The Evolution of Flutter: A Comprehensive Look at the Last 3 Years

Quick Overview: Flutter has undergone a remarkable evolution in the last three years, becoming a leading cross-platform development framework. The entire community has contributed too many things to make Flutter the top choice for every developer and business owner. And this is what we will talk about in this article: how Flutter has evolved and what makes it easy to handle complex projects. Let’s read.

When we talk about mobile app development, Flutter secures its position as the leading open-source technology in the market. Since its first release in 2017 by Google, Flutter has emerged as a game-changer amongst the mobile app developer’s community.

During this time, Flutter has significantly reduced the development complexity and time required for building mobile apps, making it the first choice for developers across multiple platforms. Moreover, it enables developers to build, test, and deploy mobile, web, desktop, and embedded applications using a single codebase.

So, from releasing with the name of “Sky” to becoming the “leading cross-platform mobile framework”, Flutter has definitely evolved and has many things to offer to everyone – developers, business owners, and tech experts.

Therefore, as an experienced cross-platform development company, we have decided to write a separate article on the evolution of Flutter. Because Flutter deserves a special place for that!

So, let’s talk about Flutter, including its capabilities and how its latest version can help you boost your business.

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An Overview of Flutter’s Evolution in Recent Years

Developed by Google, Flutter is a popular and amazing UI software development kit (SDK) that helps you build a cross-platform mobile application. In fact, it gives you a native-like experience by developing Android and iOS mobile apps.

The Flutter framework has evolved from purely app development for iOS and Android platforms to a cross-platform framework that empowers developers to build robust and faster applications that work seamlessly with web and desktop browsers, including Windows, Linux, and macOS.

If we look at the number, around 46% of developers use the Flutter framework for cross-platform mobile app development. In addition, it’s fair to assume that the number of users is higher due to the release of Flutter’s latest version – Flutter 3 (major update). In fact, every new release of Flutter brings something interesting and beneficial to developers and business owners.

Lastly, Flutter for desktop development has achieved a significant milestone.

And that’s what the evolution of the Flutter framework is about – How it was at the time of inception and what it has gained now!

Major Releases and Updates of THE Flutter Framework

Flutter came into existence because Google wanted to build a technology that could help developers create efficient and powerful cross-platform applications for multiple operating systems.

Firstly, Flutter technology was introduced in 2015, but it eventually gained popularity and attention when Google released its first version in 2017. And since then, Flutter’s popularity graph has been increasing and dominating over other cross-platform app development frameworks like React Native.

While comparing React Native with Flutter, developers have experienced mainstream breakthroughs, and Flutter has continued to evolve and improve with every release in terms of stability and functionality.

Let’s understand Flutter’s journey with its several major releases:

• Flutter 2.0 (March 2021): Released with stable support for web applications, enabling developers to build and deploy web apps alongside mobile apps.
• Flutter 2.2 (May 2021): Focused on performance improvements, as well as on faster compile times and reduced memory usage.
• Flutter 2.5 (September 2021): Came up with wide DevTools for app development enhancement and added new widgets and tools for Flutter developers.
• Flutter 2.8 (December 2021): Came up with enhanced performance and better memory efficiency of the framework.
• Flutter 3.0 (May 2022): Expanded support for desktop platforms like Windows, making it a true multi-platform framework with scalable Flutter architecture.
• Flutter 3.3 and beyond: Continued to evolve with enhanced features, bug fixes, and performance optimizations.

How Flutter Has Evolved

With every new release and update, Flutter has achieved several significant milestones, including better performance, scalability, better developer experience, app development for Windows, addition of new widgets and tools, and many more. This has expanded Flutter’s capabilities and made Flutter beginners' first choice.

Let’s understand how Flutter technology has evolved and what types of benefits it has offered.

1. Improved Performance and Speed

Performance has been an essential factor for Flutter’s development team. With each release, Flutter has seen a consistent performance improvement, focusing on optimizing rendering, reducing jank, and improving battery life.

With the release of Flutter 2, it came with image decoding and a 120 Hz refresh rate. Also, the introduction of the new renderer, Impeller, in Flutter 3.0, significantly enhanced the rendering performance, especially on low-end devices. Flutter 3.3 adds even more possibilities and potential to app development.

Furthermore, Dart’s null safety feature improved app stability and performance. With better VM improvements for Flutter development, you can experience faster startup times.

2. Enhanced Developer Experience

The Flutter team has prioritized developer productivity by offering a better developer experience.

• Stateful Hot Reload for instant UI updates
• DevTools for debugging, profiling, and testing
• Better integration with IDEs like VS Code and Android Studio
• Introduction of sound null safety for more robust code
• Riverpod for simpler state management
• Bloc for implementing the BLoC pattern

These enhancements have made Flutter app development more efficient and developer-friendly.

3. A Wide Range of Widget Libraries and Tools

Flutter offers a wide range of DevTools, providing developers with a rich set of customizable widgets.

• Material Design 3 widgets for modern Android styling
• Cupertino widgets for iOS-style interfaces
• Introduction of Material You design system widgets
• AdaptiveScaffold to create responsive and adaptive UIs
• Flutter Casual Games Toolkit for 2D game app development
• Community-driven widget libraries for specialized use cases

4. Increased Adoption and Community Growth

Due to the rapidly growing popularity of Flutter, its community has experienced tremendous growth.

• Over 500,000 applications developed with Flutter (as of 2023)
• Over 1 million published apps as of 2023 for six platforms (Android, iOS, web, Windows, macOS, and Linux)
• The Flutter community has grown to over 150,000 members on Stack Overflow
• Rise in Flutter-driven conferences and events worldwide
• Increased adoption by major organizations and startups alike

This growth has created a vibrant ecosystem. Hence, Flutter has become the foremost choice for app development for startups.

5. Native-like Features

Although Flutter is a powerful framework for cross-platform development, this does not mean that it prevents developers from including platform-specific features. On the other hand, Flutter offers many stateful and stateless widgets for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and iOS.

Additionally, it facilitates seamless communication with native code, which enables developers to use native APIs and services. With built-in support for Material Design and Cupertino styles, Flutter provides cohesive and responsive UIs, making it a powerful tool for developing native-like applications.

6. Dart: A Powerful Programming Language

Dart is the programming language used in Flutter to build natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single code base. Designed for client-side development, Dart offers numerous amazing features, including a strong type system, garbage collection, and async/await for asynchronous programming.

With Dart’s expressive syntax, along with robust libraries and tools to build high-quality apps, Flutter turns out to be the best mobile app development framework.

7. Flutter for Web and Desktop

Flutter has gone beyond mobile app development. It enables you to develop applications for the web and desktop. With the stable release of Flutter 2.0, web support became production-ready, helping developers to build web applications alongside mobile apps.

The desktop support in Flutter 3.0 has brought native desktop applications to the forefront, supporting Windows, macOS, and Linux. Also, it has improved performance and the native look and feel of all the platforms.

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8. Modern Development Ecosystem

With modern development practices, Flutter has become more integrated. The support for popular IDEs like VS Code and Android Studio has been enhanced. It has also started providing better support to CI/CD tools like Codemagic and GitHub Actions.

The below integration has made Flutter app development a better option for building mobile apps.

• Firebase for backend services
• AWS integration
• Sentry for error reporting
• Better testing frameworks and tools
• Riverpod for popular state management solutions
• Crashlytics for crash reporting

The Role of Flutter in Cross-Platform Development

Flutter’s ability to build an application for multiple platforms with a single codebase has solidified its role in the cross-platform development landscape. It adds value to your business by offering a compelling alternative to traditional native development and other cross-platform frameworks like React Native.

Therefore, Flutter’s focus on performance, developer experience, and multi-platform support has made it a popular choice for startups and large enterprises.

Having a vibrant ecosystem, including a wide range of tools, widgets, and plugins, Flutter enables developers to rapidly integrate complex functionalities into their applications. Also, Flutter follows the “write once, run anywhere” approach, which allows developers to build high-quality, visually appealing apps with a single codebase. As a result, it helps developers to reduce development time and costs.

Success Stories: Renowned Applications Built with Flutter

Due to its cross-platform app development compatibility, Flutter has gained widespread acclaim. That’s the reason that startups and Fortune 500 companies have harnessed the power of Flutter to deliver exceptional user experience.

• Gaming with PUBG Mobile

Yes, you read that right! The creators of the game decided to ditch native and chose Flutter for specific in-game features. This showcases the adaptability of Flutter to high-performance environments like gaming.

• Taking Notes with Reflectly

Reflectly is a renowned journaling application that has an intuitive UI. Since this app utilizes Flutter, it offers a smooth experience on both iOS and Android platforms along with smooth transitions, making it the preferred app for note-takers worldwide.

• Beautiful UI with Alibaba's Xianyu

Xianyu by Alibaba, China’s popular eCommerce platform, leverages Flutter for its visually stunning and feature-rich user interface. Xianyu is one of the prime examples of developing a distinctive and captivating app experience, thanks to Flutter's ability to create native-looking features.

The above-mentioned success stories highlight the efficiency and versatility of Flutter in developing high-performing, visually appealing applications for various industries. Flutter's robustness and growing ecosystem empower developers to build world-class applications, driving its popularity and adoption globally.

And that’s why Flutter promises to be a major player in the custom application development landscape for years to come.

The Future of Flutter: What’s Next?

The future of Flutter is bright for mobile app development. Although the framework is still in its early stages compared to its alternatives, it has a wide space for growth and improvements.

Since Flutter is free and open-source, its entire community and Google’s technical team are working on new features to integrate and provide user-centric benefits. That’s the reason it brings more improvements with every release.

Since its first release, Flutter has proved itself to be the leading technology, boasting over 1 million apps built around it.

Now you can imagine how Flutter has evolved over the years from being a tool considered limited to mobile app development to making a way for desktop applications.

Hence, it’s safe to say that Flutter looks promising and is here to stay. This justifies why there should be no question about choosing Flutter app development for your business.

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The Flutter World: Go Ahead with RadixwebWith the tech giant Google behind its history and evolution, Flutter is not going anywhere. With its rapid development and extensive community support, Flutter continues to empower developers to create high-performance applications across multiple platforms.Therefore, it’s high time for you to be part of the large community by considering Flutter as your primary technology or going for Flutter app development services. If you have an idea for an application, we’d love to hear from you and help you achieve your goal.As an experienced Flutter mobile application development company, we will transform your vision and add value to your business by developing a cutting-edge application.Connect with us and share your ideas.