What Is Flutter?

Flutter is a cross-platform mobile application development framework that lets you build high performance native apps for iOS, Android and Web in a single codebase. As a cross-platform mobile application development framework, Flutter much like React Native, as Flutter follows reactive and declarative style of programming. Unlike React Native, Flutter apps are entirely written in Dart programming language that avoids performance problems caused by the need for a JavaScript bridge.

Flutter Features

Here are some essential features of Flutter are listed below:

Open-Source:- Both Flutter and Dart are open-source and free to use mobile application development framework that lets you build high performance native apps for iOS, Android. It provides extensive documentation and community support to help out with any issues you may encounter.

Cross-platform development:- Flutter supports cross-platform application development framework that lets you build apps for iOS, Android and Web in a single codebase which makes it easy to write, maintain, and run applications on different platforms. This saves lot time, effort, and money.

Single Codebase :- This is one of the most appealing feature of Flutter which lets you write a cross-platform mobile application in a single codebase for both Android and iOS.

Hot Reloading :- One of the biggest frustrations as mobile application developer you have probably faced is constant recompiling of project. Whenever you make a small change you need to recompile the project completely to check your changes in effect. Flutter fixed this problem by taking the advantage of Hot Reload feature that allows developers to view changes instantaneously .

Accessible Native Features:- Flutter offers the support for native code, third-party integration, and platform APIs. Thus, we can easily access the SDKs on both platforms.

Minimal code:- Flutter app is developed by Dart programming language, which uses JIT and AOT compilation to improve the overall start-up time, functioning and accelerates the performance. JIT enhances the development system and refreshes the UI without putting extra effort into building a new one.

Widgets:- The Flutter framework offers widgets, which are capable of developing customizable specific designs. Most importantly, Flutter has two sets of widgets: Material Design and Cupertino widgets that help to provide a glitch-free experience on all platforms.

Benefits of Flutter

High productivity:- Since Flutter is cross-platform, you can use the same code base for your iOS and Android app. This can definitely save you both time and resources.

Great performance:- Dart compiles into native code and there is no need to access OEM widgets as Flutter has its own.This results in fast app startup times and less performance issues.

Fast development:- Taking the advantage of Hot Reload feature developers view changes made in the code on emulators, simulators and hardware instantaneously. This makes application development and debugging much faster as there is no need to restart app to view changes.

Simple :- Flutter is so easy to learn that no prior programming knowledge is required. “Experience with object-oriented languages is definitely helpful, but even non-programmers have made Flutter apps!”.

Compatibility:- Since widgets are part of the app and not the platform, you’ll likely experience less or no compatibility issues on different OS versions.

Free:- Both Flutter and Dart are open-source and free to use.

Support:- Extensive documentation and community support to help out with any issues you may encounter.