Description
Shipping one app to iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux and the web the old way means six codebases, six teams and six bug lists — and changing one colour six times.
Flutter is Google answer: one Dart codebase compiled to native applications on all six. Rather than wrapping platform widgets it ships its own rendering engine and paints every pixel, so the result looks identical everywhere and you do not chase differences caused by one platform control behaving unlike another.
The part developers stay for is hot reload: save a change and the running app updates in under a second with its state intact, so you do not walk back through a login flow after every tweak. Interfaces are described as composed widgets, with Material and Cupertino component sets covering most of what an app needs. Desktop support is stable, producing standalone executables. BSD licensed.
One codebase, six targets: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux and the web from the same Dart source.
Its own rendering engine: Independent of platform widgets, so the interface is identical everywhere and free of per-platform control quirks.
Sub-second hot reload: Save and the running app updates immediately while keeping its state, which changes how UI work feels.
Complete widget sets: Material and Cupertino cover common interfaces, with mature answers for animation, gestures and routing.
Desktop is stable: Builds Windows executables, macOS apps and Linux binaries — desktop is no longer experimental.
Open and well supplied: BSD licensed, with pub.dev carrying packages for state management, native plugins and much else.
Flutter is Google answer: one Dart codebase compiled to native applications on all six. Rather than wrapping platform widgets it ships its own rendering engine and paints every pixel, so the result looks identical everywhere and you do not chase differences caused by one platform control behaving unlike another.
The part developers stay for is hot reload: save a change and the running app updates in under a second with its state intact, so you do not walk back through a login flow after every tweak. Interfaces are described as composed widgets, with Material and Cupertino component sets covering most of what an app needs. Desktop support is stable, producing standalone executables. BSD licensed.
Features
One codebase, six targets: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux and the web from the same Dart source.
Its own rendering engine: Independent of platform widgets, so the interface is identical everywhere and free of per-platform control quirks.
Sub-second hot reload: Save and the running app updates immediately while keeping its state, which changes how UI work feels.
Complete widget sets: Material and Cupertino cover common interfaces, with mature answers for animation, gestures and routing.
Desktop is stable: Builds Windows executables, macOS apps and Linux binaries — desktop is no longer experimental.
Open and well supplied: BSD licensed, with pub.dev carrying packages for state management, native plugins and much else.
