What is Flutter, and why is it one of the most talked-about cross-platform app development tools around today? Flutter is an open-source UI toolkit developed by Google that lets you build iOS, Android, web, and desktop applications from a single codebase using the Dart language. In this article, TOT explains what Flutter really is, how it works, its core components, its pros and cons, and the situations in which a business should consider choosing this framework.
Quick summary
- Flutter is Google’s open-source UI framework/SDK, not a programming language.
- The programming language that comes with Flutter is Dart, also developed by Google.
- Flutter supports multiple platforms from one codebase: Android, iOS, web, Windows, macOS, and Linux.
- Its standout strengths include a widget-based architecture, hot reload, and a self-rendering approach powered by its own graphics engine.
- Flutter is well suited to MVPs, cross-platform apps, and products that need to optimize development time and cost.
What is Flutter?
Flutter is an open-source user interface toolkit (UI framework/SDK) developed by Google, used to build natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase. Google introduced Flutter in 2017 and released the stable 1.0 version in late 2018. According to Google’s official documentation, Flutter aims to help development teams create beautiful, high-performance interfaces across multiple platforms by writing code once, rather than maintaining several separate codebases.
A common misconception is to think of Flutter as a programming language. In reality, Flutter is a framework/toolkit, while the accompanying programming language is Dart. These three concepts need to be clearly distinguished: Dart is the language, Flutter is the framework built on top of that language, and the Flutter SDK is the complete development toolkit, comprising the compiler, widget libraries, command-line tools, and debugger. As a framework, Flutter provides ready-made structure and components so developers don’t have to build everything from scratch.
Flutter supports multiple platforms from the same codebase: Android, iOS, web, Windows, macOS, and Linux. The framework currently provides platform embedders for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux, acting as the bridge that lets a Flutter app run like a native application on each operating system. When needed, Flutter also allows integration with platform-specific code and APIs, so development teams can still tap into device-specific features without being locked into a one-size-fits-all framework.
The development history of Flutter
Google developed Flutter with an initial focus on building interfaces and apps for mobile devices. The project grew out of Google’s internal experiments before entering an alpha stage and being introduced more widely in 2017. At that point, Flutter focused mainly on Android and iOS, using Dart, a widget system, and its own rendering technology to help developers build consistent interfaces across many devices.
A major milestone came on December 4, 2018, when Google officially released Flutter 1.0. This was Flutter’s first stable version, turning the framework into a practical option for developing Android and iOS applications from a shared codebase. From this point on, the Flutter ecosystem continued to grow in terms of libraries, packages, debugging tools, and the ability to integrate with platform services and APIs.
In 2021, Google launched Flutter 2, marking a significant shift from a mobile-first orientation toward cross-platform development. Flutter Web reached stable status, letting developers build and deploy browser-based applications within the same Flutter ecosystem. At the same time, Google continued to invest in desktop support and other deployment environments, extending Flutter’s reach beyond Android and iOS.
In 2022 and the versions that followed, Flutter continued to refine its cross-platform direction. With Flutter 3, macOS and Linux reached stable status alongside Android, iOS, Web, and Windows, making up the six main supported platforms. Subsequent releases focused on improving performance, developer tooling, native integration, and rendering technology such as Impeller.
Overall, Flutter has evolved from a mobile-first framework into a cross-platform UI toolkit, but the decision to adopt Flutter should still be based on each project’s specific requirements for performance, target platforms, and architecture.
What is Flutter used for?
Flutter is used to build many different types of applications from the same codebase, most commonly mobile apps, before extending to web, desktop, and cross-platform MVPs. Thanks to its write-once, run-anywhere capability, Flutter suits both large-scale commercial products and small projects that need to launch quickly.
Mobile app development
One of Flutter’s most common uses is developing mobile apps for Android and iOS. From a single codebase, a development team can release an app for both Android and iOS with a consistent interface. Flutter is often chosen for e-commerce, finance, education, and service applications that need to reach the market quickly on both operating systems while keeping tight control over the user experience.
Web app development
Flutter is also used to build web apps, especially in cases that call for highly interactive interfaces and share many components with a mobile app. Examples include admin dashboards, reporting systems, internal portals, and applications that support business operations.
Flutter can be a good fit when a business wants a consistent experience across web and other platforms, but not every website should use Flutter, particularly pages that mainly serve SEO and static content.
Desktop app development
Beyond mobile and web, Flutter supports building desktop applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux. This opens up the ability to develop management software, internal tools, line-of-business applications, or products that need to run on computers. Using a shared ecosystem can help businesses and development teams reuse a significant portion of their code, logic, and interface design across desktop, mobile, and web.
Building MVPs and cross-platform products
Flutter is a worthwhile option for startups, prototypes, MVPs, and some enterprise applications that need to bring a product to market quickly across multiple platforms. A shared codebase makes it easier, in many cases, for teams to test ideas, develop features, and update the product.
For enterprise applications, Flutter can also integrate with REST APIs, authentication systems, CRM, ERP, or native SDKs. However, before making a choice, businesses should still assess their requirements for performance and scalability, and how heavily they depend on platform-specific features.
The core components of Flutter
Flutter is made up of several main components that work together: the Flutter SDK, the Flutter Framework, the Flutter Engine, the Dart language, and the widget system. Understanding the role of each component helps clarify how a Flutter application is built and runs.
Flutter SDK
The Flutter SDK is a software development kit that provides the components needed to build, test, and deploy Flutter applications. The SDK bundles many tools that help developers work throughout the application development lifecycle, including:
- Flutter CLI: Create projects, run apps, check the environment, and build releases.
- Compiler: Compiles Dart code for the target platforms.
- Dart SDK: Provides the environment and tools for developing in the Dart language.
- Testing tools: Support testing applications at multiple levels.
- Debugging tools: Help detect and resolve errors during development.
- Flutter DevTools: Support debugging, profiling, performance inspection, and analysis of an app’s structure.
Some common Flutter CLI commands include flutter create, flutter run, flutter test, and flutter build. As a result, developers can use a relatively consistent set of tools when building applications across multiple platforms.
Flutter Framework
The Flutter Framework is the layer developers interact with most directly when building applications. It provides the APIs and libraries used to create interfaces, lay out components, and handle user interactions.
The key components of the Flutter Framework include:
- Widget: Builds the interface and structure of the application.
- Rendering: Supports the process of laying out and displaying the interface.
- Animation: Creates effects and motion.
- Gestures: Handles actions such as tapping, swiping, dragging, or pressing.
- Foundation: Provides foundational classes and functionality.
The Flutter Framework also provides design systems such as Material and Cupertino, helping developers build interfaces in an Android or iOS style when needed.
Flutter Engine
The Flutter Engine operates at a lower level than the Framework and plays a key role in bringing an application’s interface to the screen. This component handles many technical tasks involved in running and displaying the application, including:
- Rendering: Handles the display of the interface and graphics.
- Runtime: Supports the application’s runtime environment.
- Text layout: Handles how text is laid out and displayed.
- Graphics: Supports tasks related to graphics and rendering.
Put simply: developers use the Framework to describe the interface, while the Engine handles most of the low-level work needed to turn those descriptions into what actually appears on the device.
Dart
Dart is the programming language used to develop Flutter applications. This is why it’s important to clearly distinguish Flutter from Dart: Flutter is a framework/toolkit, while Dart is a programming language.
Some of Dart’s notable characteristics include:
- OOP: Supports object-oriented programming.
- Async/await: Supports handling asynchronous tasks.
- Null safety: Helps reduce certain errors related to
nullvalues. - JIT compilation: Supports fast development and code updates.
- AOT compilation: Compiles the application for the deployment environment and target platform.
The combination of JIT and AOT is one of the factors that lets Flutter support both fast development while coding and optimized applications at release.
Widget
In Flutter, nearly every interface element is modeled as a widget. A widget can represent a small element, a group of components, or the entire structure of a screen. Widgets are combined into a widget tree, forming the structure of the application’s interface.
Some common widgets include:
- Text: Displays text.
- Row: Arranges widgets horizontally.
- Column: Arranges widgets vertically.
- Container: Creates a container whose size and style can be customized.
- Stack: Layers widgets on top of one another.
- Scaffold: Provides the basic structure for a screen following Material Design.
- ListView: Displays a scrollable list of content.
Thanks to its widget-based architecture, developers can break the interface into reusable components. This is also one of the key characteristics that helps Flutter build flexible UIs and maintain a clear code structure as an application grows in scale.
Flutter’s standout features
Flutter offers many features that help shorten the app development process and build a relatively consistent experience across multiple platforms. However, the actual results still depend on the product’s architecture, how much code is shared, and each platform’s specific integration requirements.
One codebase for multiple platforms
Flutter lets you use a single codebase to ship applications for iOS, Android, web, and desktop. This significantly reduces duplicated work compared with developing separately for each platform.
Example: A service-booking app can reuse most of its screens, login functionality, and API calls for both Android and iOS.
Hot Reload
Hot reload is a feature that lets you reload changes and see the results almost instantly without losing the running state. When adjusting an interface detail, developers immediately see the effect on the simulator or a real device, shortening the edit-and-test loop. This is one of the reasons Flutter is highly regarded for its development experience.
Example: When changing the color of the order button, a developer can see the result almost immediately on the running screen.
Flexible widgets and UI customization
Flutter builds interfaces from widgets, so developers can combine small widgets into complex, reusable UI components. Components such as Container, Row, Column, Stack and custom widgets give deep control over layout and appearance.
Example: A business can build its own Design System to use consistently across mobile, web, and desktop apps.
High performance
Dart code is compiled ahead of time (AOT) into machine code at release, helping applications start quickly and run smoothly. Combined with a self-rendering graphics engine, Flutter handles complex interfaces and animation-heavy motion well. For most commercial applications, Flutter’s performance is enough to deliver a smooth experience.
Example: An e-commerce app can display page-transition effects, product carousels, and interactive animations while maintaining a consistent experience.
Support for Material Design and Cupertino
Flutter comes with two widget sets styled after each ecosystem. The Material group emulates Google’s Material Design language, common on Android; the Cupertino group recreates the iOS interface style. As a result, the same application can feel familiar on both platforms or keep a single, unified identity.
Example: The same app can use navigation closer to iOS on iPhone and familiar Material components on Android.
The package and plugin ecosystem
The Flutter ecosystem has many packages and plugins that support common features, so developers don’t have to build every feature from scratch. Packages can support API calls, state management, authentication, maps, payments, cameras, or push notifications.
Example: A delivery app can integrate a package to use maps and a plugin to access the device’s location instead of writing the entire integration layer itself.
Native integration capability
Flutter still allows integration with platform-specific code and APIs when a feature can’t be fully handled by Dart or an existing package. Developers can connect a Flutter app to Kotlin/Java on Android or Swift/Objective-C on iOS through platform integration mechanisms.
Example: A financial app can integrate a bank’s native SDK or a specialized security SDK while keeping most of its interface and logic in Flutter.
How does Flutter work?
Flutter works by describing the entire interface as widgets, then using its own graphics engine to render them directly onto the screen instead of calling the operating system’s native UI components. This approach makes the interface appear almost identical across every platform and allows fine-grained, pixel-level control.
An overview of Flutter’s architecture
You can picture Flutter’s architecture as a chain: Dart application code → Flutter Framework → Flutter Engine → Platform Embedder → platform. Each component plays its own role:
- Dart application code: The code developers write to build the application’s interface, logic, and functionality.
- Flutter Framework: Written in Dart, it provides the widgets, layout, animation, gestures, and APIs needed to build the interface.
- Flutter Engine: Flutter’s portable core, written mainly in C++. The engine handles rendering, graphics, text, and I/O, and provides the Dart runtime.
- Platform Embedder: A platform-specific component that lets the Flutter Engine connect to the operating system and handle functions such as input, accessibility, the event loop, and the application lifecycle.
- Platform: The final environment where the application runs, such as Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, or Linux.
Flutter also supports communicating with native code when needed through mechanisms such as Platform Channels and FFI. This lets an application share most of its codebase across platforms while still tapping into the specific features of each operating system.
How does Flutter render the interface?
When a developer builds a Flutter screen, the interface is described as a widget tree. However, widgets are not native UI components created directly by the operating system. The Flutter Framework handles the structure, layout, and rendering process before passing the work down to the Flutter Engine.
The basic process can be pictured as follows:
Widget tree → Layout and rendering → Flutter Engine → Graphics API/GPU → Screen
The engine uses Flutter’s rendering technologies to produce each frame and sends the appropriate graphics commands to the underlying system. This approach differs from a model that relies mainly on mapping each UI element to a native component or having to use a bridge layer for every interface operation. As a result, Flutter can exert tighter control over how the interface is drawn and maintain a relatively consistent experience across platforms.
How does Hot Reload work?
Hot Reload is a feature that shortens the development loop when a developer changes Dart code. Broadly, the process goes through these steps:
- The developer changes the Dart code.
- The code is updated into the running application.
- Flutter updates the necessary classes and rebuilds the widget tree.
- The resulting change is quickly displayed in the app.
The key point is that Hot Reload can preserve the application’s state in many cases, so developers don’t have to return to the first screen after each edit. However, Hot Reload does not re-run main() or initState(), and some changes, especially native code such as Kotlin, Java, Swift, or Objective-C, will require a hot restart or a full app restart.
How does Flutter communicate with native features?
When platform-specific APIs or features are needed, Flutter supports several interoperability mechanisms, the most common being Platform Channels and plugins. Platform Channels let Dart code send and receive messages asynchronously with code running on the native side.
For example, Flutter can communicate with:
- Android: Kotlin or Java.
- iOS: Swift or Objective-C.
- Windows: C++.
- macOS: Objective-C.
- Linux: C.
- Web: typically an appropriate JavaScript interoperability mechanism.
A Flutter app could, for instance, use a Platform Channel to call an API that checks the battery, access hardware, or integrate a native SDK that doesn’t yet have a suitable Flutter package. This way, most of the application can still be built with Dart and Flutter, while specialized functions are handled with each platform’s native code.
The advantages and disadvantages of Flutter
Flutter offers many advantages for cross-platform development, but it also has limitations to weigh depending on the specific problem. Assessing both sides in a balanced way helps businesses make the right choice rather than expecting the framework to excel at everything.
Advantages of Flutter
- Cross-platform development: one codebase ships to iOS, Android, web, and desktop, greatly reducing duplicated work.
- Shorter development time: sharing logic and interface helps bring the product to market sooner.
- High UI customization: the self-rendering mechanism allows detailed control over every component, making it easy to build a branded interface.
- Hot Reload supports developers: a fast edit-and-test loop improves the development experience and productivity.
- Easy to integrate with backends, APIs, and native code: it connects well with existing services and accesses native features through platform channels.
Disadvantages of Flutter
- App size can be larger than some minimal native apps, because the graphics engine has to be bundled in.
- Some specialized hardware features still require writing additional native code or a corresponding plugin.
- Dart’s ecosystem is smaller than JavaScript’s, so the number of libraries for a specific need is sometimes lower.
- Certain specialized problems require careful thought about architecture and the level of platform integration.
- It isn’t always advisable to choose Flutter for web or desktop simply out of a desire to write once; the decision should be based on the product’s real requirements.
How does Flutter differ from React Native and Native?
Flutter, React Native, and native development represent three different approaches to building mobile applications. The differences lie in the language, how the interface is built, performance, and the level of customization. Comparing them helps you choose the right technology for each problem.
Flutter vs React Native
Flutter and React Native both aim to develop cross-platform applications from a largely shared codebase. The most notable difference lies in the language and the approach to the interface. Flutter uses Dart and its own widget system to build the UI, while React Native typically uses JavaScript or TypeScript and the React ecosystem.
With Flutter, developers can exert relatively deep control over how the interface is laid out and rendered, which suits products that need a highly customized UI or want to maintain a consistent experience across platforms. React Native has the advantage of the vast JavaScript ecosystem and can be a good fit for teams that already have experience with React or web development.
For example, a startup with a strong React and JavaScript team can shorten the learning curve by choosing React Native. Conversely, a product that needs a highly customized interface and a shared Design System across multiple platforms might consider Flutter.
Flutter vs Native App
A native app is developed specifically for each operating system, for example, using Kotlin or Java for Android and Swift or Objective-C for iOS. This approach lets the team work directly with each platform’s APIs, SDKs, and UI components.
Compared with a native app, Flutter has the advantage of code reuse and reduced duplicated work when both Android and iOS need to be supported. However, for applications that need to tap deeply into hardware features, use new APIs as soon as the platform releases them, or have complex platform-specific requirements, native development may be the better choice.
For example, a typical banking app might consider Flutter to share most of its code between the two platforms. Meanwhile, an application that depends heavily on new operating system technology or specialized hardware may need to prioritize a native app.
A comparison of Flutter, React Native, and Native
| Criteria | Flutter | React Native | Native |
|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Dart | JavaScript / TypeScript | Kotlin/Java (Android), Swift/Objective-C (iOS) |
| Codebase | One codebase for multiple platforms | One codebase for multiple platforms | Separate codebase for each platform |
| UI | Its own widget and rendering system | Uses the React architecture, integrating with the platform’s UI capabilities | Uses native UI frameworks |
| Performance | Compiles AOT to machine code, smooth with complex interfaces | Suitable for many types of apps, depending on architecture and level of integration | Can be optimized directly for each platform |
| UI customization | Very high thanks to self-rendering | High, but depends on the implementation and native integration | High, according to each platform’s capabilities |
| Time-to-market | Fast thanks to a shared codebase | Can be fast thanks to shared code and the JavaScript ecosystem | Can take longer when developing multiple codebases |
| Native integration | Through platform channels and plugins | Through native modules and plugins | Direct access to platform APIs |
No option is optimal in every case. The decision should be based on your team’s capabilities, performance requirements, the level of UI customization, budget, and the time available for the project.
Why should businesses use Flutter to develop apps?
For businesses, Flutter’s greatest value lies in its ability to optimize resources and shorten time to market. A single development team can serve multiple platforms at once, while easily controlling the experience and scaling the system as the product grows.
Saving development time and cost
Sharing one codebase for iOS and Android reduces the resources needed to develop and maintain multiple platforms while shortening time-to-market. Each bug fix or new feature applies to all platforms at once, optimizing costs over the long term. When planning a software project, understanding a technology’s characteristics is an important part of a well-structured app design process. That said, Flutter is not always more affordable than native, especially when a project needs many platform-specific features.
Consistent interface and user experience
The widget-based architecture and self-rendering mechanism keep the interface consistent across platforms and make it easy to build a coherent design system. As the product grows, the team retains strong control over the user experience because every component is defined within the same system. This is a significant advantage for brands that emphasize recognizability and consistency.
Easy to integrate and scale enterprise systems
Flutter can connect with many components in an enterprise system, including:
- REST APIs and backend services.
- Databases and authentication systems.
- CRM, ERP, and internal systems.
- Payment gateways and analytics.
- Push notifications and cloud services.
- Native SDKs or specialized APIs when needed.
This capability makes Flutter suitable for many applications with complex architectures. When a feature doesn’t have a suitable solution within the Flutter ecosystem, the team can still integrate native code for Android or iOS.
Accelerating development and product improvement
Flutter provides tools that help shorten the development and product-testing loop, including Hot Reload, Flutter DevTools, debugging, and profiling. Developers can check interface changes faster, analyze performance, and detect certain issues during development.
This is an advantage for businesses adopting an agile development process, continuously testing features, building MVPs, and improving the product based on user feedback.
Ready for AI-integrated applications
Flutter can serve as the interface layer for many types of AI-integrated applications. Depending on the system architecture, businesses can build features such as:
- AI chatbots and virtual assistants.
- AI search and semantic search.
- Recommendation systems.
- Generative AI that creates content or images.
- Computer vision and image recognition.
- Voice AI and speech processing.
Beyond integrating AI into the product, AI-assisted development tools can also help developers write code, generate widgets, debug, and refactor. However, AI still needs to be integrated with the backend, models, APIs, and the security requirements appropriate to each system.
In short, businesses should consider Flutter when they need to serve multiple platforms with a single team, prioritize launch speed, and want strong control over the user experience. For problems that require deep hardware access, the technology choice should still be evaluated against specific requirements.
How does Flutter work with AI?
Flutter works with AI in two main directions: AI assisting the Flutter development process, and AI being integrated into the Flutter application itself. In addition, the Flutter ecosystem now has an official direction for AI-assisted development.
AI assisting Flutter development
AI coding assistants can help developers with many repetitive tasks or quick look-ups, for example:
- Code generation: Suggest or generate Dart and Flutter code.
- Generate widget: Help create widget structures and interfaces.
- Debugging: Analyze errors and suggest fixes.
- Refactoring: Help improve the structure and maintainability of code.
- Documentation: Explain code or help create technical documentation.
- Testing: Help create and run certain types of tests.
For example, a developer can ask AI to create a Flutter login screen, then continue to adjust the code based on the Design System and the project’s specific requirements. However, AI-generated code still needs to be reviewed and tested before being put into production.
Integrating AI into Flutter applications
Flutter can also serve as the interface layer for applications that integrate AI models through APIs, SDKs, or backend services. Some common use cases include:
- Chatbots and AI assistants.
- AI search or semantic search.
- Recommendation systems.
- Image recognition and computer vision.
- Generative AI that creates text, images, or content.
- Voice AI and speech-related features.
For example, an e-commerce application can use Flutter to build the interface while an AI backend handles product recommendations or answers customer questions. Flutter now also provides guides and tools for integrating AI experiences, including generative AI and conversational UIs.
Flutter and AI-assisted development
The Flutter ecosystem now offers official guidance on using AI tools such as Gemini Code Assist, Gemini CLI, and the Dart/Flutter MCP Server to support app development. This is a sign that AI-assisted development is being woven into the Flutter workflow, helping teams make more structured use of coding assistants.
Notable applications built with Flutter
Flutter has been used by many businesses across different industries to build and grow their products. Official case studies show that this technology suits not only startups and MVPs but is also used in large-scale applications that need to ship across multiple platforms and maintain a consistent user experience. Below are a few notable examples featured in Flutter’s official Showcase.
| Application | Industry | Why Flutter fits |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | Digital advertising | A mobile campaign-management app that needs to run consistently on iOS and Android |
| Xianyu (Alibaba) | C2C e-commerce | Improving cross-platform consistency, building beautiful graphics, and maintaining app loading speed. |
| Nubank | Digital banking / fintech | Unifying the experience and accelerating development across multiple platforms |
| eBay Motors | E-commerce (automotive) | Flutter helped the eBay Motors team share up to 98.3% of their code, develop faster, and release features simultaneously on Android and iOS. |
| My BMW | Automotive / connected app | Reducing feature differences between Android and iOS while building a shared platform for multiple markets and product variants. |
| Philips Hue | Smart home/IoT | Suited to the need to build a modern app experience across many devices. |
The list above is only illustrative of Flutter’s range of applications. Before referencing any case for official purposes, you should verify it against the company’s own published sources.
Should you learn Flutter and use it to develop applications?
Whether you should learn and choose Flutter depends on your career goals, your team’s capabilities, and the characteristics of the project. Flutter is a worthwhile option for many audiences, but it is not the definitive answer to every problem.
Should you learn Flutter?
Flutter suits developers who want to pursue cross-platform mobile and build applications from a shared codebase. When learning Flutter, developers also work with Dart and can expand their knowledge into backend, API integration, testing, and related development tools.
- Flutter is especially suited to those who want to:
- Expand their skills in Dart and the Flutter ecosystem.
- Develop applications for Android and iOS.
- Build products or prototypes quickly.
- Focus on UI and user experience.
- Work with cross-platform applications.
Should you choose Flutter for a new project?
The answer should be based on the specific situation rather than a blanket statement. Flutter is a reasonable choice when a project needs to serve multiple platforms with a single team, prioritizes launch speed, and calls for a high level of UI customization. Conversely, for products that tap deeply into specialized hardware features or require maximum native performance, you should carefully weigh Flutter, React Native, and native development.
Who is Flutter right for?
Flutter suits many groups: developers who want to build cross-platform products, startups that need to build an MVP quickly, product teams that want a unified experience, businesses with systems that need scaling, and app design companies that want to optimize resources when running multiple projects. For each group, Flutter’s specific benefits will vary depending on the scale and goals of the product.
Overall, Flutter is a good fit when the goal is to balance development speed, code reuse, and the level of UI customization. The final decision should still be based on technical requirements, the team’s resources, and the product’s long-term direction.
Conclusion
In summary, what Flutter is has now been made clear: it’s Google’s open-source UI framework/SDK that uses Dart to develop cross-platform applications from a shared codebase. Thanks to its widget architecture, Hot Reload, and UI customization, Flutter helps shorten development time and suits many projects such as MVPs or cross-platform apps. However, the choice of Flutter, React Native, or a native app should still be based on the product’s technical requirements and specific goals.
With experience developing custom websites, apps, and software, along with AI solutions for businesses, TOT partners with companies to evaluate and choose technologies and build solutions that fit real-world problems.
Frequently asked questions
What is Flutter?
Flutter is an open-source user interface toolkit (UI framework/SDK) developed by Google that lets you build applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase. Flutter uses the Dart language, builds interfaces with a widget-based architecture, and draws every component itself using its own graphics engine. Google introduced Flutter in 2017 and released the stable 1.0 version in late 2018.
Is Flutter a programming language?
No. Flutter is a framework/toolkit, not a programming language. The programming language used with Flutter is Dart, also developed by Google. It’s important to distinguish three concepts: Dart is the language, Flutter is the framework built on top of that language, and the Flutter SDK is the development toolkit, comprising the compiler, widget libraries, and command-line and debugging tools.
What language does Flutter use?
Flutter uses Dart, an object-oriented language developed by Google with syntax familiar to anyone who has used Java, JavaScript, or C#. Dart supports asynchronous programming with async/await, has a null safety mechanism, and can be compiled both as JIT during development and AOT to machine code at release. This very characteristic gives rise to two of Flutter’s strengths: hot reload and strong runtime performance.
Why use Flutter to develop applications?
Flutter lets you develop applications for multiple platforms from a single codebase, shortening time to launch and optimizing maintenance costs. The framework allows deep interface customization, keeps the experience consistent across platforms, and integrates well with backends, APIs, and native features. For MVPs and cross-platform products, it’s a choice many teams prefer.
What types of businesses is Flutter suitable for?
Flutter suits startups that need to build an MVP quickly, businesses that want to serve both iOS and Android from a single team, and organizations with systems that need to scale and integrate CRM, ERP, or payments. Organizations that emphasize interface consistency and the pace of product improvement also benefit from Flutter. For problems that require deep hardware access, businesses should consult their technical team to choose the right technology.
