With more than 2.87 million apps on the Google Play Store and 2.2 million apps on the Apple App Store, the demand for mobile and top website app development services has increased at a tremendous rate for businesses of all domains.
And when it comes to app development, Android and iOS are the most popular operating systems. Cross-platform app development is something that can be used to create apps by using the same codebase that will run on various platforms.
So now are you wondering which cross-platform framework to opt for app development? Here in no uncertain terms, Flutter is the most popular cross-platform mobile SDK (Software Development Kit) with 30% of the market share that is used by businesses globally. It offers a wide variety of features that are the main reason behind its massive success.
Now, let’s go in through the blog to know about Flutter and how this framework has dominated the whole mobile app development market!
But before we proceed further, let’s have a quick overview of Flutter.
What is Flutter?
Flutter was launched in May 2017, as an open-source framework for mobile app development. And it has gained massive popularity among all worldwide developers after a few months of its launch. Do you know that Flutter is the only
A survey conducted by Statista showed that it has recently surpassed React Native to become the most popular and used mobile app development framework. If you have ever used Google Pay for payments, or the Alibaba app for online shopping, then you have already used applications made with the Flutter framework.
Introduced by Google, it basically uses “Dart” programming language to create apps for desktop, web, and mobile. Additionally, it is object-oriented and includes testing APIs, ready-made widgets, integration APIs, rendering engines, and many more. Also, there is a wide range of development tools that can be used to enhance the Flutter app development process.
Why Is Flutter Dominating The Mobile App Market?
While there are many reasons that have made Flutter one of the most competent cross-platform frameworks. So let’s have a look at some of those prominent reasons.
1. Enhanced Development Process
Do you know why time reduction is so important in app development? Because Time-To-Market is a very important factor in determining the success of a product. It is logical that the things we need today might not be of our use in the future. This same thing applies to the idea of an application as well because if you will not quickly work on your idea, then there are chances that it might disappear in just a few months.
Here Flutter helps you to enhance the development process and launch the app in less time to market. Because it uses the same codebase to target different operating systems which means there is no need to create separate apps for Android and iOS.
2. Accessibility and Scalability
Flutter uses “Firebase” as a backend service which was built with a lot of scalabilities. Firebase is backed by Google and provides real-time database updates which ensure that data is syncing quickly. Additionally, it also optimizes and minimizes the number of updates that are necessary for syncing.
Along with this, it also allows the integration of third-party plugins such as Google Maps to enhance the functionality and accessibility of the application. Lastly, it has a wide range of interactive widgets that can be used to create beautiful UI for Flutter apps.
3. Cross-Platform
Flutter is the most popular cross-platform framework because rather than writing separate codes for each platform, developers can leverage the benefit of its single codebase. By using this they can use the same codebase to write codes for different platforms such as Android and iOS.
Additionally, it uses Dart programming language that makes the applications compiled ahead of time and they can run faster and smoother on different devices and operating systems.
4. Constantly Developing
One thing is apparent Google always remains relevant with time. As Flutter has already gained so much popularity in the mobile app development market but despite this Google is continuously working on evolving and updating this platform. For instance, they have recently launched Flutter’s latest version i.e. Flutter 3.3.9 on 23 November 2022.
5. Reduced Development Costs & Testing Time
Cross-platform app development allows the developers to write a single codebase for different types of platforms which ultimately results in less testing time and effort. As only a single application is developed, the QA engineers have to test the bugs and performance of one app rather than of two different platforms and operating systems.
Furthermore, it also reduces the development costs because the testing is accomplished only for one application, and the time allocation of the development resources lowers.
6. Dev Tools
Dev tools are a suite of performance and debugging tools for Flutter and Dart. These can be installed by following the instructions on Android Studio, IntelliJ, VS code, or command line pages.
These are helpful in many ways in the Flutter app development service process likewise:
- Dev Tools can be used to inspect the UI layout and state of a Flutter app.
- These can be used to analyze the code and jank performance issues in a Flutter application.
- They can also be used to do network profiling or to debug memory issues in a Dart command line or Flutter app.
- App size and code can be analyzed by using Dev tools.
- Last but not the least, they can be used to do source-level debugging of a Dart or Flutter application.
7. Suitable For MVP Development
When you deep dive into your app development project, there are many things to consider and firstly it requires starting with the project discovery phase. This phase means identifying and analyzing customer requirements, and their demands to provide a product or service that is useful for them in every aspect. So, here comes the use of MVP.
MVP or Minimum Viable Product has become a must-have for every startup as they can use it to validate their product idea and can release the product with essential features to early adopters. After this, they can use the feedback provided by their users to improve the functionalities of their app.
Now, Flutter can be a great choice for building MVP as it is an extensive SDK (Software Development Kit) that is easy to understand and delivers excellent mobile applications.
8. Native Approach
Flutter app development follows the approach of “write once and run everywhere”. Apart from this, it has a huge variety of widgets that can be incorporated into all the critical platform differences like scrolling, navigation, and icons.
9. Documentation and Community Support
As already mentioned in the introduction, Flutter is an open-source framework and so has large community support of developers. If the Flutter app developers face any kind of development-related issues, they can go through community support to find all the helpful resources related to Flutter.
Along with this, there are detailed docs available on their official website that will help you to start your app development journey.
10. Hot-Reloading
Flutter’s Hot-Reloading feature allows developers to quickly experiment, add features, and fix bugs in an application. Basically, it works by injecting the updated source code files into the running Data Virtual Machine. As soon as the Data Virtual Machine updates classes with the new versions of fields and functions, this framework automatically rebuilds the widget tree which ultimately allows mobile app developers to view the effects of changes they have made.
One major benefit of hot reloading is that it allows developers to experiment with new designs and UIs without having to start from scratch. For instance, if they are developing a new design for a button or something else, simply they can make the changes in code and see the results immediately without reloading the entire app.
That’s why this feature is not only helpful in time-saving but also performs well when you want to try something unique and innovative.
But one thing that should be remembered is hot reload can break, if the app remains in the background for too long time.
Wrapping Up!
It seems very clear that Flutter is going to hold its position for a longer time period in the mobile app development industry. So, if you are looking to create astonishing cross-platform mobile apps then Flutter is definitely worth checking out!
If you want to leverage all the benefits of this emerging framework for Flutter app development services, then Get in touch with us to get the best out of it.
Author bio– Amara works with the editorial team of DianApps, a leading company offering react native app development company. Exploring the latest technologies, reading about them, and writing her views have always been her passion. She seeks new opportunities to express her opinions, explore technological advancements, and document the details. You can always find her enjoying books or articles about varied topics or jotting down her ideas in a notebook.
