What Are Your Options If You Can’t Use Flutter?
Table OF Contents 1) A short guide to Flutter 2) The disadvantages of Flutter The flaws of a developer Tool and library limitations The size of the files iOS weakness Absence of a password manager 3) Your options Xamarin React Native Cordova Ionic NativeScript 4) Closing statements
People who know a thing or two about mobile app development technologies should be familiar with the name Flutter. It’s a relatively new platform, but it didn’t take long to earn the popularity it enjoys right now. However, app developers never measure development tools based on fame. They only choose what’ll help bring your project to a tangible conclusion. This topic will present you with an overview of Flutter and some of the best Flutter alternatives you can use for your project. In today’s digitized world, mobile applications are playing a disruptive role – somewhat akin to the Darwinian Theory. During times like these, businesses can’t make the mistake of neglecting the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. The problem with building native solutions for mobile devices is that it can lead to budgeting issues. It’s precisely where cross-platform mobile apps come into play. They’re an unrivaled choice for businesses of all types and sizes. If you wish to establish your presence on both Android and iOS platforms, cross-platform development is the way to go.
A short guide to Flutter So, what do you need to know about Flutter? It’s an open-source free-to-use SDK for mobile devices a developer can use to build cross-platform apps with native-like features and appearances. By using it, app builders can produce creative mobile solutions for various platforms, including Android and iOS. They won’t require a different codebase for each version. Flutter works with a specific programming language called Dart, both of which are Google's products. However, the ultimate idea of the framework revolves around widgets. Developers can build the whole user interface using these widgets, including a stylistic element, a structural element, a UI layout aspect, and more. Flutter has an exclusive set of ready-to-use widgets that look native on Android and iOS. Even with all these features and systems, this framework has a few drawbacks you should know about. These drawbacks can prevent your developers from building a world-class mobile solution using Flutter.
The disadvantages of Flutter Here’s a list of the issues affecting this framework. Due to these drawbacks, you may have to resort to one of the Flutter alternatives available. The flaws of a developer
While everything may fall into place with the framework itself, you may have a hard time finding and assembling a team of developers. Every business-related project has to face these risks due to a few objective reasons. For starters, the labor market of Flutter is still forming. Only a handful of resumes reach work-related websites for keywords based on Flutter in almost every CIS country. On the other hand, Android developers post resumes by the thousand. Most of the job seekers in the field of programming are new to Flutter. It’s mainly because they can’t get genuine experiences anywhere. After all, only a few commercially available projects designed using Flutter exist at the moment.
Building a strong team consisting of at least five developers for a Flutter-based digital product is a challenging task, and it’ll take time. Tool and library limitations
As already mentioned earlier, Flutter is a relatively new entrant in the sphere of cross-platform app development. Several functions of the framework are in alpha and beta testing phases. Understandably, they don’t always work as expected. Furthermore, developers may not always find the necessary functions in the present library. In some instances, the creators of Flutter and its community are still attempting to finalize things. To that end, it’s clear that it’ll take some time for these experts to expand the framework’s functionality, create the required tools, and bring together a more knowledgeable community. The size of the files
Just think about it for a second – why would users want to sacrifice their favorite games or songs in favor of your application? After all, if you expect your user base to download and use your Flutter application, they’ll need to clear up some space on their mobile devices to accommodate it. Apps created using Flutter tend to be massive. Your developers have to come up with ways to reduce the size of the application. To minimize the size of the code, programmers have to employ various tricks. For instance, they can avoid using animations, reduce pictures, and reduce the number of libraries and packages. Then again, these strategies affect the results. iOS weakness
As Flutter is a product from the house of Google, you can probably guess that it doesn’t have much to offer in terms of iOS. Even if most of the SDK functions work appropriately on Android, they won’t do the same on an iOS device. Absence of password manager
Using non-native widgets always comes with a set of problems. Some of them become apparent on specific iOS and Android features. At the moment, Flutter apps have issues with the input and autocomplete fields. It becomes more noticeable when you implement password extraction from an inbuilt or third-party password manager.
Your options Now that you know about the drawbacks of Flutter, it’s time to take a look at the best Flutter alternatives. Xamarin
Xamarin is the first alternative of FLutter – a C# framework designed to develop exceptional cross-platform solutions for mobile devices. Xamarin is quite similar to Flutter, but the former doesn’t suffer from the problems affecting the latter. Also, the use of the C# programming language makes Xamarin different from all the other tools you’ll learn about here. This app development framework provides an effective runtime that helps developers run an app across multiple platforms. Features ● ● ● ● ●
Modern IDE Strong BCL Connecting the underlying SDKs New-age language constructs Test cloud
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Developers get to choose the UI layout when working with the framework of Xamarin to design feature-laden cross-platform applications. The framework comes with an incredibly large collection of charts, themes, UI controls, graphs, and many other components to enrich an app with features. It lets developers share the app logic by writing it once. Then, they can deploy it on as many platforms as they want to.
React Native
Flutter alternatives for React Native is probably one of the best you’ll find. It’s a highly recognized and landed cross-platform framework based on JavaScript. With it, your developers can create natively-rendered applications for both iOS and Android devices. This framework allows developers to create superb applications for several platforms using just one codebase. React Native came out in 2015 as a cross-platform solution with an open-source nature. Since then, it has become one of the most preferred app development solutions. Features ● ● ● ●
Live React Open-source nature Intuitive and modular architecture Code reusability
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React Native receives support from a huge developer community It features code reusability that makes the process of app development more cost-effective. It has native controls and modules that enhance the overall performance of the platform.
Cordova
This one is yet another reliable option among Flutter alternatives you can use. Created by Nitobi and then purchased by Adobe Systems in 2011, Cordova is an effective framework for app development. Operating Cordova is easy for developers because it requires HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. You get to experience the extended features of HTML5 and JavaScript and enjoy enhanced app effectiveness. However, an app built using Cordova isn’t going to be entirely web-based or native. Features ● ● ● ●
Licensed framework Availability of core components Multiple plugins for native mobile functions are available Command Line Interface
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Cordova helps developers accelerate their app development processes much more effectively. With Cordova, it becomes much easier to manage images and other types of media for various platforms. The framework depends on CSS3, HTML5, and JavaScript programming languages. As a result, your developers won’t have to spend time learning something else. Cordova facilitates community add-on integrations for enhanced convenience.
Ionic
For Flutter alternatives Ionic deserves to be on this list as it’s an open-source SDK created specifically for cross-platform app development. The very first version of Ionic came out in 2013 based on Apache Cordova and AngularJS. When it comes to the best substitutes for Flutter, Ionic has to be among the most reliable choices. The latest release of Ionic, however, works on a set of web components. It lets developers use any of the UI frameworks they need, just like AngularJS, React, or Vue.js. Features ● ● ● ●
Command Line Interface Quick and easy app development JS components CS components
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It’s a simple platform that lets developers create powerful cross-platform apps using only JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. By using the framework of Ionic, developers can build efficient cross-platform apps using just one language. It lets developers design apps for multiple platforms, such as Android, iOS, and Windows.
NativeScript
The last substitute in this list is NativeScript for Flutter Alternative. Just like React Native, it leverages JavaScript to create cross-platform apps for Android and iOS devices. It also supports Angular, TypeScript, and other related frameworks. An app built using this framework will be entirely native in terms of appearance and performance. Features ● ● ●
Injecting Android and iOS APIs into the virtual machine of JS Uses JavaScript as a subset of CSS Reduces the time needed to build apps
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NativeScript gives developers faster access to Android SDK, iOS dependency manager, plugins, and everything else. Developers with a fair understanding of JavaScript and CSS should be able to work with NativeScript easily. When using this framework, developers can see the changes in the code on the emulator screen in real-time. This feature reduces the overall time needed to build applications.
Closing statements All the options described above can help you complete your app development project. If Flutter doesn’t let you build what you hope to, you can use one of these. After all, even if a framework is one of the best, it may not be able to fulfill the unique requirements of your project. The only thing that remains is to find an appropriate app development firm with in-depth experience in building apps using these tools. Moon Technolabs is an excellent choice as it has a proven track record of excellence.
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