Merits and Demerits of Flutter Application Development for Enterprises

Flutter is making noise that’s loud enough to be heard by start-ups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises. One of the biggest reasons for this noise is the increasing usability of this Google-powered platform in the creation of avant-garde cross-platform applications.

Lately, Flutter has garnered attention for being the empowering UI software development platform for Chromebooks, the series of devices that are powered by Google’s ChromeOS.

Last but not least, Flutter is Google’s brainchild which means that one simply cannot overlook the impact it will have in the development sector. Android serves as the best example here. Apple’s iOS ruled the smartphone market (and still does), but Android now stands as the top one.

But any technology comes with its own powers and vulnerabilities and to make the most out of any technology, enterprises should know about the important things. So here, we give you a quick overview of the merits and demerits of Flutter app development services for enterprises.

Flutter — A Quick Abridgment

The intro part can’t be skipped. So we better go through it quickly. Flutter’s website offers a simplified definition. It describes Flutter as Google’s fast, flexible and productive open-source mobile SDK that is used for the creation of natively compiled cross-platform apps yielded with a single codebase.

Flutter mainly works with widgets that act as building blocks of Flutter apps. Technically, widgets are structural elements that come with a bunch of functionalities meant specifically for web design.

The good thing is that developers can create new widgets from the existing ones, a process which is known as composition. Flutter basically works with two main types of widgets — stateless and stateful.

Before we move on to its pros and cons, let’s have a look at its main features.

• Cross-platform support for iOS, macOS, Android, Windows, Google Fuchsia, Linux, and the web as well
• IDE support for Emacs, Android Studio, IntelliJ Idea, and Visual Studio Code
• A complete suite of debugging tools which also include memory and network profilers along with widget and layout inspectors
• Tools for automated testing
• More than 20000 packages including plug-ins, state management libraries and integrations for custom User Interface components
• BMW, Toyota, Alibaba Group and Google Pay are some of the big names that use Flutter as one of their building technologies.

The Merits of Flutter App Development

Leads to Quick Development

Flutter has cross-platform and cross-device compatibility which means that a single codebase can be used to deploy apps across multiple devices and multiple platforms. This actually saves a lot of time for both developers and stakeholders.

Additionally, Flutter is built with the concept of adaptive design. So developers can create highly responsive and adaptive web apps without having to maintain long lines of code.

High Degree of Customization

Every enterprise wishes for apps that are built with precision and that come from customization. This is another USP of Flutter. Since the platform maintains its own widgets rather than using the ones supplied by the concerned operating system, developers have more control over the widgets.

This also offers a high degree of customization and makes for the development of apps that have flexible, beautiful, and extremely expressive user interfaces.

Usage Flexibility

We know that Flutter has compatibility with different devices and operating systems, but another great thing about Google’s mobile SDK is its usage flexibility (better understood as multi-platform capability).

It means that with Flutter, enterprises can aim to have apps built for mobile, desktops, and the web. So the app meant to appear as a full-fledged mobile application will also work swiftly with a dot com or dot org extension.

This usage flexibility is a boon for enterprises as it helps them save a lot of money as they don’t need to spend extra bucks for the development of a separate website.

Better Iteration with Hot Reload

Changes are an integral part of app development. But what makes it difficult is the entire procedure to make the changes, update the source code, and then view the results. But Flutter makes this process easy with its ‘Hot Reload’ feature.

This feature allows developers to freely experiment with UIs by adding new features or fixing issues. Developers can see the changes almost instantly.

Enterprises can leverage by making changes at the initial design and get a prototype built with as many changes as they want.

Get Google’s Empowerment

Companies like Microsoft and Google have become synonymous with empowerment. But the best part about Google is that most of its technologies are open-source, which means more output with less investment.

Flutter is a growing technology and since it belongs to Google, enterprises can rest assured that with time, this one is going to become more powerful and potent. So scalability is on the cards.

Demerits

The pros of any technology are accompanied by a couple of cons too. So let’s have a look at the disadvantages of using Flutter for app development.

• Although a robust platform, Flutter is still in its nascent stage. So compared to other long-established frameworks, it might be difficult for enterprises to find veterans of this framework.
• When compared to other platforms like React Native, Flutter seems limited in its resources too. For instance, React Native has frameworks that are based on it besides having its own plug-ins and packages. But Flutter is yet to reach that level.
• A couple of Flutter’s disadvantages come from the programming language it is built with, that is, Dart. One is its small community. Though the number is growing, it still has a long road ahead of it to come to that stage.

Take Away

Whether it’s an entrepreneur, an enterprise, or a business in making when it comes to investments, one must weigh the good, the bad, and the ugly. For Flutter app development services, its pros seem to overshadow the cons.

However, talking about it in theory and implementing it in practicality are different things. So the best thing here is to seek expert advice, and if you have already made up your mind to go for it (a good decision anyways), then better seek out a reliable development partner.