Everyone is thriving to choose the best mobile application development platform for fulfilling their business and technical requirements. It not only acts as a catalog for mobile workers but also enables the employees and customers to manage feedback, ratings, custom branding, and more.
Enterprise App Development
An enterprise application is a custom app that helps in creating scalable solutions which in turn helps employees in engaging customers, partners as well as employees. These apps act as a one-stop solution for all intra-company issues, be it technical or business. Admins have the power to moderate the data into wide-scale automation as well as a centralized system wherever and whenever needed.
Enterprise mobile applications have three categories in general namely, native applications, mobile web applications, and hybrid applications.
- Native applications:Native applications are those which are built only for a specific interface. They have different codes for different platforms. For example, apps like Facebook and Instagram have different apps for Android as well as iOS.
- Mobile web applications:While mobile web applications are very different from native ones. They are basically websites that are optimized for mobile phones. Mobile web applications do not take much space in the memory and are highly convenient for small-sized organizations. They are still in their development phase and a lot is to be done to achieve supremacy.
- Hybrid applications: As the name suggests, a hybrid application is a combination of native and web mobile applications. Best suited for cross-platform requirements, these apps are being used by a lot of organizations worldwide. A mobile app development company that wants to increase its revenue can provide these services.
What exactly is a Hybrid Application?
A hybrid application is a type of app that can run on multiple operating systems such as Windows, Android, and iOS. Developers create a hybrid software by including a single code bar for all platforms. This means the need for writing the code multiple times vanishes. Rather, they can write code and run it anywhere.
The development of a hybrid application because possible with the help of tools that made it easier to communicate between native and web applications. This is one of the reasons why hybrid mobile applications can be easily transformed into native apps.
Developers create such apps using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Different JavaScript frameworks like Ionic, React Native, etc are also used in the process. These frameworks allow the app to run through the embedded browser of the platform instead of its web browser. This allows the user to download and install apps on mobile devices and use them later. Hybrid applications give the look and feel of native applications with the functionality of working on different platforms. It is a prime representative of cross platform app development. The features and advantages of hybrid apps above native or web apps make them a strong candidate for implementation in Enterprise applications. There are plenty of development frameworks available in the market. But for an enterprise-specific development, it is important to choose the one which suits the requirements perfectly.
Which App Development Framework Is Future-Ready For Enterprise Apps
Though there is a long list of choices available for app development framework for enterprise apps, flutter is one of the most favorable of all. Flutter is an open-source, cross-platform development toolkit. It has a codebase that offers varied functionalities useful for almost all the operating systems such as Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, Unix, Mac, Google Fuchsia and more. Flutter uses Google's object-oriented language, Dart, to develop applications. It can be used by a progressive web app development company as well as a hybrid mobile app development company. This framework has been able to bypass the shortcomings of other frameworks such as inefficient UI, fast-aging source code, or lack of security.
According to experts, Flutter is the future of app development as it has support like native apps as well as abilities like cross-platform apps. Flutter is considered the winner as far as enterprise mobile application development services are concerned.
Why Flutter Is The Future Of Enterprise Apps?
Besides the above-mentioned benefits, there are few more points due to which flutter is considered as the future of enterprise applications. Let us dive into the following points that make flutter so suitable for enterprise application development.
- Single-Code Base For Multiple Platforms
This is by far the largest achievement and reason behind the popularity of Flutter. It is a single codebase framework for multiple platforms. Not only mobile operating systems such as Android or iOS, but apps made through Flutter are also greatly compatible with the web as well as desktop operating systems such as Windows and Linux. For an organization that is looking for a medium to digitize its working procedure, this can prove to be a great starting point. Flutter demands lesser effort as well as time and does not let companies compromise with quality.
- Widgets Are Completely Customizable
Another major advantage of Flutter is the support widgets that are platform-centric. There are two sets of Flutter widgets, namely, Cupertino and Material design. These widgets make it possible for the flutter mobile application development services to design UI/UX which is specific to different platforms. This gives the enterprise app the look and feel of a native application. Different widgets are launched at regular intervals of time which makes this framework up to date and trendy according to the changing world.
- App Development Is Quick
Well, this is something that app companies look for. Quick application development results in cost and time efficiency of the companies. The testing process is also quick as the testers do not have to test for separate platforms individually. Since flutter is a single codebase platform, it plays a vital role in minimizing the mobile app development cost as well as the efforts from the developers' side.
- Numerous Open-Source Packages
Flutter comes with a huge number of open-source packages. These packages support faster and more interactive development. Some of the well-known packages are Youtube player, Flutter Ecommerce, Frideos flutter, and more. In addition to that, developers all around the world keep adding interesting works to the library of flutter that makes the platform even more extensive. It gives a huge opportunity to know and learn from fellow flutter developers.
- Multiple Learning Sources Available
Flutter's website consists of useful resources for developers who are currently learning its declarative UI style. Additionally, it has detailed documentation available on the web and developers can resolve their queries whenever required. The documentation also helps in gaining knowledge about the new versions, plugins, and latest additions to the framework. It has also a massive developer community in which people learn and try to solve each other's problems.
- The Experience To The Developers Is Great
The flutter framework is power-packed with the best possible IDE support with the help of plugins for Android Studio/IntelliJ as well as Visual Studio Code. If you are a flutter developer, you need not have expertise in a number of languages such as Swift and JavaScript. Instead, having a good command over Dart can easily do the job. Dart comes with two modes of compilation, namely, ahead of time and just in time. These modes help in hot reloading the app development process. The pressure on the developers is relatively less as Dart is statistically typed. This means the tools are well-prepared for handling heavy lifting for any PWA development company.
- Layered Architecture
Any enterprise application has different levels in its architecture. These levels are interconnected concerning various spheres of development including presentation, service, data access, and business. When such a separation model is designed, developers need to change the way of working to offer the following things:
- Collaboration between various teams all over the enterprise
- Coding designs that are validated and well-documented
- Functionalities that are easy to understand and use
When such complex requirements are there, the working environment demands highly productive machinery that can cater to the demands of the enterprise. Programmers who make use of flutter in app development get extra benefits such as local storage, SQLite databases, State management, JSON serialization, deep linking, and more. This results in a well-defined architecture making it possible to develop apps with a low failure rate.
- Other Benefits
The above benefits are the big ones, there are some small misc benefits that people don't pay attention to. The developers work hard and pay attention to even small details to make the app perfect. "Flutter" is a great option for hybrid app development and that can be said because of the result that people have seen. Enterprise app development is a really sensitive task, the developers need to be careful while they develop an app. Below are some other benefits that they get when the application is developed perfectly.
- Developed Hybrid Apps Resemble Native Apps:
- This framework contains a separate rendering engine
- No change in UI or Code because of change of Platform
Flutter is expanding its wings, the development framework is used by a lot of companies around the world. You can also find it in the stack of some of the best applications in both android and iOS app stores. Flutter is great for both mobile and PWA app development company.
Comparing
When you want to know if a framework is good or not, you first check it against your requirements and you can check it with other frameworks. Flutter can be checked with React Native, Ionic, and Xamarin. These are frameworks that can be used to develop both native and cross-platform applications. That means that they fall in the same category as Flutter. All of them have their own features and their own qualities. When those qualities are compared with the qualities of Flutter, it would be clear if Flutter is best or not for the future of enterprise application development.
There can be multiple factors on which two frameworks can be compared. The one that will be better will have everything in balance. It might not be the best in everything, but the best according to the requirement. Here, our requirement is that we need a framework that can fulfill all the demands of an enterprise application. Businesses these days need applications that can help them with their own business and that is hybrid app development services are coming into demand.
- Flutter And React Native
React native can also be used for the development of hybrid (cross-platform) applications. The code is written in one of the most complex and dynamic programming languages i.e., Javascript. This is a framework that is mostly used to develop applications that are feature-rich. These applications have a complex idea that will provide many advanced functionalities to the users.
On the other hand, flutter is very easy to learn and execute. Even a person who dedicatedly trains themselves for a few months can provide a basic enterprise application to the company. It is easy to program with the help of this hybrid app development framework. The applications also run smoothly on all the platforms it is developed for.
Another benefit is that the flutter developer doesn't have to segregate the data and the template when the development process is going on. This is something that the developers have to do when they are using React native as the mobile app development framework.
Another difference lies in the architecture of both these frameworks, React has two parts in its architecture, the native components, and the JS language part. The applications that are developed using React Native, are built with the help of JS and hence they need a bridge to interact with the native components. Native components are Camera, GPS, etc. On the other hand, if we talk about Flutter, it doesn't require any bridge to connect to the native components.
In all ways here we can see that Flutter is better for enterprise applications because they are mostly general operations apps. They are not too complex and mostly don't require any advanced technology integration. The main thing that they want is flexibility and availability on all platforms that their employees are using. That can be achieved easily when Flutter is used for development.
- Flutter And Ionic
These two are very similar. A person who has not developed with both earlier will feel that many of their features are identical. They both offer high-performance app development features. The hybrid applications developed using any of these platforms have great security and functionalities. They have the scope of scalability in the future as well. Still, they are not exactly the same and there are some things that we can compare them to.
Now, Ionic is great for desktop, web applications, and for a progressive web app development company. Flutter on the other hand is a great choice for a company that deals in mobile app development. Hybrid mobile app development is great with the help of flutter as compared to Ionic.
Ionic can still be used for the development of hybrid mobile applications but it uses web technologies. Because of the use of web tech in the development stack, the speed of the application gets slow and the performance of the application is affected. Flutter is a framework that already has libraries and widgets for application development. This helps a lot for a mobile app development company.
- Flutter And Xamarin
Both these frameworks are open-source and hence they are free to customize and use. One of these can be used for commercial purposes without having to pay for them. Both of them are used frequently in the app development industry but still, there are some things to compare.
Firstly, as mentioned in the second sentence of the last paragraph, one of them is free or commercial use and that is Flutter. Xamarin charges the developers if they use it for anything that is commercial. Most developers who use Xamarin are using it for commercial purposes. That is one of the reasons why people prefer Flutter above it.
Now, talking about the performance, the hybrid applications that are developed using Xamarin face some glitches. Glitches have no space when they are inside an enterprise application. A lot of things can go wrong if the app developed for some enterprise starts working differently. This is why most developers prefer Flutter for the development of these kinds of applications. Flutter can even be used for applications that contain complex visuals, like games. Many mobile game development companies choose Flutter for their development stack.
Read the blog- What Are The Benefits Of Opting For Hybrid Application Development?
Now, after comparing this with all three other frameworks we can safely say that there is no better choice than Flutter Enterprise app development needs a framework that is fast, has inbuilt support, libraries and widgets. Also, the framework should not provide any glitches to the application. There are many departments that are connected with the help of enterprise apps and if the app stops working, they stop working. This is not at all what the clients want. If this happens, it can be a really bad thing for the future of the cross platform app development company.
Will Flutter Mobile App Development Get Better In Coming Years
A question that is important to ask when we are talking about the platform that is best in the present. It is important to know if the framework that is used so extensively today will still be relevant in the future or not. The developers and the development companies need to be prepared for the future, so if there are chances of some new technology coming up, they need to be ready for it. Let's see what the year 2021 has for flutter:
- The performance of existing iOS and Android applications will be improved.
- There will be production quality support for platforms like macOS, Linux, and Windows.
- The overall quality of the applications that are developed with the help of flutter will be improved. This is something that will give an edge to the hybrid app development services
- A new safety plugin will be introduced. The safety of developed applications is an important concern for companies. Enterprise applications have a lot of sensitive data in them, it was important that the developers improved the security.
These are just a few things that are going to happen, there are many more to come. The development fraternity trusts the framework and the community behind it is working hard to make it better. Every day a new framework gets launched or updated, this is the time to pull up the socks and keep getting better. There are no chances that Flutter will go out of demand anytime in the near future. The next framework that takes its place will have to be very efficient and super easy. Until then the chances of any other framework taking its place is not possible.
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Conclusion
After reading everything about Flutter we think you will also say that Flutter is indeed the best framework for enterprise app development. But, if you are a developer then you need to check it out yourself. The best part is, there is no cost that you have to pay even if you make use of it for commercial purposes. That is something that other open-source development frameworks don't allow. It is important to understand that every framework has its own characteristics and the characteristics that flutter possess are great for enterprises.
The software requirements suit the framework perfectly and the development companies will also have to put in really fewer efforts. Developers would be able to think of creative ways, they won't have to be stuck over some code for different platforms. Single code, high-performance, attractive UI/UX, and easy to learn and execute. The applications developed through this framework have had great track records. "Flutter" framework is a great option for development companies who want to get into enterprise app development.
