Developing mobile apps is hard work. You have to build for both iOS and Android platforms, which means twice the development time and cost. Updates need to be rolled out separately, bugs have to be fixed twice, and you have to manage two codebases. It's messy and time-consuming.

Enter Flutter.

Flutter is a new open-source framework by Google for building cross-platform mobile apps. In this post, we'll explore how Flutter can save both time and money compared to native app development. By the end, you'll see why you should consider Flutter for your next mobile project.

Let's dive in and look at how Flutter saves time and money for mobile app development Starting with time saving benefits:

The Time-Saving Advantages of Flutter

Flutter offers several features that speed up development considerably. Let's look at a few of the main ones:

Single Codebase

Flutter uses the Dart programming language and provides a unified codebase to build apps for both iOS and Android. This means you can use one codebase to launch your app on two platforms simultaneously. There's no need to rewrite it twice or maintain two separate code repositories.

This “write once, run anywhere” approach saves massive amounts of time. Your developers don't waste effort reinventing the wheel for each platform. Changing shared logic and business rules also becomes much faster with a single codebase.

Hot Reload

The Flutter hot reload feature allows you to make changes to your code and see the results instantly without restarting your app or losing state. This enables much faster development cycles and cuts down the time to build and test UIs iteratively.

Hot reload works wonderfully well in conjunction with Dart and the rich Flutter widget framework. You'll be able to experiment freely and make tweaks on the fly to get a seamless UI. It makes prototyping early versions and shaping the final product far quicker compared to full native builds.

Rich Widget Library

Speaking of widgets, Flutter comes packaged with a large, rich set of customizable UI widgets. Complex visual components like lists, grids, various input elements, buttons, sliders – you name it – are all readily available.

This vast widget library enables rapid UI construction without having to code everything from scratch. Reusing and composing these widgets directly translates to faster development and quicker build times.

Cross-Platform Testing

When you use Flutter, you don't have to test your apps separately for iOS and Android. You can utilize the same test suite run tests for different platforms simultaneously.

Setting up automated tests is also easier with one codebase. Once test cases are created, they work across platforms without any extra effort. This further decreases QA time and helps ship apps faster.

The Cost-Saving Benefits of Flutter

In addition to a faster development cycle, Flutter apps bring several long-term cost optimizations as well.

Reduced Development Resources

With Flutter, you only need one app development team to publish apps for iOS and Android users. This means lower HR costs since you require fewer specialized native developers.

Your developers also become more versatile over time as they gain expertise in creating apps for two platforms. Code sharing reduces duplication of efforts, allowing your team to develop features much faster.

Ultimately, you maximize productivity with smaller teams and reduce project costs significantly.

Faster Time to Market

We've already discussed how Flutter helps speed up app development with hot reload, widget reuse, unified testing, and other features.

Naturally, quicker development leads to faster go-to-market timelines. You can validate and launch new app ideas sooner based on user feedback rather than get bogged down in month-long native builds.

Releasing apps faster allows you to establish a foothold sooner. And in the competitive mobile space, timing often spells the difference between success and failure.

Simplified Maintenance

Maintenance becomes easier and less expensive over the long run with Flutter. When you fix bugs or roll out updates, the changes are reflected across platforms with a single code change.

You avoid going through repetitive update processes for iOS and Android separately. There's no overhead in terms of development, QA, or release coordination efforts.

This advantage will be felt more and more as your app matures post-launch. Your costs spiral downward as maintenance overhead reduces significantly compared to native apps.

Open-Source Community

Finally, it's worth highlighting the open-source nature of Flutter. Being an open-source project, Flutter enjoys constant community contributions.

Hundreds of free packages, plugins, and technical resources are available. There's always help at hand via documentation and discussions. As challenges arise during your project, you can tap into the collective wisdom of the Flutter community.

This abundance of help, resources, and support cuts costs further compared to working in a silo with proprietary frameworks.

Addressing Potential Concerns

Yes, Flutter helps businesses save time and money, but like any new technology, there are always going to be some skeptics. Let's talk about a few typical worries:

Learning Curve

It's true that developers need to get used to a new language (Dart) and framework while working with Flutter initially. But thousands of developers have already done so successfully.

With core concepts like reactive frameworks, the learning process gets easier over time. And Dart turns out to be relatively intuitive for most programmers.

Performance Concerns

Some people assume Flutter has performance issues compared to fully native apps. However, benchmarks have proven such perceptions false.

In reality, Flutter's careful architecture delivers full-native performance on both iOS and Android. Apps like Alibaba, New York Times, eBay all demonstrate Flutter's capabilities to build complex, high-performance mobile experiences matching native standards.

And things will only improve further with Google and the community's focus on enhancements like improved animation support.

Limited Native Features

No cross-platform framework can match 100% of platform-specific capabilities initially. While Flutter apps can access native features like camera, GPS, sensors easily via plugins, some edge cases may present temporary challenges.

However, the landscape is evolving rapidly. With Flutter 2.0's launch and extensive work on Dart-native interop, the gaps get covered gradually. Support for Google Maps, in-app payments, Siri shortcuts, instant apps proves the progress made already.

Where limitations exist, developers usually find workable solutions like writing custom integrations. So lacking functionality is a short-lived and easily surmountable barrier at best.

Wrap Up

We've explored some strong benefits around using Flutter for mobile development. To summarize:

  • Flutter helps unify coding for different platforms with Dart. This directly saves development and testing time via reuse and code sharing.
  • Hot reload, rich components, centralized testing accelerate app building compared to native tools
  • Single dev teams, faster launches, easier maintenance all contribute to long term cost savings
  • Community support mitigates risks arising from skill gaps or platform limitations

Clearly, Flutter scores highly on both productivity and cost optimization parameters compared to native app development.


If you seek faster, affordable mobile development with wider reach, do take Flutter for a spin. Take advantage of the generous free resources to build your first Flutter app.  You can also hire dedicated Flutter developers. They can help you develop the perfect app saving your money and time.