Flutter for Building Web Application – Pros and Cons

Vikas Agarwal

Web application development

Flutter applications and websites are rapidly gaining popularity and many companies are now directing their attention towards it. It has become the go-to framework for building engaging and high-performing cross-platform applications. Even though there have been many talks about the advantages and disadvantages of utilising Flutter, not all of them have been based on the most recent version of the framework.

It is important to note that even though Flutter Web has advanced significantly in terms of stability and flexibility, it’s safe to mention that it has the following pros and cons.

Flutter for Building Web Application - Pros

Flutter helps you to build mobile app and website simultaneously:

Being a cross-platform framework, it allows developers to create both mobile apps and websites at the same time. What’s the best part? You can manage both of them using a single codebase, with the same API calls, functions, and logic. All you need to do is to modify the user interface (UI) as per your preferences – if you want a different UI for your website and mobile device or you can also modify the same website UI to fit for a mobile device. Thanks to Flutter app development‘s flexibility and versatility, developers and clients have more control over their projects.

Here, with Flutter, developers can create both screens using a single codebase, and effortlessly make minor tweaks to the user interface to suit different devices- mobile and website. As shown in the above image, you can have a drawer that’s visible on the web screen, but accessible via a drawer button on the mobile screen. Or you could modify the same UI to allow for bottom navigation instead.

If you already have a Flutter mobile application:

When a company already has a mobile application built with Flutter, that application gains more value. This is because it allows you to create web apps more quickly than with other web platforms as you can reuse the same code, UI components, and logic that has previously been used for mobile app. Additionally, it also gives you a freedom to alter the code and eliminate functions from your online version that you do not need now.

Building a companion app for your mobile app:

Flutter Web can also work as a companion for your mobile applications. For example, demo apps, mobile app admin panels, or proof of concept versions of their apps. By utilizing a broader version of the standard Flutter code, developers can create a seamless user experience.

Flutter web can render animations, graphical effects, and transitions:

When it comes to producing gorgeous animations that improve your app’s visual appeal and user experience, Flutter is a developer’s first choice. Animations are simple to construct with Flutter and have a very clean and expert appearance.

It can manage large amounts of data.

Product-specific game engines:

Flutter Web has product-specific game engines that may be used to develop visually amazing games in addition to constructing websites and mobile apps. Developers have already started creating awesome games using it.

It offers PWA support:

A Progressive Web App (PWA) is a website that looks and behaves as if it is a mobile app. PWAs are created so that users can take advantage of native mobile device functionality without having to go to an app store, buy anything, or download anything locally.

Flutter web can render animations up to 60 frames per second:

As we have previously discussed, fantastic animation can be produced with a great frame rate, which speeds up our application or website.

Flutter Web offers the unique ability to incorporate JavaScript code, which is incredibly useful when exploring third-party SDKs or JS libraries:

Developers can simply make their own SDKs using native code when an SDK is not widely available for a certain feature. While this feature may not be necessary for all projects, it’s reassuring to know that Flutter provides the option to incorporate native code when needed.

For instance, you can check out this library as an example of how Flutter’s capabilities can be expanded even further.

This plugin was developed using this SDK. But we can connect helix watch to any android device and with Flutter Web we can create our own thing even when we don’t have any SDK.

Flutter web provides massive commercial and open-source libraries on pub.dev:

Flutter community is rapidly growing, and a tonne of new libraries are being added on daily basis.

Web Scraping is not possible:

Web scraping is the process of using bots to extract content and data from a website.

As far as we are aware, a Flutter app isn’t developed using standard HTML elements, hence scraping is not possible on Flutter-powered websites.

Web browsers are supported by Flutter:

As mentioned in this link, Flutter web apps can run on the following browsers:

Chrome (mobile & desktop)
Safari (mobile & desktop)
Edge (mobile & desktop)
Firefox (mobile & desktop)

Flutter for Building Web Application - Cons

Flutter Web is not SEO friendly:

Flutter may not be your ideal choice for building a website if SEO is your top-most priority.

A website is SEO friendly if it has html element, but we as know Flutter does not use html element, so developers have to keep a check of SEO best practices when building Flutter Web applications.

seo_renderer library is a library that helps you render text, link, image widgets as html elements for SEO purpose. Flutter’s own website is made using this library and is found to be SEO friendly.

Reference link https://docs.flutter.dev/platform-integration/web/faq

The hot reloading feature is tricky in Flutter Web:

Particularly those developers who are less experienced with the framework find it the hot reloading feature tricky. To make the most of hot reloading in Flutter Web, it’s essential to follow best practices and utilize features like Navigation 2.0, with its proper use, it becomes seamless.

You cannot modify already produced JavaScript, CSS, and HTML code:

You cannot modify these however, when working with Flutter, developers have the option to modify these elements within their Dart code instead of directly modifying the native code.

Flutter Web restricts the support of APIs:

Flutter only restricts unsecure API calls, which is actually good for an application. But if you want to bypass it, there is a method that can call those unsecure APIs too.

Its initial load size is poor compared to other classic web development platforms:

It is true but only during debugging. Once the code is uploaded on web or to specific platform, the initial load size decreases to normal.

Page routing in Flutter Web can be tricky compared to other web frameworks:

This is true for inexperienced developers as flutter docs clearly suggest that we need to use Navigation 2.0 for web. If we use it, navigation routing is not at all tricky.

Conclusion

Flutter has unquestionably become a serious player in the web application development space. Flutter was ranked among the top five frameworks by developers in a recent Stack Overflow survey, with more than 50% of participants indicating an interest in using Flutter in the future.

As previously stated, Flutter has several disadvantages in addition to its many benefits. Flutter is nevertheless likely to keep gaining ground in the field of developing web applications thanks to its rising popularity and solid community support. It is undoubtedly a powerful and efficient tool for creating engaging and high-performing web applications. Its advantages are obvious.

Vikas Agarwal

Vikas Agarwal is the Founder of GrowExx, a Digital Product Development Company specializing in Product Engineering, Data Engineering, Business Intelligence, Web and Mobile Applications. His expertise lies in Technology Innovation, Product Management, Building & nurturing strong and self-managed high-performing Agile teams.

Flutter for Building Web Application – Pros and Cons

Web application development