The decision is not as plain and simple anymore. It was definitely a more expensive choice, but the only one that would take you where we wanted to go. If your priority was to maximize the potential of each system and its specific features, native app development was your only choice. User interface in Flutterįor quite a while, creating User Interfaces (UI) for different devices has been one of the key issues in cross-platform development. So, when we build apps with Flutter, we can surely include native features without them having a significant impact on the app’s performance. The system gives programmers a lot of room to work, allowing third-party integrations and APIs using Java, Kotlin, Swift, Objective-C, or C++, depending on what platform we’re trying to build for. Quite the opposite, the framework has quite a wide range of stateful and stateless widgets for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux. Native features in Flutter app developmentįlutter is a robust framework for cross-platform development, but it doesn’t mean that it limits developers in terms of adding purely platform-specific features. Now, all those platforms can run applications from a single codebase, and I don’t think I have to say how much time and money it can save. The newest version of Flutter takes it much further with desktop operability for Windows, Linux, and macOS, so all Intel-running devices. That’s great, but it wasn’t the only framework that could do that in an efficient way. It allowed developers to create complex and fast apps and deploy them to iOS and Android. Cross-platform development in Flutterīefore the 3.3 version, Flutter was already a very versatile framework. More importantly, they’re always crucial for users and can play a significant role in the app’s success or failure. No matter how well the app is designed, those are the aspects you can’t get around as a developer. Since Flutter 2, Google developers also introduced image decoding and a 120 Hz refresh rate in the 3.3 version that was released a few months back, which adds even more possibilities and potential to Flutter app development. The only technology that can compete in this matter is probably React Native. The same Flutter mobile app written in other cross-platform frameworks will very likely load slower, run at lower FPS, and use more memory and battery power. One of the critical factors is the impeccable performance and stability of apps made with Flutter. In the same period, a vast majority of similar solutions were on a losing track. Although we don’t have the numbers for 2022 yet, it’s fair to assume it’s even higher due to the release of Flutter 3. According to Statista, from 2019 to 2021, the percentage of mobile cross-platform developers that use Flutter technology grew from 30% to 42%. How has Flutter development changed in recent years? I’ll talk about the key updates, new capabilities of Flutter, and what they mean for businesses that want to build a new app. Now, let’s focus on Flutter and how far it evolved because it surely deserves a separate article.

You can read more about the ongoing debate in our in-depth article Flutter versus native development from a few months ago. It not only took the first place from React Native in the cross-platform category, but is now considered as a perfectly viable choice for projects that previously had to be made as native apps. Over the last few years, Flutter has become the leading open source technology that forces us to rethink the ongoing debate about native vs.

Flutter 2 to 3