit developed specifically for gaming projects.

Disadvantages of Flutter Development for Web and Hybrid Mobile App Development

There are a few disadvantages to choosing Flutter development. Keep in mind that the Flutter product is always addressing developer questions and comments, so the list of disadvantages will shrink as Google works through the most common issues and challenges.

Maturity of the Product

Historically speaking, the Flutter product is still quite young and it is evolving. As a business choice, your commitment to the Flutter development environment may mean that you will see changes that you do not like, or that the Google team may make decisions to take the product in a direction that is surprising. Of course, this is true of any new or relatively new product, so this consideration is not unique to Flutter. But, it  is a safe assumption that Google will work to keep the product relevant and that, as an open-source product, the developer community will have a lot of input on the direction the tools, widgets and features will take.

Upgrades to Your Product

Flutter does not upgrade its tools and environment often, so if you are looking for a constant stream of new options and technologies, you will not find them here. Google is careful about its testing and release and is not in a hurry to launch new features. When these features are available, they will be dependable, but if you are a developer or a business that wants to live on the cutting-edge, you aren’t likely to get the daily updates you expect.

Limitations for Large Applications

If your business is designing a larger application, it is important to note that the Flutter environment will produce a mobile application that will take longer to download and will use more space on a device. Newer mobile devices have ample storage for videos, photos, and games but users often leverage a lot of that capacity for other applications and uses, so there may be issues with the limitations of storage for a larger Flutter. Older devices are of even great concern, as the amount of available storage and performance is more limited.

Because Flutter apps are designed to contain all relevant and necessary code, the size of an application can be much larger than those designed to run by capitalizing on platform elements, so the size of more complex Flutter applications may lead developers to choose a different development option.

Widgets and Plug-Ins

Because developers are always looking for ways to make their job easier, and to make development faster and more cost-effective, they often look to third-party libraries, widgets, and plug-ins to help them complete a project. While it is true that Flutter has an extensive catalog of widgets, as a relatively young development environment, its third-party library resources are still limited. The third-party environment is growing and this issue will definitely disappear over time, but right now it is still of some concern.

iOS vs. Android

One of the advantages of Flutter is that you can run your mobile application on iOS and Android using one codebase, and expect good performance, but the tradeoff for this hybrid capability is that the platform-specific look and feel your users want may be a bit less than what native performance would provide. 

In general, developers find that Flutter performs a bit better on Android than in the iOS environment, and Flutter lags a bit behind in providing updates for the iOS environment. Because Google’s primary user base is comprised of Android users, this is not surprising. There are more Android developers using Flutter, than iOS developers, so suggested new features and widgets are likely to make to market faster if they are designed for the Android market.

Smart Watches and More

If your business wishes to design a mobile application that is also suitable for a smart watch environment, for watchOS, tvOS or Apple CarPlay, Flutter has its limitations. You can use Apple Watch extensions for Flutter apps, but the fixes offered at this time are not perfect.

Dart Programming

This is not necessarily a big disadvantage, but nonetheless it bears mention. You do have to learn and use the Google Dart programming language to design and develop a mobile application using Flutter. It is relatively easy to learn this language if you are used to other object-oriented languages like Java, JavaScript or C#, but there is a bit of a learning curve.

Building a mobile app using Flutter or any other development environment is no small undertaking. It requires skill, experience and a comprehensive knowledge of the domain, the market, the available frameworks, and platforms.For a detailed discussion of Flutter Programming, see our article: ‘ What is Flutter Programming, and What are the Pros and Cons of Flutter Programming?’

Find out how Flutter can help your business achieve its goals and explore the services to support your project needs. Hire Flutter Programmers, Hire iOS and iPhone Programmers, Hire Mobile Application Programmers, Hire Android Programmers, and Build Your Software Team with dedicated resources.

Explore the benefits and components of Flutter Mobile Application Development with these complementary articles: ‘What is Flutter Programming, and What are the Pros and Cons of Flutter Programming?, ’ ‘Understand Flutter Programming: What is It and Should Your Business Use it for Mobile Apps,’ ‘Getting Started with Flutter Development’ and ‘Hire Flutter Developers to Achieve Your Mobile Application Development Goals.’ ‘ What is Flutter Programming, and What are the Pros and Cons of Flutter Programming?’