Ever since the release of the 1.0 version in December 2018, Flutter has grabbed the attention of hundreds of thousands of developers globally. Though it is a newcomer among hybrid development frameworks, great ideas, excellent features, and Google’s support have caused Flutter to quickly catch on among mobile app developers.
Flutter, a cross-platform app development framework, was designed to meet the rapidly increasing challenges and changing demands of the app development domain. Flutter app development is ideal for building robust and highly interactive hybrid apps for enterprises and individuals alike. Flutter not only minimizes the app development cost but also speeds up the development process. It helps developers come up with attractive UIs for corporate apps.
Today, some of the top apps including Google Ads, Xianyu (Alibaba Group), and eBay Motors are powered by Flutter. Let’s go through some of the key factors that make Flutter a preferred choice for developers who want to develop interactive and engaging cross-platform mobile apps.
Key Features of Flutter as a Cross-platform App Development Framework
Google Flutter has many unique features that stand it apart from other cross-platform app development frameworks. Here we mention a few of them-
- Flutter enables app developers to build a feature-rich app for both Android and iOS in a single codebase
- It is a highly flexible and expressive framework with a rich library of scalable widgets. Enterprises can come up with robust apps in line with their business models through these widgets
- Flutter supports the development of customized interfaces (UIs) thanks to its large collection of exclusive themes
- Hot Reload is a notable feature of the Flutter framework that enables developers to check all the changes in apps as and when they make. It saves a lot of time in developing and testing apps along with reducing the cost of the Flutter app development
- Google Flutter has a highly efficient GPU rendering UI that allows developers to work on multiple interfaces at once. In a way, Flutter enhances the developer’s productivity
- Flutter also facilitates app developers to localize their apps to attract a wider base of the audience at the local and global level
- Flutter apps can be easily inserted into the WebView component and developers can readily visualize the web content in the Flutter app
- Flutter Doctor, a built-in command in the framework, helps developers and QA professionals identify the bugs in the app. Developers can easily find out the problems in the app and resolve them quickly through this command
- Flutter also extends support for integrating pictures and online videos in the app to make the app more interactive and interesting
- Flutter also provides support for the Google Firebase development platform to make apps secure and seamlessly-performing
- An advanced 2D GPU-accelerated API in Flutter can make the animations cleaner and smoother
Let’s go through some of the major benefits of using Flutter as a hybrid app development platform.
Noteworthy Benefits of Flutter App Development
- Rapid App Development
This is one of the biggest benefits of Flutter app development. It not only saves the developer’s time in building customized apps but also enables entrepreneurs to save big on the cost of app development. Features like Hot Reload and Flutter Doctor enable developers to build and test the apps rapidly across both operating systems. Developers can easily modify widgets and rapidly create an engaging native interface using Flutter. The platform has a robust and highly productive rendering engine that makes it a preferred choice for developing hybrid apps with a native-like experience.
- Engaging UI
UI (User Interface) can make the app hit or flop. With an eye-catching UI, the mobile app can attract more people to download the app and retain them for a long time. Compliance with design standards, rich libraries, motion-rich widgets, and support for interactive animations are some of the features that assist Flutter to build an engaging UI. All you get is an elegant and expressive app for both platforms. Flutter apps are easy to navigate and highly user-friendly.
- Reactive Framework
Flutter enables developers to modify the app’s interface by changing the variable in the state. Also, all the changes made are reflected in the UI instantly. As compared to React Native and other cross-platform app development frameworks, Flutter is more reactive in building hybrid apps with desired features.
- Native Experience
This is a great advantage of Flutter app development, especially for entrepreneurs. The platform has rich libraries, native codes, third-party integrations, and platform APIs to provide a nativelike experience in hybrid apps. The platform enables app developers to access the native features and SDKs on Android and iOS platforms to build an app with a native-like look and feel. The Flutter platform is based on Dart programming language, which is highly flexible and scalable to build an app of any size and complexity. Dart offers complete support to Android and iOS platforms alike to build highly responsive mobile apps.
- Design Standards Compliance
With Material Design and Cupertino design tools, Flutter makes cross-platform apps compliant with the design standards of Android and iOS respectively. The platform ensures that every design component conforms to the design standards given by the particular operating system. When it comes to developing an up-to-date and interactive cross-platform app with a proper design across all devices, Flutter app development knows no competition! What’s more, Flutter facilitates app developers to create personalized widgets in line with the design standards of both Android and iOS platforms.
These benefits make Flutter an ideal choice for developing feature-rich hybrid apps. Even startups and SMEs can opt for Flutter app development because of its cost-effectiveness and ability to build feature-rich apps.
Wrapping Up
Flutter is arguably the best open-source cross-platform app development framework to date. Apart from the various benefits mentioned here, we can state that Flutter is a futuristic platform. Google is working on developing an advanced operating system ‘Fuchsia’, which is expected to replace both Android OS and Chrome. This operating system is written in Flutter, and therefore, all Flutter-powered apps will be compatible with Fuchsia OS.