Is Flutter Good Cross-Platform Framework for Hybrid App Development?

Flutter emerged as a leading development framework and appeared in the market, challenging the domination of React Native. Since then, Flutter has continued to grow in popularity.
In just over a couple of years.
Flutter developers dethroned React Native and became the most preferred framework for developing cross-platform apps.  

What is so special about Flutter that made it rise to such popularity in such a quick time? Why do other cross-platform and hybrid development frameworks just fall behind Flutter in terms of time, cost, and capabilities? Why do startups hire Flutter developers for their ambitious app projects instead of other frameworks? Let’s explain the key reasons to choose Flutter for any cross-platform app project. 

What exactly is Flutter?

Flutter is a widely popular versatile UI development kit developed, maintained, and supported by Google.  That can be used for developing iOS, Android, web, and desktop apps by using the same codebase. For coding, Flutter makes use of Dart programming language.
The framework comes with a rich repository of UI components and widgets for both iOS and Android app projects. 

Let’s understand some of the most important attributes of the Flutter developer’s framework. 

• Google builds Flutter by using Dart code, a language Google first developed for internal uses. 
• Flutter, in contrast, to React Native or most JavaScript frameworks in the market.
  doesn’t require a JavaScript bridge to incorporate the native UI layer. 
• It comes with a whole array of readily usable widgets that doesen’t required widgets offered by the device manufacturers. 
• It provides the support for testing and Google Firebase backend. 

Single Codebase extending to Mobile, Web & Desktop

Since developing a native app for every different platform is expensive and time-consuming, reusability of code through cross-platform frameworks is often preferred. But the traditional hybrid approach of building “one app for all platforms” has its limitations in terms of app performance and user experience. 

In contrast, the Flutter development approach, despite using one codebase for multiple platforms, doesn’t compromise the native user experience and performance. Flutter app versions for iOS, Android, web, and desktop platforms despite using 80% of the core code base do not fail to deliver a native user experience. 

Hot Reloading for faster development and testing 

Flutter guarantees quicker app development for many reasons and code reusability is one of them. But by allowing developers to make changes and code corrections in real time, Flutter makes the development process faster and easier. The Hot Reloading feature of Flutter allows seeing the effect of the code changes in real-time and so developers do not need to refresh the app. 

The same feature apart from helping developers, also brings down the time for test8ng the app and release cycle. QA testers can test the code in real-time and find the fault lines and errors without restarting the app repeatedly. 

Flutter works as a complete stack

Flutter offers ready access to Google Firebase backend. This cloud-based backend solution comes loaded with a robust real-time database, and a fast-paced hosting solution ensures optimum server-side support for all Flutter apps. Flutter app developers uk can use Firebase through a plugin and create complete app infrastructure without worrying much about server-side configuration. 

With the backend infrastructure available through Flutter, Flutter almost works like a full technology stack. All the backend concerns and server configuration tasks are handled by Firebase, while the UI development is taken care of by Flutter SDK. 

Robust IDE support 

Flutter remains popular across all app projects simply because of its flexibility. For instance, Flutter provides robust support for several Integrated Development Environments (IDE) tools. This results in unparalleled flexibility for cross-platform app projects. 

Some of the leading IDEs supported by Flutter include Android Studio, VC Code, IntelliJ, and several others. Developers can easily make their choice from a wide range of IDEs as per their development needs. 

Widget-based custom UI development 

Flutter app development is widely sought after by app startups because of its modularity and great scope of customization. Flutter framework comes loaded with a large repository of custom UI widgets addressing UI development needs of several mobile OS, web, and desktop platforms ranging from Android, iOS, and Material Design principles for web and desktop. 

Customizable widgets working more like the modular UI components widen the scope of customization to ensure a user-centric and refined app user experience. The custom UI widgets can be further tweaked to meet the aesthetics of your business brand. 

Unit testing support 

Flutter is also an exemplary framework that offers both testing and deployment support without relying on third parties. Flutter developers can easily conduct unit testing across multiple OS platforms. Particularly for Android unit testing, Flutter provides robust support. While Android unit testing, the entire test code just requires 5 seconds to compile and a minuscule run time spanning only 1.5 seconds. 

Coming to iOS app Unit testing, running unit test code on a simulator still maintains a faster pace, not beyond just 10 seconds. Dart language of Flutter is also well equipped to run the unit test code on a virtual machine. The out-of-the-box unit test8ng support gave Flutter an edge over many other frameworks. 

Performance for MVP app projects

These days building a primary and elementary app with core features and then updating it based on feedback has become highly popular among many businesses. This approach ( widely known as Minimum Viable Product (MVP) helps developers to create a basic proof of concept that can be further extended to fully-fledged apps. The modular nature of Flutter makes it an ideal technology for startup app projects requiring adding value incrementally over time. 

Flutter is widely popular among app development startups thanks to this MVP approach. Any app project willing to launch the app with a reduced cost and deck up more features over time will find Flutter the right technology solution befitting this approach. 

Desktop support decked up further with Flutter 3 

Flutter 3.0, the latest version, further extended the desktop support of Flutter. Flutter 3.0 now for Windows developers allows using the core business logic of the app.
Running on mobile or web app and this logic for desktop-specific user interactions. Thanks to this, Flutter-based Windows apps will be more dynamic and interactive than ever.  

Flutter previously didn’t provide macOS support, but with Flutter 3.0 version, developers can also offer a native user experience for Mac users. Flutter, for providing Mac support, collaborated with Linux as well. 

New Google Firebase plugins

We have already discussed that despite being a predominantly frontend SDK Flutter offers out-of-the-box access to the Google Firebase backend just through a dedicated plugin. On top of this, the Firebase plugin further provides an extensive repository of plugins for taking care of diverse backend tasks and responsibilities. 

There are several great plugins that take care of app performance, crashes, and other aspects. The Firebase Crashlytics plugin.  That  allows for detecting coding errors resulting in app crashes, is a great example of the Firebase plugin. Thanks to these plugins that can be used on a requirement basis, Flutter has now almost became a fully-fledged technology stack. 

New support for foldable mobile devices 

 In recent years foldable smartphones have become famous, and the latest update of Flutter is now providing UI support for all foldable smartphones. Flutter now brings a range of fresh new widgets and features. That  supports foldable screens to deliver a consistent, flexible, and frictionless user experience across all devices, irrespective of the screen type and size. 

Moreover, Flutter also made it significantly easier to support foldable device UIs. All developers need to do is choose the right option under the DisplayFeatures of MediaQuery.
you can select  preferred display option. Developers can easily adhere to the respective UI requirements for different foldable smartphones ranging from hinges folds, etc.

App monetization help through dynamic ad display 

Since displaing commercial ads in apps is considered as important attribute of app monetization.
The new Flutter 3.0 capability of dynamic ad display is worth mentioning when talking about Flutter’s advantages. It is well known that ads, despite playing a crucial role.
Always run the risk of interfering with the user experience.  This is where the new capability of Flutter comes for displaying ads in a user-centric way.  Brings new promises to marketers as well app makers. 

With the Flutter 3.0 version the ads will be displayed with a more seamless page transition apart from helping with smooth scrolling. Commercial ads are always considered as a detrimental factor for user experience. This new Flutter capability can have a great impact. 

Concluding Words 

Using Flutter for your  app project is already understood and these advantages will help you to understand. But to make these advantages even sounder Flutter developers also need to focus on how-to aspects or best development practices.