Flutter v/s Kotlin In 2021: Which Is Better For Cross-Platform App Development?

Cross-Platform App development revolves around building a single application that can operate on multiple operating systems such as IoS, Android, Linux, Solaris, Windows etc. Thus, it saves the mechanization, workforce, time, and resources to build a different app variant for each platform. It also covers a larger market, supports cloud integration, and takes less time to develop a cross-platform application than coming up with two natively based applications.

Owing to the demand of the customer base, especially from the mobile users across the globe, which have been approximated around 3.8 billion, ballooning the market from $97.7 billion in 2014 to a startling $365 billion in 2018, it has been predicted to grow furthermore to a whopping $935 billion in the year 2023. Hence, companies are in the process of broadening their functions. Evolving services that are deployable on multiple platforms using a single codebase since cultivating the same app using the respective native technologies for the same platform is both time and cost exhaustive. Imagine building the same app, hiring two different or more different development teams and working on all those variants for various operating systems simultaneously. Sounds unnecessarily complicated, right?

Therefore, now companies are critically focusing on two primarily dominant operating systems: Andriod with 71.93% market share and iOS capturing 27.47% of the market share. Thus this makes the cross-platform application development, need of the hour. There is numerous software to develop such applications as Codename One, Kivy, QT, Ionic, Native Script, React Native, Flutter and Kotlin. The latter being the most predominant ones.

In addition to that, with the upsurge in demand for such cross-platform performing apps, many app developers, specifically mobile app developers in Dubai and across UAE, are trying to develop novel ideas and technologies to deliver their clients an ideal efficiently performing and a customized application. However, they often find themselves on a prominent turf. Is Flutter or Kotlin better for Cross-Platform App Development?

Now while Flutter has grown more popular, despite it being comparatively new in the market, Kotlin, on the other hand, is highly preferred for developing Andriod apps. First, however, we will delve deeper and try to possibly deduce the attributes of both the app developers and the features provided by both of them that can be leveraged by businesses in Dubai optimally for developing their cross-platform applications.

Features of Flutter: 

A Google app framework providing an open-source UI software, Flutter provides a software development kit to construct applications across various platforms. The toolkit is expansive and comprises a framework, widgets and Flutter API to assemble attractive and fast applications.

Powered by Google’s Dart programming language, it enables users to build a native-like mobile app with a single codebase. Therefore one can build two different apps for Android and iOS, applying a single programming language. Furthermore, asynchronous programming with Flutter Future Class provides advanced application performance and responsiveness and constructs macOS. At present, it is being beta tested for building web apps.

Thanks to its modern framework, it is easy to use compared to other Swift, React Native or Java platforms. Since both Flutter and Dart are open source, you can easily access the original code, details and formalities for free. Furthermore, it permits you to change your code and watch the change in real-time, thanks to its functioning on Hot Reload. Is that not cool? You can make changes in the back-end and watch the front-end change instantly, so you don’t have to reload the entire app frequently, saving your valuable development time and time for compilation.

Ever since application performance has become a crucial part of a good UX, Flutter is close to a native application, with more complex UI animation, because its framework supports building directly into the machine code, therefore eliminating probable bug occurrences, leading you to be able to able to build an iOS Flutter and Android Flutter applications using a single technology. As a result, flutter has built mobile applications such as Google Ads, Xianyu by Alibaba, SpaceX Go, BMW, eBay and many more.

Features of Kotlin:

It is an open-source, statically typed programming language crafted to interoperate with Java. Also, as a standalone language, it provides excellent features over Java and operates well with older languages. Furthermore, with its multiplatform capabilities, users can share code, logic and data across multiple platforms such as iOS, Android, Web etc.

It enables faster feature development since one coder adds model objects, business logic, unit tests, networking and other developer plugs. It calls for uniting your team to work on one cross-platform application for improvised communication, resulting, in better detection of bugs and clean coding, maintaining healthy functional consistency between the apps. In addition to that, Kotlin’s code is modular and testable. Kotlin has been the application developer for big names like Tinder, Pinterest, Netflix, Coursera, Evernote, Gradle, Airbnb, etc.

Flutter v/s Kotlin

Now, coming on a comparative analysis for both the cross-platform application builder, on a varied scale, the observations are such:

If there is a rigid bar of time, budget, yet there are many open-ended ideas, and the application development requires a high level of customization, fast operation, and the app with the bigger size is agreeable, then Flutter is a superior choice. However, suppose there is a brief amount of time. In that case, well-elucidated ideas and the application require in-depth compatibility with existing and older programs. In a lighter size, Kotlin is best suited for such a purpose.

Hence, it is evident that though both the dominant application development platforms have their share of pros and cons, lately Flutter has come in vogue because of ease of learning, fast development, packed with bigger support group abundant options of customization and alterations in coding. However, Kotlin is more compatible with other older languages such as Java, and the masses still prefer, because of the abundance of resources. Although it is of higher importance that, irrespective of what’s in vogue, the central idea to choose the right program for building cross-platform applications must always depend on your need because technology is ever-expanding, as long as you choose the coding language primarily based on your mechanization, human capital and time, you will be in tandem to achieving the desired result.