What is Flutter?

Flutter is Google's software development kit (SDK), used to develop mobile and web applications for Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, Windows, Google Fuchsia, and websites. It provides a unique advantage of app development at a fantastic speed from one single codebase. It is primarily based on Google's Programming Language known as Dart. Rather than simply being a UI framework, Flutter is a comprehensive SDK used to build cross-platform mobile applications. Several startups and well-known companies like Alibaba, Tencent, and others already use Flutter in their mobile app development. Flutter has rapidly surpassed the popularity of React Native, Xamarin, and Angular as the most popular cross-platform app development platform. Moreover, even Google uses Flutter as a UI rendering engine in its Fuchsia OS. Hence, it won't be a stretch to state that Flutter has a promising future.

Flutter web stability

Here comes the turning point, Flutter’s versatile SDK is not just limited to apps anymore. Flutter for Web is officially good to go, and it has has already moved on from being in beta to stable. This is excellent news for developers because it will allow them to create extraordinarily stable and attractive websites. 

If you have a Flutter mobile app codebase already, you can use the same for your web app as well. However, one thing to be kept in mind is that it is still in its early stages. Which is why there can be a few glitches and difficulties in advance when you develop web packages using Flutter. It is, however, more than enough for almost all packages. Flutter 2 and later versions consist developer friendly features such as new icons and different components making it simpler to build web apps. Additionally, flutter widgets are built with Google’s material design concepts in mind. This means that even novice Flutter developers can now create fantastic web apps.

How to build your Flutter web project

To build a Flutter web app, you need not necessarily have experience in any other website programming language. The official documentation by Flutter will be your guide with the fundamentals of Flutter Web. Here is a detailed guide by us that will help you create your first app with Flutter Web: To install your first Flutter Web app project, make sure that you have Flutter version 2.0 or above. Also, you need to set up Dart 2.0 or 3.0 for your app development projecy. You can type the commands given below in terminal: Note: Before you start working on a Flutter web project, make sure to first set up Flutter version 2.0 or above.

To ensure that your version of Flutter is up to date, type the following on your command line:

This will provide you with the update status. Further, run the command given below to get the development tools needed for Flutter Web:

Now ensure that the $HOME/.pub-cache/bin directory is inside the path. This allows you to use the webdev command directly from the terminal. Type the commands given underneath for macOS:

Now, you will be able to create a new web project in your IDE.

Moving on, you can create a Flutter web built using the command given below.

Advantages of using Flutter Web

• Animations, transitions, and graphical effects can all be rendered via flutter web.
• It has the ability to handle huge volumes of data.
• Flutter offers excellent support for both Cupertino and Material layout UI elements.
• It can execute a recreation engine for certain products with better physics and animations.
• Flutter gives PWA support.
• It can render animations at the speed of up to 60 FPS.
• You can run a JavaScript code from inside Flutter Web. It’s an excellent choice if you have an SDK or JS library that you need to explore.
• Flutter Web can integrate with modern web apps as an embedded element.
• It gives access to a large amount of open-source and commercial libraries on pub.dev.

Disadvantages of Flutter Web

• Flutter web isn't SEO-friendly. Thus, other web frameworks might produce better results for product marketing on search engines.
• Flutter Web no longer provides sufficient support for plugins.
• You might experience a slower app performance, given that, Flutter web is still in developing.
• It is also slightly complicated in terms of its Hot Reloading. You have the option to either refresh the web page manually or type in webdev serve–auto-restart in the command line.
• Flutter web developers do not enjoy the liberty to modify produced JavaScript, CSS, and HTML code.
• It has places restrictions when it comes to the support of Flutter APIs.
• Flutter web’s load size might also seem to be poor when comparing it with traditional web development. The minimal payload of HTML is 1.8 MB, and that of CanvasKit consists of an additional 2MB, thus offering better performance than Flutter web.