The Unavoidable Pros And Cons Of Flutter Technology

Creative writing is one thing, but creative coding is something every website developer looks forward to. When you are able to breathe life into the online existence of a website, you would be considered a pro.

In this article, we will discuss one of the best coding scenarios: Flutter!

Would you like to learn about the pros and cons of Flutter?

Let’s begin!

What Is Flutter?

Google introduced Flutter back in 2018 (just a few years ago) at its Flutter event.

Various websites, apps, and online stores have been created with Flutter, which is a promising and innovative technology.

Flutter is neither a library nor a framework, but a Google SDK (software development kit).

What Google Says!

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

Google, flutter.dev

Furthermore, it will let you create a native mobile application with a single codebase, allowing you to use one programming language and one codebase to create two applications (for Android and iOS).

The reason why Flutter crafts beautiful websites is that it comes with a versatile and dynamic UI kit.

Continue reading to know more about the pros and cons of Flutter!

What Does Flutter Do?

As per Flutter reviews, the Flutter technology features ‘Dart’, an object-oriented programming language, and is concise, simple, and intuitive, which means that you can create more with less code. It was originally developed as an alternative to Javascript.

Aside from that, the Flutter UI kit contains technology stacks and various widgets so that different user interfaces can be created by combining all the required widgets.

Additionally, a developer can create custom widgets to consolidate them with existing widgets.

Flutter is the only mobile SDK that offers a reactive look without requiring Javascript.

Specifically, there’s a flutter engine (written in C++) that supports the applications. Additionally, it is responsible for delivering efficient and fast products and managing APIs, graphics, and plugins.

Do you Know?

“Flutter is not only a competitor to React Native, which is what people usually compare it to, but also to Qt because of licensing. Companies like Sony are developing the next generation of embedded hardware UIs with this technology. ”

Peter, Fullstack Developer

We’ll now look at the interesting pros and cons of Flutter technology.

Why Makes Flutter So Good?

How does Flutter help you? There are many reasons. The ability to manage a variety of widgets, APIs, and technologies must be trusted. In this section, we have gathered some incredible pros and cons of Flutter. Let’s take a look:

1- An Open Source Framework

Flutter is a relatively new technology, an open-source framework that enables you to create smooth and relatively interactive applications.

In short, it allows you to play freely, making it a favorite SDK for developers. In addition, it makes contributions and helps flutter communities much easier.

2- Same Business Modules and User Interface

As part of our Flutter reviews, we learn that when Flutter shares business logic and UI between Apple and Android devices, developers have a seamless experience regardless of the operating system.

This means you can use the same coding for two different apps, which is awesome.

3- Reduced Code Development Time

Flutter allows you to write a code once and then use it in two different applications. As a result, you can program quickly.

How come? Well, like I mentioned before, it requires a single programming language and codebase, which makes the process of developing apps for iOS and Android easier.

4- Compatible With Different Screens

We should mention this benefit when we discuss the pros and cons of Flutter. Flutter runs on multiple platforms. This makes deployment on various platforms much easier.

Different screen sizes, for instance, have taken the market by storm. Unlike other frameworks which may require more work to get live on different screens, Flutter has a single code base for all screens.

Apps developed in Flutter do wonders for any screen they are deployed to. It goes far beyond mobile apps.

5- Hot Reload To Speed-Up Development

Flutter’s impactful tool aids developers to increase their velocity by allowing them to make changes to existing codes and seeing the results in real-time.

By using this feature, you don’t need to restart the whole app to see the changes. New and old codes can be edited simultaneously.

Now, you can enjoy fast iterations without long delays.

6- Less Market Launch Time

Flutter has a single codebase, which means less coding and seamless integration. Therefore, it brings the apps to the front as early as possible. Developers have to make fewer efforts, but products or apps reach market sooner.

Accordingly, it takes less time to launch the app on the market than apps built-in other frameworks or languages. During the process of gathering all the pros and cons of Flutter, this is one of the primary things to note.

7- In-Budget App Development

When we create anything, the first thing that comes to mind is how much will it cost?

While going through different Flutter reviews, we found that it is far less expensive than other frameworks or SDKs. Thus, lower costs mean greater motivation.

8- Maximum Productivity & Quick Compilation

In general, developers compile Ahead-Of-Time (AOT), which slows down development, or Just-In-Time (JIT), which makes it a bit faster; however, it affects the app’s startup speed.

Because of this, Flutter uses both types of compilations, JIT during development and AOT during app release.

Flutter developers are able to form apps much faster than their counterparts because along with it, productivity is increased in the best way possible.

9- Ideal For Startup MVPs

One of the benefits of having the app built using Flutter is that it is ideal for startups who want to showcase their MVP (Mini viable product) to investors and customers as soon as possible.

Furthermore, flutter comes with quite good documentation, which means easy-to-understand user cases and examples that make understanding the product remarkably simple.

Know Why Javascript Is Best For MVPs

10- Flutter Has A Good Community

Flutter is undeniably a powerful UI toolkit with a robust community. Flutter reviews by different developers state that its popularity is due to its ability to produce apps in less time and with less coding.

Since then, the number of development groups has increased.

11- Easy App Maintenance

Flutter has blown away the worries related to app maintenance with its technology stack. Since less coding has to be written down, it takes less time and effort to check, modify, or improve the codes.

What Are The Drawbacks Of Flutter?

You will learn about Flutter’s negatives while examining its pros and cons below:

1- Flutter is Relatively New

Flutter was introduced by Google in 2018, which makes it relatively new compared to other frameworks.

As a result, some developers don’t trust this technology and are unsure about the coding strategies being used.

2- Flutter Desktop Is In Alpha

For desktop apps that support Windows and Linux, you may need to use Flutter’s reduced version alpha functionality to deploy programming in the target platform.

3- 2D Apps Only

The topic revolves around the pros and cons of Flutter technology, but one major drawback is the dependency on the Skia 2D graphics engine for rendering user interfaces and inability to support 3D via OpenGL ES.

Another thing that fans the flames is that this feature is in plan and in implementation for a longer period of time.

Related: How To Improve UI/UX Design?

4- Skills Required

According to Flutter reviews, lots of skilled developers are needed for Flutter development (which is a relative newcomer in the web development world).

Dart is a new language as well. Java and C are quite old and trusted frameworks, which is why many companies are unsure whether to use flutter technology or another.

5- It Supports Large File Size

Despite having one codebase running at the backend, we may have to add the disadvantage of the oversized apps it can create to the list of both pros and cons of Flutter.

You heard it right. Flutter apps are built in MBs, while Java apps are in KBs, which many people do not consider.

6- Lack Of Third-Party Libraries

Flutter is known as a UI kit, which means it uses a variety of widgets that make it less dependent on third-party libraries that automate the software development cycle.

However, according to our Flutter reviews, Flutter has 15k+ libraries, which is significantly fewer than React Native, the real rival. Nevertheless, it has enough libraries.

7- Unpopularity Of Dart

We may have introduced you to the Dart programming language for the first time.

Most developers, however, find it convenient to rely on Java or C++ Frameworks since they already know about them. Dart, however, is not difficult to learn. Many developers are learning Dart and implementing it into their code.

Because of its unpopularity and lack of use in technological frameworks, we included it in the pros and cons of Flutter.

Final Words

So, now we have a list of pros and cons of Flutter, and what a rollercoaster ride it was to read through Flutter’s overview and their corresponding advantages and disadvantages.