Flutter: The choice of technology that is becoming the standard among the big players.

The IT world changes every year, and for many developers, the ability to adapt and keep their technological stack up to date becomes a vector for further career development.

As a Flutter developer on the Intercode team, I was curious about how popular this framework is in various business projects to ensure the technology choice is relevant. Using the FlutterShark application, which shows which technologies are used to build the installed applications on smartphones, I could find out how actively Flutter is used in software products that are used every day.

It was surprising and gratifying to discover that leading innovative companies in Ukraine, such as PrivatBank, Monobank, Kyivstar, and the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, have chosen Flutter as the main framework for their mobile applications. This information was not easily accessible, as official details regarding the technologies used in such applications are often difficult to find. However, job postings seeking developers with Flutter expertise confirm that these companies indeed favor this technology. This realization marked an important milestone for me, confirming that this way in development is not only promising but also indicates that my professional growth within the company is progressing in the right direction.

Why is Flutter becoming more and more popular?

Flutter is a mobile application development framework created by Google that allows you to build cross-platform applications simultaneously for the web, Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows using a single code base.

• Multi-platform. Build features once and deploy to both mobile platforms iOS and Android.

• Development. Flutter's hot reload feature allows developers to instantly view code changes without needing to restart the app. This feature significantly speeds up the development process, allowing quick iterations, experimentation, and bug fixing. Also, in the release 3.27.1 Flutter introduced support for Swift Package Manager, unlocking access to the thriving Swift package ecosystem and empowering Flutter plugins to leverage a wealth of pre-built functionality to accelerate development.

• A single code base. This makes it easier to maintain and update the application because changes need to be made in only one place.

• Customization. Flutter comes with built-in Cupertino and Material designs, ensuring your apps blend seamlessly with both platforms. Also, with each new version release, the framework gets new widgets with up-to-date design.

• Ecosystem. A wide educational base, a large number of tutorials on the network, and active chats of the flutter community of developers.
Also, the Flutter team regularly hosts open online events, such as #FlutterInProduction , offering valuable opportunities to gain fresh insights and inspiration from real-world Flutter user stories. These events also provide a chance to learn about the latest features directly from Flutter's technical leads and explore what the future holds for Flutter app development in this dynamic, multi-segment virtual format.

Flutter is the most popular cross-platform framework in the world*.
*According to the JetBrains 2021 State of Developer Ecosystem survey.

Challenges and opportunities.

Flutter is quite convenient in the process of developing and supporting applications, which allows our team to implement large-scale and ambitious projects, creating MVP solutions that allow us to quickly test ideas and adapt to user requirements.

While the Flutter ecosystem is rapidly expanding, it has a bigger emphasis on mobile development, and Web or desktop platforms may still have fewer libraries and packages compared to more widely used frameworks. Despite certain limitations, Flutter's flexibility allows developers to utilize existing native libraries as needed expands the scope of the application, and opens up new opportunities for those who seek to engage in cross-platform development in the broad sense.

However, versatility does not always equal convenience, so developers face certain challenges. Sometimes, it is necessary to integrate platform-specific components and functionality, which requires additional knowledge, skills and complexity of configuration compared to other frameworks.
Features like Bluetooth, location, or other hardware-specific operations can involve complex configurations. Developers must navigate platform APIs and ensure the integration works seamlessly with Flutter's Dart code.
Features like push notifications, background tasks, or platform-specific permissions often require additional configuration files (e.g., AndroidManifest.xml for Android, Info.plist for iOS). Ensuring consistency and avoiding errors across platforms can be time-consuming.

Conclusion: the future is in cross-platform solutions.

Therefore, working with Flutter is not just a choice of technology but a strategic approach that meets modern market requirements. We are convinced that Flutter has great value and promise for various industries, as evidenced by its adoption by large companies, particularly banks. This is an important factor because applications in the banking sector must not only provide a convenient interface but also meet high requirements for data protection and resistance to loads.

Today, Flutter is becoming a popular choice for businesses of all sizes, from startups to large corporations. A cross-platform approach allows optimizing resources while maintaining the quality and reliability of the product, which is very important for business.

The realization that the knowledge and experience of our team become the basis of solutions not only for local projects but also for large companies motivates us to develop and use the potential of modern cross-platform technologies to the maximum.