In the modern era, individuals use chat applications to connect with team members, close ones, family, and friends via their mobile phones. Messaging apps have become a crucial medium of communication these days. There are about six billion smartphone users globally. Hence, the mobile app market is progressively competitive. And this is where many founders and developers put their efforts lately.
It is obvious that application developers are always looking for simpler, quicker, and cheapest methods to build their chat applications. Effective development tools are essential in the application-building process. From programming languages to software development kits (SDK), the tools a coder utilizes define how rapidly they can launch a product in the marketplace. Flutter is a booming framework for developing cross-platform applications and gaining popularity worldwide. The following image explains the acceptance of the Flutter application development framework:
If you are thinking to develop your next mobile application using Flutter and want to learn more about this mobile app development framework, continue reading to find out everything you should know.
Introduction to Flutter
Flutter is a chat application SDK and UI cross-platform framework announced by Google in 2017. This framework allows flutter developer to create Android and iOS applications with a single codebase. The flutter comprises graphics and animation libraries that make creating UI stress-free. Flutter uses Dart i.e. a reactive programming language that assists in developing high-performance, scalable applications with an eye-catching user interface. According to a survey, Flutter has exceeded Reactive native and become the preferable mobile application development framework. Let’s understand this with an image:
Some top Features that Flutter Offers
- Dart programming language — Flutter make use of Dart which is an easy-to-learn programming language and permits flutter developers to build top-quality applications.
- Expressive and Interactive UI — This platform’s elements are created using the same ethics as Google’s material design procedures, giving users a flexible way to develop attractive applications.
- Native performance — Flutter applications are compiled into innate code, giving you the best predictable performance on both Android and iOS devices.
- Hot reload — This feature let the coder quickly and easily makes updates to the application without restarting it.
How does Flutter work?
Flutter is a coated structure including the framework, the engine, and platform-precise embedders. This SDK utilizes Google’s Dart programming language to create chat applications. The Flutter engine is inscribed in C/C++ and Skia library is the spine of this framework’s graphics competencies.
Flutter Layer Structure
Dart is the basis for many of Flutter’s performance benefits. It supports ahead-of-time (AOT) as well as just-in-time (JIT) compilation. AOT compiles code into lower-level innate code, which creates applications that run faster and have good performance. JIT enables the hot reload feature of this framework which diminishes development time. Dart also complies straight with native ARM or Intel x64 code, minimizing performance differences amid Flutter apps, and innate applications that depend on in-between code elucidations at runtime.
Advantages of Flutter
- It is fast — The framework utilizes Dart compiled into innate code. This means JavaScript Bridge is not needed. Resultantly, using Flutter developers can create applications that are fast and responsive.
- Rich set of widgets — Widgets are the building blocks of this mobile application development framework. This feature makes it easy to make striking and custom user interfaces.
- Easy debugging — Flutter uses Dart programming language that has great tools for debugging such as Dart Analyzer and DevTools Suite. These tools make it easy to discover and fix errors in the Flutter application.
- Automated testing — This framework has its set of tools for app testing and also Dart supports automated testing. It is easy to create unit, integration, and widget tests for mobile apps, so the coder can continually optimize and enhance the app quality.
- It creates cross-platform apps — The similar code can be utilized to create chat apps for both Android and iOS devices from a particular codebase instead of swapping between diverse platforms. This can save a lot of time as well as effort when building mobile applications.
- Diverse screen adaptability — The mobile apps developed using Flutter can run on numerous screen sizes and aspect ratios. This makes it easy to develop an application that works well on phones and tablets.
Disadvantages of Flutter
• Lack of third-party libraries.
• Tools available in Flutter are not as good as other platforms.
• Dart is not an extensively used programming language.
• It creates large applications which are not suitable for platforms with limited storage space.
Why Do Businesses Choose Flutter?
Here are some reasons why Tech founders pick Flutter for mobile application development:
- Endow better UI experience — The framework provides a better user interface. Being a businessperson, you want to launch your application quickly to get the marketing benefits. The faster the app is launched, the sooner it will make into the marketplace. Furthermore, your early customers help you comprehend their experiences, from which you can get to know their prospects. The latest release of Flutter has extended the reusable modules to a great extent.
- Reusability of code — Flutter lets coders utilize the same code base for diverse platforms in application development. This feature makes it easier to resolve bugs and helps in fast development. Developers can reuse 90% of the code and this enhances an application’s scalability and diminishes the Flutter app preservation cost.
- Free and open source — Flutter is a free and open-source platform that permits developers to use incalculable third-party libraries and packages for diverse features such as videos, chat, ads, etc.
- Low application building cost: The resource and time allocation for creating an application using Flutter is lesser. Therefore, the development cost would be low spontaneously.
- Community support: As Flutter is an open-source framework, so, it has several active community users about 20.8k. Hence, if you go with this framework for app development, you can get help and guidance from the active users of Flutter.
These are a few reasons why you should elect Flutter for cross-platform and what makes flutter an optimal choice for building MVP.
Different Applications built using Flutter Framework
Let’s take a look at the most exciting developments that have used the Flutter framework:
• Google Ads
• Reflectly
• Groupon
• Pairing
• Alibaba Xianyu App
• Realtor.com
• KlasterMe
• Take Your Seat
• Birch Finance etc.
Final Words
Flutter is gaining popularity with time. Many businesses realize it as a way to reduce costs and save time while developing more user-friendly applications. Hope this blog post has cleared your doubt about the Flutter framework. You can hire a flutter app Development Company if you want to make your next chat application more user-friendly and responsive.
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Are Tech Founders Ready to Build a Chat App In Flutter? was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.