Why is Flutter the future?

Flutter is simply a tool for developers that allows them to create apps for multiple platforms with one codebase. It was launched in 2017 and since then it has made a lot of fans and probably even more progress. At this moment you can use Flutter to develop apps for iOS, Android, Web, Windows, macOS and Linux. It became a very powerful and popular tool, and it’s gaining new followers every day. Why?

It’s free and relatively easy

Flutter is completely free. There are A LOT of free tutorials too. It’s relatively easy to learn and use. Those things make it a very good solution for most people. On Play Store alone there are over 90 000 apps built in Flutter and it’s growing pretty fast. 

With excellent Flutter documentation and rapidly expanding community support, Flutter is successful in creating a smooth learning curve. If a developer finally migrates from a native language to Flutter, they will most likely love it with all their heart and won’t be willing to go back.

It’s time – and cost – efficient

Flutter allows developers to write apps that look and work the same on each platform with one codebase. This is the reason why Flutter is very effective and is often a choice of multiple software houses. Clients will also love it since it’s cheap and fast to develop their apps. The difference between Flutter and native apps is basically indistinguishable! 

The release process is no different – fast and easy. Even if we only wanted an app for one platform, Flutter development process is still much faster and cheaper! As a developer, you will be glad to hear that integrating additional libraries is super easy. And don’t worry about OS updates, Flutter works the same on each and every version of your phone OS. Because of that, it is much easier to maintain and sustain.

We get long – lasting quality support

Considering the fact that Flutter is owned by Google and it’s constantly growing, we can predict that they will keep taking care of it. This means long-term and professional support for developers. As a developer, I can already tell that with each update there are plenty of new features and improvements. 

We can count on the community

Flutter is becoming more and more popular each day. Since I started my journey with this development tool, I noticed how its Stack Overflow community grew. We all know that this is something very important for every developer because we simply don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Flutter became popular enough to be respected because of the many useful solutions it offers both by developers and clients like Codemagic. 

For people who want to learn Flutter, besides tons of videos on YouTube, there are many events where qualified developers teach others. One of the most popular events is Flutter Global Summit. These are the reasons why so many developers are needed and why so many people want to become Flutter developers themselves. 

Flutter vs Natives

The Flutter app development cost ranges according to the project’s defined scope of work: 

• A simple app: $15,000 – $39,999
  Example: Enray. Innovative map of electrical chargers, built based on communication between OCPP and Flutter

• A middle-complexity app: $40,000 – $99,999
  Example: StorySurf. Story-based social media app made in Flutter

• A high-complexity app: $100,000+
  Example: Corner. A live streaming e-commerce app made in Flutter

Let’s now check out the cost of natives:
iPhone App and Android App: $20,000-$300,000 for each OS

Where does this difference come from? The first thing is testing. Testers of native apps need to check all versions of the OS for compatibility. In Flutter, it’s enough if they check only one, because we know for sure it will behave the same way on all versions of the OS. 

Another thing is development. Same story here. Developers don’t need to worry about adjusting things on different OS versions. It’s also 2x faster since one code (if you want your app to look exactly the same on different platforms) allows you to build apps for both Android and iOS. Project management is also naturally simpler. The cost of creating the native app is on average 1.8x higher than the Flutter app.

Building a simple app in the native language takes at least 2-3 months and with Flutter you can get MVP for both platforms even within the first few weeks! Maintenance is also around 2x cheaper. All those things are probably the reason why big companies like BMW, Groupon, Alibaba, eBay, iRobot, Toyota and a lot of banks are migrating their apps to Flutter.

Flutter vs other cross-platform tools

As you can see on the chart above, Flutter has already outgrown React Native in terms of the new Stack Overflow threads. You may not feel like this is significant but this platform is a place where developers do most of their job. Since the community is so engaged, it means developers will find solutions much quicker. Trust me. Flutter is probably the most common cross-platform mobile framework at this moment. It’s responsible for 42% of cross-platform code that was written in 2021!

Conclusion

Flutter is not perfect but it has more than enough pros to be considered the best tool available for app development both for developers and clients. We expect it to grow even more in the nearest future. That’s why we decided to invest our time and effort to become experts in this field, and we love it. We want to provide the best and most efficient solutions possible. That’s why we strongly recommend choosing Flutter for your app development, no matter if you need a single-platform or a cross-platform solution. Tempted to create an app in the native language? Well, take a closer look at Flutter. What other arguments do you need to see it’s a perfect solution for MVP and big products? Don’t waste your money and time if you don’t have to.