In today’s era, the usage of smartphones has increased exponentially, and therefore the use of mobile and web applications. Meanwhile, there are numerous options of frameworks and languages for developers to learn and for businesses to choose for their digital product.

In this article, we are going to focus on the reasons and perks of learning about Flutter. This cross-platform technology enables new possibilities and provides numerous possibilities to businesses and developers.

First off, what is Flutter?

“Flutter is Google’s UI toolkit for building beautiful, natively compiled applications for mobile, web, desktop, and embedded devices from a single codebase.”

 

In other words, it’s a cross-platform framework that allows you to create native performant applications on several platforms simultaneously from a single codebase. With one development team, you can build iOS, Android, Web, Desktop, and embedded devices software solutions. As a result, it enables teams to build powerful and high-quality apps in record time.

A few facts about Flutter

• Initially released on Alpha in May 2017

• Flutter 1.0 was officially launched on Dec 4th, 2018

• Created and supported by Google

•  Trusted by: Google Ads, The New York Times, Hamilton, eBay, Square, Toyota, and many more.

• Voted the most popular cross-platform mobile framework used by developers worldwide in 2021 by a developer survey.

Why should I learn it?

Simple to learn and use

Flutter is a modern framework that uses Dart programming language. Google created Dart in 2013, a programming language used to build mobile, desktop, server, and web applications. Even though it was released seven years ago, its popularity has drastically increased since Flutter’s birth.

Some of its main perks

1. Easy to learn – if you already know JavaScript you will feel at home.

2. Strong support and availability of documentation

3. High performance

4. It uses AOT (¨Ahead-of-time¨) and JIT (¨Just-in-time¨) compilation

5. It simplifies programming tasks

6. You can write tests in Flutter with great ease since flutter itself provides a package to test

7. Possibility to customize screens with a high level of detail

Quick compilation: maximum productivity

With Flutter, you can change your code and see the results in real-time with its Hot-Reload feature. It merely takes a short amount of time after you save to update the application itself.

Less and easier testing

With Flutter, it’s easier to test applications since you don’t need to install any library or package. For instance, Flutter offers a test package, unlike other frameworks where you have to find one and install it.

In addition, the Quality Assurance process is faster because developers write automated tests only once since it’s the same codebase for multiple platforms.

Clear documentation and great community

Flutter offers very detailed and complete documentation with examples for use cases. Moreover, there is a strong and growing community of Flutter Developers willing to exchange experiences and knowledge. If you are a beginner make sure to try DartPad to start immersing yourself in the world of Flutter.

Some advantages of Flutter

A single team of developers

With Flutter, you can have a single development team without needing to have experts in iOS, Android, or Web separately. In addition, the worry about synchronizing both computers and both codebases is gone. You can simply release functionality on both platforms at the same time.

For instance, in Somnio Software we are dedicated to training and professionalizing our developers in Flutter. From Junior to Senior developers, in Somnio they participate in Flutter projects from the beginning and continuously improve and stay up-to-date with the technology through training.

Faster time-to-market

The possibility of building products for different platforms simultaneously greatly reduces development times and consequently can get you to market faster. Additionally, Flutter offers a huge variety of libraries and the possibility of using widgets for almost anything and this also really speeds things up.

Lower development costs

Flutter costs half as much as other technologies since you don’t need to build the same thing several times and hire different development teams. That’s why the reason it costs less is almost the same as why it’s faster. This is a great advantage that makes the difference. It helps lower the economic barrier to entering the application market.

To Sum up

Considering the rapidly growing demand & popularity of Flutter, it’s safe to say that Flutter has a bright future ahead. It has forever changed the way apps are built and it has proven to be the best UI design framework available at this point in time. Without a doubt, it is a technology worth putting an eye on!

At Somnio Software it was love at first sight with Flutter. We had worked with several technologies before Flutter, but since we met it has definitely changed the way we develop apps. It was a before-and-after moment in our developers’ lives.

If you are thinking of learning more about this framework make sure to check some of its best practices to incorporate and more reasons in-depth about why you should build apps with Flutter.