Flutter, your next mobile tech stack
The Game is Evolving
What if I told you that there exists a technology that allows companies to build near native applications that can simultaneously deploy to not only iOS and Android, but also web, macOS, and Windows. You’d probably go “pshhh”, call me a liar, and click the little x in the top left and move on. That is, unless you were already familiar with Flutter, the powerful, open-source framework that is taking the development world by storm.
An ancient dilemma
For many years startup founders looking to build a mobile app faced an incredibly difficult choice when first starting out. Which platform were they going to build their product on? This seemingly simple question hides an incredibly deep trench of worrisome decisions.
If you wanted to build a mobile app you had basically two choices, prior to Flutter. Go fully native and face the burden of having to manage two separate code bases, deployment cycles, bugs. This essentially doubled the work, which usually resulted in a “Now available on iOS! Android coming soon” message on their website. Their only other solution was React Native, which had notoriously poor performance compared to native and was not efficient for complex interfaces and animations.
To add to all these issues, developing only a mobile app in this day and age made it difficult to reach users as a lot of users didn’t want to download yet another app, and would look for a web based solution instead. Meaning that founders would often have to develop for not one but three individual platforms to have full coverage!
Enter the Golden Child
In May 2017, Google released Flutter, a brand new framework that promised to whisk all these problems of the past away by allowing products to be deployed to iOS, Android, and web, all from one codebase. A “universal UI” so to speak.
Of course the world, myself included, were skeptical. Something that claimed to be that magical was bound to raise some red flags. But over time Flutter has proved to be a dominant force in the space of cross-platform frameworks. In 2022, it overtook React Native to become the most popular cross-platform framework in the world.
Flutter offers several technical advantages over its competitors. One of the main advantages is its fast development cycle, which allows for quicker iteration and prototyping. This is achieved through features such as “hot reload,” which allows developers to see code changes in real-time without having to manually rebuild the app. Additionally, Flutter’s built-in widgets and customizable design elements allow for a more consistent and expressive user interface. Flutter also uses the Dart programming language, which is easy to learn and has a simple, clean syntax. Furthermore, thanks to the way it compiles to machine code, it is able to achieve near native performance and buttery smooth animations.
Cost Savings and Reach
Using Flutter can also help startups and small businesses save money in the long run. Since Flutter is an open-source system, there are no licensing or subscription fees required. This means that businesses can create applications without having to pay for expensive software licenses. Additionally, the development time for Flutter applications is typically much faster than for other application frameworks, which can help businesses save on labor costs.
Additionally, thanks to Flutter’s cross-deployment capabilities all of a sudden startups are able to reach everyone all at once, leading to very powerful product experiences. No longer being limited in selection, with high quality performance across all three platforms, Flutter, in my humble opinion, has drastically shifted the landscape for new products.
My Experience
I felt that it wouldn’t be right to leave out the reasons why you should be listening to me. I’ve been using Flutter since 2019. When I founded my last company, Gathr (www.magical.app), we decided to take a gamble and pick Flutter over React Native, which was dominant at the time.
I’d like to happily report that the gamble paid off and I would say was one of the single best decisions we made in the product’s lifetime. We were able to use Flutter to simultaneously deploy that application to thousands of users, have an entire web experience, integrate complex machine learning recommender systems right alongside buttery smooth animations. It was truly glorious.
Since Gathr, I along with my team at PressW have been working startup founders and companies to produce Flutter applications for their businesses. We’ve received glowing feedback from the clients we work with because of how quickly their product was able to be developed, how high quality they look and feel, and how efficiently they were able to reach their audience. Many founders come to us asking for a web app because they believe it’s not possible to build a mobile app due to cost of development. Once we introduce them to Flutter, show them how we can get it not only on web, but also mobile, their entire company trajectory changes.
Conclusion
Flutter is quickly becoming the go-to solution for startups who want to build a product that reaches their target audience quickly and efficiently, while also saving on time and cost. In the past, there have been many limitations to developing a mobile app, but with Flutter, founders can now rest easy knowing that their product can be deployed to multiple platforms all from one codebase. It is no wonder why Flutter has become such a popular choice among startup founders, and why it will continue to dominate the development space in the years to come.
If you or anyone you know are interested in building a new product and are considering different tech stacks please feel free to reach out at tarun@pressw.co. Happy to give advice and see if Flutter is a good fit for your use case!
