December 4th marks four years since the launch of Flutter 1.0 was announced at the Flutter live event, the first stable release of Flutter.

What is Flutter?

Flutter is a mobile application framework developed by Google. It was released in 2017 and is based on Dart programming language. Flutter makes use of native widgets and provides a smooth user experience. It's a cross-platform technology that works across Android, iOS, macOS, Linux, Windows, etc.

Flutter apps are written using the same codebase and run on any platform supported by the underlying operating system. Flutter apps have been designed to work well on both smartphones and tablets.

Flutter over the Years

Flutter’s release was announced in 2017 and there was an air of uncertainty regarding its future, considering the prevalence of other popular cross-platform frameworks.

However, within five years, Flutter has proved itself to be the leading toolkit, boasting over 1 million apps built around it.

Google launched Flutter’s first stable release on 4th December 2018 and released the first version Flutter 1.0, which would run on iOS and Android devices but had limited Web support, lack of third party integrations and huge file size. These problems paved the way for the release of Flutter 2.0 on March 4, 2021. 

Flutter 2.0 allowed developers to develop apps on Android, Desktop and Web with the same codebase. Besides, it introduced Web Support across all platforms, Desktop support, null safety and integration of Google Ads in your app. While these updates were praised and gave way to over 450,000 Flutter apps on the Play Store, there still remained a need for Flutter to evolve from a mobile centric to a multiplatform tool.

In May 2022, the release of Flutter 3.0 and Dart 2.17 was announced simultaneously.

These updates included Desktop Support for macOS and Linux, making Flutter available across six platforms:

• iOS

• Android

• Windows

• macOS

• Linux

• Web

Is Flutter growing in popularity?

More than 2 million app developers have been utilizing Flutter’s Software Development Kit since 2018 for developing not only consumer apps but also enterprise applications.

According to a survey by Statista, in 2020, 30% of developers chose Flutter for App development. Whereas in 2021, this number grew to 39% and is expected to grow further over the coming years.

Why has Flutter grown tremendously over the past 4 years?

Flutter was intended to serve as a mobile app development framework but since the past few years, it has transcended that label and made significant inroads in desktop and web app development as well.

So what factors account for Flutter’s increasing popularity among developers?

Cross-Platform Advantage

Flutter enables cross-platform app development. It gives developers an easy way to build and deploy visually appealing, natively-compiled mobile (both Android and iOS), web, and desktop using the same codebase.

Flutter allows your app development teams to work in cohesion. When building apps natively, you would need separate teams working on Android and iOS.

However, with Flutter, you do not need segregated teams for both platforms as developers can build apps using the codebase. This allows you to organize your teams around app features instead of platforms.

Growing Support for Flutter Web

There are a number of reasons why Flutter is a good choice for web development. Flutter apps are “much faster” than traditional web apps. This is due to the use of the LOD rendering and the ease of use of the platform.

Flutter also has a “host of features that web developers are accustomed to, such as hot reloading, widgets, and routing.”

This makes it easy to transition between developing Flutter apps and traditional web apps. Flutter also has “a rich platform library” which means that it is possible to create apps that look and feel like traditional apps.

Faster Development Speed

A hot reload is a great functionality present in a flutter. It is the easiest and the fastest function that helps you apply changes, fix bugs, create UIs, and add features. It takes approximately one second to perform its functionality. In hot reload it does not destroy the preserved state.

Hot reloading’ (faster development) means that developers can make changes to the code on the go and it will take only milliseconds for the changes to display. This makes bug resolution and experimentation easier.

Optimal User Experience and Rich UI libraries

Flutter makes developing visual interfaces very convenient as compared to mainstream development platforms like Native, iOS or Android. This allows you to focus on what matters most - creating an awesome app!

Flutter has its own set of custom widgets, rendered and managed by the framework’s graphics engine. This makes it easier for the user to customize and create their own widgets.

Flutter is ideal for creating visually appealing mobile app interfaces and a great user experience. Creating UIs from the most basic to more complex interfaces with multiple components is almost effortless with Flutter.