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Flutter and Kotlin: Which is the Best for Developing Cross-platform Application in 2020?
Which One is Best for Developing Cross-platform Application in 2020?
As the world is fighting against the COVID-19 rampant, a single ray of hope for businesses is by building a cross-platform application. This way, you can get in touch with your customers and bring a change.
Flutter or Kotlin? Which one is best for my cross-platform Mobile app development? If you are also indecisive to choose between these two, we are here to solve your confusion.
We have brought you a comparison between Kotlin and Flutter based on several factors so that you can choose the right one for your cross-platform application.
Before we set to begin the comparison, let us see what both these trending terminologies mean technically.
Flutter
Google introduced Flutter, an open-source Software Development Toolkit (SDK), in 2015 to develop mobile, web, and desktop applications from a single codebase. Flutter overcame the challenges that mobile and web app developers faced previously and became the ideal cross-platform app development framework.
Top brands like Google, Groupon, Square, Tencent, The New York Times, Alibaba, eBay, EMR, etc. are using Flutter. The reason behind Flutter being the most widely used cross-platform framework goes to its significant features.
Most of you know that Flutter is the ultimate solution for building cross-platform applications, and you can leverage countless benefits in record time, using Flutter. In the difficult times of the widespread contagion, outsource Flutter app Development and hire remote Flutter developers from us.
Kotlin
In 2011, JetBrains, a software development company, first found the Kotlin programming language for the Java Virtual Machine. Kotlin is a cross-platform programming language by using which developers can share data, code, and business logic across Android, iOS, JVM, macOS, Linux, and Web.
Though the concept of using Kotlin programming language for cross-platform apps is considerably new, some famous brand names like Chalk, Autodesk, Yandex, Touchlab, Icerock, Vmware, and more are already using it. To know more about this glorious SDK, read Why Kotlin is the smartest way for Android app development.
The factors of comparison we have covered are:
- Performance
- Popularity
- UI Experience
- Testing Support
- Integration
- Minimum supported Platform
Now let us go through each of these factors in detail, one-by-one.
Performance
One of the key advantages of using Flutter is that it offers the hot reload option. Through this functionality, developers can simultaneously modify the backend as well as view the changes in front-end. This feature makes it very easy to make a UI choice for the developers. Moreover, Flutter gives high animation speed that makes your application more wannabe.
However, Kotlin wins the performance battle between the two. The credit goes to the multiplatform code of Kotlin because it compiles explicitly in the same format as that of the target. This feature of Kotlin makes it earn the efficient performance of the apps.
Popularity
We compared both these cross-platform frameworks/languages on Google Trends and found that despite being pretty new, Flutter is gaining momentum quickly.
As you know, apart from popularity, you, as an entrepreneur, would be more interested in knowing the community size of Kotlin and Flutter. You would be amazed to know that Flutter leaves behind Kotlin on the GitHub community. Kotlin has 31.k stars and 3.8k forks on GitHub, whereas Flutter has been able to gather 90.4k stars and 12.1k forks in a limited time-span.
Hence, the winner of Kotlin Vs. Flutter, based on popularity, is Flutter.
UI Experience
Using Kotlin, UI designers can work on the app’s appearance, behavior, and performance, just the way they want. Kotlin does not put any conditions or instructions, and hence developers can use their native libraries and tools rather than building new ones.
On the other hand, Flutter is an SDK, which primarily enables UI development tools. It has various in-built widgets and dev environments, which are available for the designers to use. With Flutter development services, developers can build speedy mobile solutions with a custom look and feel.
Testing Support
Flutter comes with good value testing features to test widgets, app integration, and unit testing. Well-described documentation for the same is also available. The widget testing feature enables users to unit test the widgets. Flutter operates on Firebase, which is an efficient Backend-as-a-service.
Kotlin again wins the testing test! Developers use Kotlin for unit tests of Android applications.
Integration
Flutter integrates quickly and efficiently with both Android and iOS platforms, which makes Flutter a perfect choice for building a minimum viable product MVP.
Integration is not a problem with Flutter, but with Kotlin, users don’t need to integrate. Yes, that’s right! Kotlin provides a multiplatform which enables users to work within their native framework. Hence, there is no need for integration, and developers can use their native tools and libraries for their cross-platform apps.
Minimum Supported Platform
With Flutter, users can make use-cases for mobile applications (Android and iOS), and web apps. However, Flutter does not support television (tvOS), Android Auto, CarOS, or smartwatch OS.
However, with Kotlin, there is no constraint. Developers can use Kotlin for platforms beyond mobile, like television, smartwatch, etc.
The Table of Difference
To sum up, we put in front of you all the comparison points of Flutter Vs. Kotlin
Kotlin Vs. Flutter Verdict
Flutter and Kotlin are both unique in their manner and are reliable for building cross-platform and native apps. So now, it depends on your specific project requirements to choose between the two. If you have decided that Kotlin is the right for you, then hire Kotlin app developer from us to build outstanding android applications. And if Flutter stole your heart, then you can leverage our Flutter app development services. If you are still not sure between Kotlin and Flutter, then you get in touch with our expert and schedule a 30 minutes call.
