Flutter v/s Kotlin: Who Will Rule the Cross-platform App Development Market?

From the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep, we use mobile apps for every little thing – be it for ordering food, listening to music, playing games, or connecting with our loved ones. With the growing use of mobile apps and the plethora of benefits, it brings to various businesses, the app development Services market is experiencing immense growth with every passing year.

Native Apps are apps designed exclusively for one particular platform to utilize the full potential of that platform’s capacity. But given the fact that nearly 98% of the mobile app market is dominated by Android and IOS, businesses want to capture audiences on both platforms at a lower deployment cost. This has paved the way for a massive increase in demand for cross-platform app development.

Cross-platform apps drastically reduce efforts, time, and cost invested in app development as only one code is required for multiple platforms. Developers frequently use Flutter UI Framework for this purpose but recently Kotlin Multiplatform is on the rise to becoming developers’ top choice of Software Development Kit. In this article, we are going to compare these two and see which one wins the cross-platform app development battle.

What is Flutter UI Framework?

Flutter is an open-source framework with a UI toolkit that enables developers to build full-fledged native-looking applications for mobile, web, and desktop using a single codebase. Developed by Google on Dart programming language in 2017, its architecture includes the Dart platform, Flutter engine, Foundation library, and design-specific widgets.

Developed specifically with Google’s insights on the technological and market challenges in the industry, Flutter is armed with combating them all and thus emerges as the top cross-platform app development platform. Another key distinguishing feature of Flutter is the ability to secure apps with the same level of protection as websites.

What is Kotlin Multiplatform?

Developed by JetBrains in 2010, Kotlin is an open-source general-purpose language that is supported by Google and is often considered to be the preferred language for Android App development. According to AppBrains, more than 82,000 apps currently use Kotlin.

Kotlin Multiplatform is an additional feature of that language that helps expand it beyond the scope of android app development. It essentially enables developers to share codes, data, and business logic across multiple platforms such as iOS, Web, Linux, macOS, Android, and Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

Flutter v/s Kotlin

1. Performance

Flutter is best known for its hot reload functionality which allows developers to make different changes in the backend and depict the difference in front-end concurrently. Meanwhile Kotlin Multiplatform allows the developers to compile the code explicitly in the same format, just like the targeted platforms.

2. UI Experience

When working on Kotlin, developers are not limited by any set UI design and have the creative freedom to craft the behavior, look, and performance of the application as they see fit. Whereas for Flutter, developers can comfortably choose between various widgets to create mobility solutions in a fast and customized way.

3. Testing Support & Learning

Flutter has a rich set of widget testing features and a vast document library that allows developers to examine the UI and make changes on the go at unit test speed. Kotlin Multiplatform is relatively new and thus has a limited ecosystem but seeing as how Google is offering so many learning courses in Kotlin, more testing features are expected to roll out soon.

Who Will Rule the Cross-platform App Development Market?

In conclusion, you can choose Kotlin if you are looking for an SDK that allows you to start working with a single feature as it is very easy to learn and offers an excellent UI experience. On the other hand, Flutter has better advantages like hot reload functionality, low cost, quick development, and customized solutions.

Flutter and Kotlin have both proven to improve app performance and reduce the time, efforts, and expense essential in app development. Below, we have summarized the basic differences between Kotlin and Flutter for you to judge which is better for you based on your requirements and limitations.

Still can’t choose? Consult an expert. For all your cross-platform app development needs and inquiries, send us a message at info@aiwa.digital, or you can contact us directly by visiting https://aiwadigital.com/contact-us/.