The competition among businesses these days is far more fierce than ever. This forces them to continuously search for new ways to stay ahead of their rivals. This is true in the digital space as well. Businesses need to ensure that the users get the most seamless digital experience while using their applications, regardless of their choice of a mobile device or an OS. Therefore, businesses must select the right mobile technologies. For years, they have been using React Native app development and Xamarin app development for their app development needs, but Google’s Flutter has been making great strides silently.

Flutter is an open-source mobile application development framework that helps develop cross-platform applications using Google’s Dart programming language. Flutter’s rising popularity is evident because it is now among GitHub’s top 20 software repositories. It achieved this feat within just a few months of its first release. Stack Overflow’s 2019 Developer Survey places Flutter in third place with 75.4% votes, above React Native (8th place) with 62.5% and Xamarin (14th place) with 48.3% votes in the ‘Most loved cross-platform mobile app frameworks’ category. Let us look at what makes Flutter unique and why you should choose it for your next application.

Why choose Flutter for your next app?

1. Single codebase

Flutter works with a single codebase for both iOS and Android apps. This means developers do not need to code separately for both operating systems. This helps them quickly improve application quality, design, and speed so that more and more users connect with the apps.

2. Dart as a programming language

Flutter’s use of Dart as the programming language benefits the developers. Dart is Google’s in-house production and is better suited for Flutter. Dart uses a reactive framework and handles both front-end and back-end independently.

3. Use of customizable widgets

The widgets included with Flutter implement the Human Interface Design descriptions for iOS that allow for a natural usage experience on iPhones and iPads. These widgets provide layouts and flexible APIs for animations, effects, gestures, etc.

4. Native themes for iOS/Android

Flutter includes different native themes for both operating systems. This allows faster run-time decisions on which UI will be shown to the user based on their OS. Flutter has various theme elements (icons, fonts, styles, etc.) to ensure the user gets a native user experience on both platforms.

5. Stateful hot reload

Flutter’s ‘Stateful Hot Reload’ or ‘Hot Restart’ functionality boosts the developers’ productivity by allowing them to view their changes within one second. The changes to the app structure are visible in 10 seconds. Unlike the slow Gradle build in Android, ‘Stateful Hot Reload’ refreshes the app UI instantly like a webpage, helping save up to 40% of developers’ time.

6. Innumerable packages and extensive community

Flutter has many open-source packages (for example, to open images, share media, etc.) for Flutter that help developers create apps much faster and with ease. This library, supporting Android and iOS, is growing exponentially with the help of the ever-growing developer community.

7. Powerful design experience

Thanks to its immaculate implementation of the design specifications, Flutter makes it easy to create powerful UI experiences out of the box. This is a huge benefit, especially considering how difficult it is to mimic native-level experience through cross-platform development.

8. Support for a variety of IDEs

Flutter is compatible with various IDEs, such as Android Studio, VS Code, IntelliJ, etc. This makes it easy to work with and accessible for many developers comfortable with any IDEs.

9. Easier animations

Announced at Flutter Live 2018, 2-Dimension Flare is an online tool that makes creating spectacular animations quick. With a shallow learning curve for developers, it helps reduce the time to implement changes that require animations. 

10. Create apps for mobile, desktop, and the web

Also announced at Flutter Live 2018, Hummingbird allows developers to simultaneously use the same code to build apps for mobile, desktops, and the web.

Want to build an app with Flutter?

With numerous benefits, it is no surprise that some of the best innovative apps have been built using Flutter app development. Some notable examples of Flutter apps are Google Ads, AppTree, and Alibaba. Flutter provides many benefits, like faster programming and testing times, cross-platform capabilities with native-level experience, smoother apps, and UI designs your users will love interacting with.

On top of this, it is backed by a giant like Google, which means you will never have to worry about a lack of support. The time is now for developers to consider switching to Flutter for all their mobile app development requirements.