Benefits of Hybrid Mobile App Development with Flutter

Developing native applications for the specific operating system that the app will be used was traditionally considered the way to go. But, for instance, if you were to build an app, you’d have to think in twos almost from the get-go. Two teams, two servers, two databases, two of everything, because the native app can only ever work on the specific OS it was built for.

With the advent of hybrid mobile app development frameworks, more and more developers choose to build a hybrid mobile app. The advantages of developing a hybrid app that can work on any OS are multifold, and in this post, we’ll go over some of the most significant ones.
Flutter, as a hybrid app development framework, provides developers the ability to create an app that’ll work on iOS and Android alike. Developed by Google, Flutter uses Dart as its programming language. If you have some programming experience in languages like JavaScript, you won’t have any problems switching over to Dart. Flutter’s main advantage is in the so-called widgets. Essentially, widgets are assets that make

1. Cost

Let’s start with perhaps the most significant one. The cost of building a hybrid app is greatly reduced compared to the cost of building several native apps. You only need one set of developers to cover all OSs. In today’s market, developers are in high demand, and it can be quite difficult on top of being costly to gather one team of good developers, let alone multiple teams.
As Flutter is gaining prominence and popularity world-wide, there are ever-more Flutter developers on the market. Even if you can’t find a Flutter developer specifically, you can guide an existing JS developer through a Dart course who will very easily adopt Dart’s syntax, making him ready to go with Flutter. Flutter courses can be found online for not too much money at all, making Flutter the perfect money saver.

2. Quicker time to the market

Something very easily looked over when discussing hybrid apps is the time of development. Because hybrid frameworks use prebuilt and predefined assets, the developers don’t have to spend too much time developing their own assets. Things like buttons that are in compliance with the design standards of different OSs are readily available in Flutter.
Because you don’t have to wait for designers to design everything, and because everything you may need is readily available, one team of developers can very easily create a working app for both major mobile OSs virtually without any trouble at all. This results in your app entering the market as soon as possible, ultimately even further reducing costs.
As a hybrid app framework, Flutter offers widgets for everything, from buttons to animations, allowing you to adapt your app to both OSs very easily.

3. Native-like feel and performance

The Skia 2D graphics library allows the developers to create fast, responsive apps that work as fast as the native apps built for each OS specifically. By using Dart and compiling an application ahead-of-time, the developers ensure close-to-native operational speed. Server requests, file handling, and platform API do not affect application performance.
Today, most apps for business purposes don’t involve complex logic and don’t have to be completely optimized for the fastest possible operational speed. Flutter can be the right choice if you need a simple, stable, effective, and fast app with a native-like user experience and performance.

4. Open source framework

Flutter is an open-source product. As such, it lets developers use the available tools for free and manage problems more quickly than any proprietary software. Experienced developers also have enough freedom in programming as they can be more productive within agile practices. Flutter allows the team full autonomy while also ensuring that everything works and looks perfectly.

5. Hot reload

This feature is easy to overlook, but it gives a huge advantage to the developers. Hot reload enables the developers to see the changes they have made on the app without having to restart the application fully. This saves the developers a lot of time and helps in resolving issues and errors. Also, it reduced the time and effort needed in testing the application before the release, as the developers themselves can pick up and solve most issues during the development process.

While we’re at the point of testing, Flutter allows a range of tools that be used for testing. These tools can encompass different levels so that you can create unit tests, tests on the widgets level, as well as the overall integration level. Everything is smoother and works perfectly.

6. Growing community

Last but not least, a big advantage of using Flutter is the community. Even though it is still relatively small, you must always keep in mind that Google stands behind it. As Flutter gains popularity, you can expect the community to grow even larger, while the framework itself will grow and develop to suit the needs of both Google and standalone developers.
Even now, on sites like StackOverflow, the community is lively and well. No matter what question you may have, the community will always help solve the issue.

Conclusion

Hybrid mobile app development frameworks are well on their way to replace the traditional, native app development architecture. When building Flutter, Google shied away from reusing JavaScript and chose to develop Dart instead. They succeeded in creating an even simpler, yet equally powerful programming language that everybody can use.

Flutter applications save money and time while offering very high-quality products for both iOS and Android. Also, smaller teams can achieve a lot when using Flutter. Businesses don’t have to have in-house designers to ensure compliance with design standards as all the assets stand readily available. All in all, Flutter allows the companies to thrive in the bipolar world by offering an umbrella-like solution that fixes all the issues at once.