A Successful Business’s Guide to Flutter App Development

Did you know that Flutter is the most popular cross-platform mobile framework used by developers? 

That’s right! 

A whopping 46% of software developers use Flutter for mobile app development. 

Care to know why? 

One reason is that Flutter allows developers to build applications for multiple platforms while using a single codebase. But that’s not the only reason. 

In this article, we discuss some vital benefits of using Flutter for mobile app development and provide a step-by-step Flutter app development guide for businesses looking to build cross-platform apps with Flutter. Lastly, we show you how to hire Flutter app developers for your business. But first, let’s get some background knowledge on what Flutter app development entails. 

Ready? 

What is Flutter App Development?

Flutter app development is simply the process of building cross-platform web, mobile, and iOS-compatible applications using Flutter. 

On the other hand, Flutter itself is a free and open-sourced software development kit (SDK) developed by Google using the Dart Programming Language to help developers efficiently develop different kinds of applications. It is a complete development environment containing a defined set of usable and replaceable app development libraries, frameworks, widgets, and tools that make app development seamless and efficient. 

Through Flutter app development, businesses and individuals can build native applications for different platforms like the Web, iOS, and Windows using a single codebase. This means that you can simply upload to the Android Play Store, Apple App Store, and the Web once you write one uniform code. 

Easy, right? 

That’s right! Flutter app development makes the process of creating applications much faster and more efficient by saving developers time and resources, among many other benefits. Many businesses like yours have identified this advantage since Google developed Flutter in 2017. Some of them include the following:

• Google Pay 
• Google Earth 
• Ebay
• Square 
• Universal Studios 

Are you wondering why these reputable brands are building their mobile and web applications with Flutter? 

Find out in the next section as we explore some vital benefits of Flutter App Development. 

Why Use Flutter for App Development?

The following are some invaluable benefits Flutter app development offers businesses like yours: 

1. Fast Development 

Building your business’s apps with Flutter gives it a greater chance of hitting the market faster than building different applications for each of the native platforms. 

Apart from the fact that you don’t need multiple codebases, Flutter also reduces the time it takes to complete the single codebase you’ll be using. Bruce Chen, a Senior Development Engineer at Alibaba, confirmed this fact by stating that Flutter significantly reduced the time (we) they needed to develop new features from 1 month to 2 weeks. The open-source framework and software development kit (SDK) offer you a universal set of UI building blocks and layered architecture. 

The icing on the cake here is that when you deploy the application, Flutter offers fast performance on any device because the code compiles to ARM or Intel Machine Code as well as JavaScript. 

2. Flexible UI 

Flutter offers developers a rich UI experience when building apps. It also helps them create visually appealing and intuitive user interfaces. 

The framework offers a rich library of customizable and reusable widgets, making it easy to build different layout configurations. It also has several rich motion APIs for creating intuitive animations and transitions. 

When it comes to displaying these UI elements on the user side, Flutter’s Impeller rendering engine ensures top-notch performance on every device. This rendering engine is instrumentable, portable, and delivers a predictable performance across all platforms. 

3. Cross-platform Compatibility 

Flutter facilitates hybrid app development for mobile, web, desktop, and embedded devices, all from a single codebase. More importantly, it ensures that these apps are performant on any device by offering the power of hardware-accelerated graphics for all platforms. 

For example, with Cupertino and Material designs fully integrated into the Flutter framework, you can easily build a feature once and deploy it to iOS and Android apps simultaneously so that your apps feel at home on both platforms. At the same time, you can transform these apps into desktop experiences on Windows, macOS, and Linux without rewriting. 

As a result, your business can offer beautiful apps for all your users and customers across different screens. 

4. Hot Reload

Flutter’s Hot Reload feature makes your development process more agile and flexible by facilitating quick and easy experimentations. Whether building UIs, fixing bugs, or adding features, the Flutter framework allows you to visualize the effects of your changes and decide whether to make them permanent. The framework does this by quickly injecting updated source code files into the running Dart Virtual Machine (VM). 

This feature allows you to code faster with an agile approach while maintaining greater accuracy. 

5. Scalability and Robustness 

The apps you build with Flutter will be highly scalable and robust enough to meet your business’s growing user demands. This is because Flutter’s framework itself is built based on a layer model, making the SDK an extensible layered system comprising a series of independent libraries that depend on the underlying layer. 

As a result, it allows you to package Flutter applications in the same way as other native applications. 

6. Flexible UI Debugging Tools 

Diagnosing and fixing issues with your apps can be a breeze when you build with Flutter, as the framework comes with Flutter DevTools (Dart DevTools). Other tools and applications that make this easy include: 

• VS Code/Android Studio/IntelliJ: Code editor with a built-in source-level debugger. 
• DevTools: A set of profiling and performance tools.
• Flutter Inspector: A widget inspector for examining the visual representation of the Widget Tree 

These tools collectively make it easy for developers to identify any performance bottlenecks, inspect the app layout, catch bugs early, and fix them on time. 

Now you know what you’re up to benefit, and you can’t wait to take advantage of Flutter app development for your business’ advancement. 

How do you go about it? 

Let’s find out in the next step. 

Step-by-Step Flutter App Development Guide for Businesses

By following the steps outlined below, you’ll build Flutter apps that meet the highest technical standards and seamlessly align with your business’s overarching objectives. 

1. Requirement Gathering 

Your first step towards developing a Flutter mobile app should be to thoroughly understand your goals, target audience, and business objectives. This means you should clearly define your app’s users, what they’ll be using it for, and how those factors align with your business’s unique value proposition. 

This requirement-gathering process sets the tone for the rest of your Flutter mobile app development process and tells your Flutter app developers what to do. 

2. Create a Sustainable Business Model 

Once you’ve identified your app’s most vital requirements based on the target users, you need to create a strategy detailing how the users will gain value from the app. This step also applies to other app development processes. It tells the Flutter app developers the most important features and functionalities they need to focus on the most. 

3. Hire the Right Flutter App Developers 

Gathering your requirements and creating a sustainable business model should give you a fairly clear idea of your app’s direction. Now, you need to find a Flutter mobile app development associative with these goals and requirements. At this stage, you must be able to articulate your app’s unique value proposition (UVP) and scope (core features and critical functionality) that determines your app. 

You should look for Flutterr app developers like the ones at Debut Infotech, who deliver their projects on time, are highly skilled, are 100% transparent, and offer 24/7 support and maintenance. 

4. Implement the Right Marketing Approach

The Flutter mobile app development company is expected to handle the technical side of launching your app. They’ll design a seamless user experience (UX) through wireframing. They should also create aesthetically pleasing designs and mock-ups that communicate your major ideas. 

However, your marketing department should prepare solid marketing strategies to introduce the product to market. This starts from a well-planned pre-launch preparation to an adequate app store optimization across all selected channels. Relevant content marketing efforts and user acquisition strategies can also help get your Flutter app the attention and traction it rightfully deserves. 

5. Testing & Deployment

The Flutter app developers are also expected to comprehensively test the single codebase and the native versions across the different platforms (e.g., web, macOS, iOS, Android, and Linux). This ensures that the apps being deployed function optimally across all possible use cases and scenarios for all users. 

At this phase, the developers are expected to identify any bugs or performance issues. They’re expected to put the app in different scenarios that a typical user might explore so that they can ensure the user doesn’t encounter any setbacks. They’ll also test for any security vulnerabilities to ensure all sensitive details do not get into the wrong hands. 

After confirming that everything is working as it should, they can then proceed to deploy the Flutter apps to the different platforms for users to download. 

6. Implement Regular Support & Maintenance Updates 

After deployment, the Flutter mobile app development team must stay put to address any post-launch issues that might have been missed during testing & deployment. These usually surface just immediately after the app goes live, so the team should be on standby to swoop in and make necessary adjustments. You can ensure this by ensuring your support team follows up on all user feedback and comments and passes them across to the relevant technical quarters. 

Additionally, most apps require relevant updates based on evolving user demands and business offerings. These updates keep the app functional, just like when it was first launched. 

By now, you’ve realized the different aspects of Flutter app development and how selecting the right Flutter app development team is crucial to project success. However, with so many individuals posturing as the best Flutter app development professional, how do you select the right Flutter app developers for your business’ needs? 

In the next section, we answer this question by highlighting some general avenues for sourcing Flutter app developers and Flutter mobile app development companies. 

How to Hire Flutter App Developers

The following are some of the most common ways to hire Flutter app developers for your business’s Flutter app development project. 

1. Freelance Platforms 

You can outsource your Flutter app development projects to freelance Flutter app developers on freelance platforms like Fiverr, Toptal, Upwork, Guru, and LinkedIn. 

Pros

Hiring Flutter app developers via this method has the following advantages: 

• Cost-effectiveness: You don’t have to incur employee onboarding costs because freelancers charge per project deliverable. 
• Specialization: Most freelancers often specialize in certain areas to stand out in the market. Therefore, your chances of finding specialized Flutter app developers are good. 
• Time-saving: Hiring app developers on freelance platforms is a quick process with few to no formalities. 

Cons

However, you might face the following difficulties if you decide to hire Flutter app developers on freelance platforms: 

• Potential Reliability Issues: Since you’re dealing with individual developers, there are no guarantees as to what to expect in terms of quality and operational standards. 
• Communication Gaps: Building a Flutter app with multiple freelance developers working independently may result in communication breakdowns and workflow disruption. 
• Lack of Commitment: Most freelancers are looking for quick cash, which may affect their commitment to your projects. 

2. Assembling an In-House Team 

You can also decide to build an in-house development team by hiring Flutter app developers as full-time members of your business’s staff. This approach gives you some advantages and disadvantages discussed below: 

Pros 

Assembling an in-house Flutter app development team has the following benefits: 

• Complete Development Control: You have direct access to the developers, so you have a higher chance of tailoring the app to your company’s vision. 
• Smooth Communication and Collaboration: Team members can interact with each other face to face. 
• Company-Specific Knowledge: Keeping the developers as full-time employees can facilitate the integration of the company’s proprietary information into the development process. 

Cons

• Higher Operational Costs: Hiring, onboarding, and managing an in-house team of Flutter app developers requires significant expenses in the form of salaries, benefits, equipment, and infrastructure costs. 
• Limited Expertise: Your in-house Flutter app developers may not have niche experience for highly technical tasks. 
• Talent Acquisition and Retention Challenges: It might be difficult to attract and keep top-grade experts at your company. This is usually due to the high costs associated with attracting and keeping high-quality Flutter app developers working for just your business.

3. Dedicated Development Teams from Software Development Companies 

Dedicated Flutter app development teams comprise a group of specialized Flutter app developers. They are often contracted to highly technical staffing agencies and software development companies like Debut Infotech. They are highly trained and possess extensive experience building Flutter apps. 

Pros

• Expertise and Specialization: Dedicated Flutter app development teams have a high level of expertise and niche experience that ensure the development of apps according to recent best practices. 
• Cost effectiveness: You don’t have to incur the huge costs of salaries, benefits, and infrastructure associated with assembling an in-house team. 
• Faster Development: As experts who’ve honed their skills for years, dedicated Flutter mobile app development teams deliver projects in shorter development cycles. Also, they focus on your project per time. 

Cons

Despite the huge benefits, the following are some considerations to keep in mind: 

• Hiring Process: Finding the right dedicated development team may take time. Here at Debut Infotech Pvt Ltd, we have a specialized team of Flutter app developers ready to start your project at a moment’s notice. 

Conclusion

Flutter app development could be the difference between spending a third of your app development budget and overshooting your budget. It could be the difference between writing one single codebase and working on three codebases. 

Here at Debut Infotech Pvt Ltd, we help businesses like yours get technically-sound cross-platforms for a fraction of the budget. 

Reach out to our Flutter app developers today! 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)