Apps of BMW, eBay, Philips Hue are used by many regularly. The common factor amongst all these apps is that they are developed using the Flutter framework, which is gaining traction as the most versatile and convenient platform for developers.

What makes Flutter the most desired platform for development? What problems of the previous platform did it solve? Should you use it for your project? Read on to know more

What is Flutter?

Flutter is a Software Development Kit(SDK) maintained by Google. The most interesting aspect of Flutter is that it supports cross-platform development. This means that the application developed in Flutter can run on both mobile and web platforms. Not just that, it can run on Android as well as iOS systems.

Sounds wonderful? Let us explore other benefits of this SDK

Benefits of using Flutter

The most striking feature of Flutter in comparison to its alternatives like Android studio is the cross-platform advantage. This gives a lot of benefits as listed here

1.Cost savings

In the traditional approach, if you wanted to develop both Android and iOS apps for your product, then you had to employ two teams for development. Or, with a single team, you had to wait for a longer duration to get the app up and running since the two apps had to be developed separately from scratch.

With Flutter, you can have a single team develop an app that can run on iOS as well as android operating systems, in one shot. This saves costs.

2.Early to market

With Flutter one can quickly develop an MVP (Minimal Viable Product) in Android and iOS. This accelerates the software development cycle and the prototype product will be available quicker(fast prototyping)

3.Easier maintenance

Flutter allows you to have a single codebase for apps on different platforms. With a single codebase, it is easier to track the changes and implement bug fixes to reflect on all platforms. This allows for reduced maintenance costs.

Additionally, Flutter provides a Hot-reload feature. With this, developers can see the changes made on code immediately on the app. This is very helpful in reducing the time needed for fixing bugs.

4.Developer libraries

Who wants to reinvent the wheel every time? Flutter makes it easier for the developers by providing ample developer libraries. Commonly used algorithms need not be coded again. Use the existing libraries to get the intended results. This also saves a lot of time for the developer. And time saved translates to cost savings

5.Convenient backend programming language(DART)

Flutter is based on the DART programming language. It is quite simple and easy as compared to Javascript, the other programming language used in another cross-platform framework, React Native

6.Native feel, Native performance

Though the app is developed independent of the target machine, when running on various platforms, the operational speed and response times are not compromised. Apps perform just the way they would if they were developed for the native operating systems.

7.Community support

Flutter is open source. As with most open-source software, there is a community of contributors who enhance and maintain the framework. Due to this, Flutter is constantly improving. When developers hit a roadblock, they can consult the community for resolution or support

8. User-friendly UI

Flutter enables developers to provide attractive UI (User Interface) to the app users. An attractive and easy UI  is a very lucrative feature to have in an app to retain customers. Flutter provides developers with a wide range of widgets that they can use to create attractive UIs.

Conclusion

Flutter is easy to use and gives a great number of cost benefits. It is growing in popularity and is adapted by developers across the globe. Google Ads is a recent app made using Flutter and is being received very well by its user community.

Given its immense advantages, Flutter has all the potential to be a go-to platform for app development. Especially the ones which need to be developed in a short period without compromising on performance and user experience.