Why Flutter Is Such An Awesome Framework For Mobile App Development
Introduction
If you’ve ever had a rumble or a tough time figuring out which cross-platform framework you should adopt for your mobile apps or wondered why some top companies like Google, Alibaba, BMW, etc., choose Flutter for their products, then keep reading as I talk about this framework and the many excellent features it possesses.
Flutter is a free and open-source Google mobile UI framework that provides developers with a fast and expressive way to build native apps on both IOS and Android. Apart from being a cross-platform framework that allows you to smoothly build mobile apps across multiple platforms with a single codebase, Flutter also has many other features that will enable it to compete with other cross-platform frameworks. Flutter was first released in May 2017; the framework has grown massively and gained widespread adoption by millions of developers worldwide, with thousands of flutter apps launched.
Now that we know what Flutter is all about, let's dive into why it is such a fantastic technology.
Single codebase
Flutter is a cross-platform framework, which means programmers can write code once and use it across multiple platforms. A single version of an application runs smoothly on both iOS and Android. This saves a lot of time and effort in writing code for different platforms, as you don’t have to develop a separate codebase for iOS and a different codebase for Android. This helps developers significantly save the overall cost of developing and launching applications.
Uses Dart Programming Language
Flutter uses an object-oriented programming language called “Dart” to create apps. Dart is a strongly typed language with a rich standard library. Dart is similar to Java and shares popular features of other languages too. Since Google is developing the interpreter for Dart, all the language features are described in detail. This allows you to quickly get answers to almost any questions that may arise during the training process or directly while writing code. Another advantage here is its high performance. Programs written in Dart tend to run faster than programs created in JavaScript.
Similar to Native App Performance
The user experience is significant to consider when building your app, and the app's performance goes a long way to influence the user experience. Unlike most cross-platform frameworks, Flutter apps are built directly into the machine code, eliminating any performance bugs in the interpretation process. Flutter doesn’t rely on any intermediate code interpretations. This is why the performance of Flutter apps in most cases will be similar to the native app and even better in complex UI animation scenarios.
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Hot Reload
Flutter has a unique feature where developers can instantly see changes made to code. Flutter’s hot reload feature helps you quickly and easily experiment, build UIs, add features, and fix bugs. Hot reload works by injecting updated source code files into the running Dart Virtual Machine (VM). Any updates are available to both the designers and developers in seconds. They do not have to wait for updates and can continue using the framework to develop other features with no interruptions. This boosts the developer’s productivity and reduces the time to create a robust application. This saves up much cost in the project's overall development.
The Flutter Community
Flutter has a very active community of developers who constantly work to improve the Flutter framework and developer experience. They make the entry barrier so low to make it beginner friendly and make your learning experience smooth when you are learning the framework. There are several videos and learning resources to help you learn, and effortlessly start developing an app with help from the team.
Material Design
Flutter uses material design out of the box, which means you can develop good looking apps without putting so much effort to make them look good. Flutter offers several custom widgets to help developers in their creation process. It makes designing a basic user interface much easier and faster. All you need to do is create a UI element once, and it will adapt to different resolutions, screens, and platforms. You can even wrap one widget inside another to enable various functions. Flutter has enormous UI customisation potential, which means you can still customise your apps to suit any design pattern you desire.
Open Source
Flutter is an open-source code software development toolkit from Google. The good point is that it allows easy posting of issues and access to documentation from open developer forums. It helps Flutter programmers to learn and grow with the ever-changing population of developers who actively contribute to the platform. It increases the efficiency and productivity of the coder and results in less time and cost for the entire project.
Requires Less Testing
Testing normally requires checking on compatibility on different platforms. Flutter uses a single codebase to run apps across different platforms. This means Flutter applications can be tested just once, saving a lot of time and money for the developer.
Final thoughts
Building applications usually take up a lot of costs, and development time, which is usually a significant factor to consider. Game developers already had cross-platform frameworks for developing games, which caught the attention of many mobile developers who wished there was a similar technology for developing cross-platform mobile apps. Many cross-platform development technologies were later developed, and they have experienced massive growth in the past years, especially React Native and Flutter. Flutter came as a knight in shining armour, giving developers the ability to develop the same UI and Business Logic in All Platforms in just one codebase with excellent rendering features to directly draw beautiful UIs for the app to stay consistent on all platforms.
Like many amazing technologies, Flutter has its flaws, and we will talk about them another day. But this shouldn’t discourage you from learning the framework or adopting it for your business. It is still the most popularly used cross-platform mobile development framework, and it still renders powerful performance for your apps with all the other excellent features it has.
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