In today’s digital age, having a mobile application that represents your business on the smartphone is not sufficient to succeed. A mobile app is only one part of your business reaching out to its targeted audience. To strengthen your audience reach, you should also invest in web development.
However, to develop apps for both web and mobile platforms you need to be ready to spend a lot since they each share two different code bases. This is what makes a lot of small and midsize businesses uneasy.
This is where the Flutter framework from Google shines.
The Flutter framework gives businesses the ability to reach more customers on the browser by creating mobile-like experiences in the form of web applications that share a similar codebase.
If you are also thinking of making use of the Flutter framework for your next web development project, then this blog is meant for you. Here you will get access to all the essentials required to develop your successful flutter web app.
So, let’s get going.
Table of Contents
What is Flutter?
What is flutter? Essentially, it is Google’s free and open-source framework that facilitates the developers to create native-like applications for mobile, desktop, and web from a single codebase.
Dart, a simple object-oriented programming language, is used to power up the flutter web app or mobile apps. Along with Dart, flutter also makes use of the material design and native widgets to provide developers with an exceptional UI that feels native to the platform.
Furthermore, to date flutter is the only framework with the mobile SDK (software development kit). Using the mobile SDK, developers can create responsive styles that are compatible across many platforms without relying on JavaScript. By eliminating the need for JavaScript, Flutter aims to reach a higher level of performance.
Having told you what Flutter is, shall we move on to the topic and discuss how it can be used to develop web apps.
Flutter For Web: How Does It Work?
If you would like a more complete understanding of how flutter for web development works, you should learn how flutter works for mobile apps.
Flutter renders the mobile applications for iOS and Android into native codes when you need to deploy them. Similar operations are performed by Flutter for the web. It renders your web projects in native code like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Flutter framework is the best option for single-page web apps, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create multi-page web apps. This is possible but you should be aware that when the flutter converter turns the web app into native code, there will only be one HTML file, namely index.html.
Why Should You Choose Flutter for Web Development Project?
When it comes to web app development, there are a variety of options available to choose from, so why should you opt only for Flutter?
Learn what benefits Google’s open-source framework flutter can deliver to your web development project.
1. Mobile and Web Development Both Using the Similar Codebase
Flutter is a great choice if you want to create an app that works on mobile and web simultaneously. With flutter, you can create both mobile apps and web apps that will share a similar codebase.
The only thing developers need to take care of is building responsive user interfaces. This is because both mobile apps and web apps serve on different screen sizes and resolutions. Similarly, Flutter is a driving force in such events by offering the platform check functionality to the developers, which allows them to see how their app behaves on different screen sizes, such as mobile and desktop screens.
2. Ability to Reuse Code From an Existing Mobile App
Flutter is also an excellent choice if your business has an existing mobile app and wants to build a web app to strengthen its web presence. By using the backend logic and user interface elements of the existing mobile app, you can speed up the development of the web application at the same time reducing the cost of web app development cost. As a result, you don’t have to implement every function of the mobile app in its web version.
3. Faster Development Speed With Flutter’s Hot Reload Feature
Developers benefit from the hot reload feature of Flutter, which facilitates the easy creation of UI and other features of the flutter web app. The hot reload feature works by injecting the source code file in the dart virtual machine (VM) and VM converts the source code in the native.
4. Extensive Collection of Customized Widgets
What makes the flutter even more powerful is its extensive collection of customized widgets. Furthermore, all its widgets are customizable, which allows developers to easily meet the design requirements of their web applications. Combining Google’s material design with flutter’s widgets allows the developers to provide their users with a more appealing, beautiful, and wonderful user experience.
Since flutter is an open-source project, developers can even publish their new and innovative widgets on the framework.
What are the Potential Drawbacks of Flutter?
There is nothing in the world that is perfect, and the same thing can be said for the flutter as well. Here we have outlined a few of the potential disadvantages of the flutter framework:
1. Performance Issues
The flutter framework was initially released in May 2017 by Google. This means flutter is still a young framework, so the performance is not so bad, but it’s not as good as Ionic, React Native and Xamarin.
2. Inability to Inspect Elements
Since all the elements of the flutter are present on the canvas, which means only one element has all your web app. So it is completely impossible for the developers to inspect the elements of the flutter web app.
3. Flutter is Not SEO Friendly
Regardless of the size of your business, SEO is vital for it to reach its targeted audience, no matter how big or small. Flutter web is not SEO-friendly which means flutter web app development can hinder your market campaign.
4. Routing is Still an Issue of Concern With Flutter
Routing is one of the most important features of a web application, and without this, the framework would not be able to function normally.
How Do You Decide When to Use Flutter for Web App Development Projects?
Flutter may be the right choice for your web development project, but many of us fail to understand when we should use it. For them to get a better understanding of the usability of the flutter framework, we have mentioned a few examples where using the framework has proven to be the right choice and yield optimal results.
- A time when you already have a mobile application that has been developed with the Flutter framework but wish to develop a web application as well to expand your business reach.
- Your business has not launched online yet and you’re looking for a way to build both a mobile app and a web app for your business at a low cost and with the shortest possible development time. In such a situation, flutter development services are proven to be the right choice for you.
- When you want the interactive aspect of your enterprise mobile application to be accessible via the web browser as well without expending a lot of resources on the development. But, when you do so, there is one thing you should know about your web application: it won’t be that SEO-friendly. If SEO is not a matter of concern then flutter is proven to be the ideal choice for you.
Statement of Conclusion
Here’s the final chapter in our flutter web app development guide that provides you with a list of all the essentials you need for your next project. Inherently, flutter offers a lot of benefits for the developers as well as the business owners, but it also has flaws that aren’t to be ignored. Now the choice is yours whether you should consider flutter web app development or should move on to another framework.
If you still have some issues regarding the flutter web app development that needs to be addressed, then you can get in touch with us. Our team will sympathetically listen to your concerns and work with you to address them.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What Is Flutter For The Web?
Flutter for the web is an open-source UI framework introduced by Google that is compatible with the web app development programming languages such as HTML, CSS, and Javascript that developers can use to generate user interfaces.
2. Is Flutter A Good Choice For Web App Development?
The short answer is yes. In terms of web app development, Flutter is the best choice due to its compatibility with modern days web development programming languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. For a better understanding of whether you should flutter web app development or we would recommend you to connect with a flutter development company.
3. Is Flutter For The Web Compatible With A Web Browser Such As Chrome, Firefox, And So On?
Flutter for the web is compatible with the majority of web browsers both mobile & desktop versions including Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox. As a side benefit, Flutter provides support for Chrome and Edge browsers as defaults for debugging during development.
4. Is Flutter Ideal For All Scenarios Of Web Apps Development?
To be honest, not every web app can benefit from flutter. According to the expertise of the flutter web app developer, it seems to be an ideal choice in the following scenarios.
- Progressive web apps(PWAs)
- Single-page apps
- Existing flutter mobile app
Flutter is more likely not suitable for static web apps development with text-rich flow-based content like blogs.
5. Is Flutter For The Web Stable?
The stable version of flutter for the web is now available, allowing flutter developers to build highly secure and visually appealing web apps leveraging the great capabilities of the Google UI framework.