What is Flutter? Here is everything you should know

The tech world is evolving at an increasing pace as new technologies rise and fall. If you’ve been paying attention to the mobile development scene, you probably came across one handy technology called Flutter. What is Flutter, and how can companies use it in mobile development projects? Read this article to find out.

What is Flutter?

Flutter is an open-source mobile SDK developer can use to build native-looking Android and iOS applications from the same code base. It has been around since 2015 when Google introduced it and remained in the beta stage before its official launch in December 2018. Since then, the buzz around Flutter has been growing stronger. 

Flutter is now the top 11 software repos based on GitHub stars. Moreover, we’ve already seen thousands of Flutter apps being published on app stores. One of the most notable examples is the Xianyu app created by Alibaba team, used by over 50 million people. 

Flutter – here’s how it works 

Flutter widgets

The central idea behind Flutter is the use of widgets. It’s by combining different widgets that developers can build the entire UI. Each of these widgets defines a structural element (like a button or menu), a stylistic element (a font or color scheme), a layout aspect (like padding), and many others. 

Note that Flutter doesn’t use OEM widgets, but providers developers with its own ready-made widgets that look native to Android or iOS apps (following Material Design or Cupertino). Naturally, developers can create their own widgets as well. 

Flutter also provides developers with reactive-style views. To avoid performance issues deriving from using a compiled programming language to serve as the JavaScript bridge, Flutter uses Dart. It compiles Dart ahead of time (AOT) into the native