5 reasons why you should use Flutter to build your medical app

Cross-platform development today is a prominent competitor to native development. And not without reason: due to the intense competition, businesses are on a constant lookout for more cost-and-time effective ways of product design. Since using cross-platform coding technologies is the solution for optimal mobile solution engineering, many companies have turned towards Flutter. Why? There are quite a few reasons for its popularity today, but let's look at 5 of the most impressive ones.

Flutter is Google's UI toolkit. It is used to build natively compiled mobile and web applications with just one codebase. In other words, you can create two different apps (iOS and Android) on the basis of a single written code.

Flutter consists of two core elements:

1) Software development kit (SDK) — a set of instruments (APIs, libraries, documentation, etc.) that allows compiling code into machine one for use on iOS and Android.

2) Framework— a library of reusable UI elements.

Flutter is written in the Dart programming language, which, by the way, was also developed by Google. By choosing to rely on this language, you will be able to compile the source code in advance into a native one for different platformfl

According to the 2021 survey [1], 42% of developers rely on Flutter, making it the most popular tech in cross-platform engineering (by a small margin over React Native).

As a result, more than 400,000 Flutter-based apps [2] have been released since its official release in 2018 (It was first announced by Google in 2015). Many of them are owned by global market giants such as eBay, BMW, Alibaba, and, of course, Google [3].

Let's start outlining the top 5 reasons why you should pick Flutter for med mobile solution creation (from a technical and business standpoint).

One of the groundbreaking features of Flutter is that it allows you to quickly generate custom interfaces for both Android and iOS. All thanks to ready-made widgets and a single codebase. 

Note: Off-the-shelf widgets can be freely customized, giving you the possibility to create a user interface that is most attractive to your target audience.

The problem is that achieving the same visual appearance for Android and iOS apps is quite difficult. Flutter, however, eliminates this problem. It allows you to create beautiful user interfaces using built-in design-oriented widgets: Cupertino for Apple and Material Design for Android.

This reason leads to the next one.

Product performance is no less vital than engaging design. Users evaluate first with their eyes and then with their hands. Developing an app with Flutter will help provide the user with an incredible app journey. Why? Because the app performance will be indistinguishable from a native app (even in the case of complex animation scenarios).

The point is that Flutter does not use a bridge (such as JavaScript or WebView) to connect the application and the platform. The Flutter application is built directly into the virtual machine code, and you get a compiled app beforehand without significant performance issues.

“Fast development is also possible thanks to the overtime work of the developers”, as some may consider. However, what the toolkit is packed with is probably the decisive factor when it comes to speed. How does the "technical filling" of Flutter allow you to speed up engineering?

Firstly, the "hot reload" feature allows specialists to monitor the changes made to the code in real time. This way, developers don't have to reload the entire application after every change to see if it worked. The applied modifications can be seen almost instantly. This is what makes Flutter-based application design several times faster. 

Secondly, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, the possibility of using the same code to develop an application for two different platforms makes Flutter the №1 choice for situations when it's paramount to quickly launch the product.

Given that Flutter is backed by Google, the tech stack is constantly monitored and updated. Google is regularly examining the bugs that developers encounter and briefly fixes them.

In addition, as an open-source platform, Flutter is free to use and has a growing community behind it that contributes to the Flutter documentation [4]. With its help, engineers can quickly find answers to their tech-based issues. Considering the potential of the technology, Flutter's community has been continuously growing since its launch, with the rising interest of developers allowing the framework to continue improving.

This phenomenon is more than likely to stimulate overall tech advancement. For example, there is an impressive number of independent libraries developed by enthusiasts who support the framework.

148k stars on GitHub [5], constant organization of meetups around the world (Flutter London, Flutter Berlin, Flutter Warsaw, Flutter Chicago, etc.), Discord channels, Reddit, Google developers groups, and others allow tech specialists to work on cohesively improving the framework. As a result, in recent years, there has been increasing in demand for Flutter compared to its main competitor React Native.

Cheap and fast are the two main draws for any digital business. What's more, if the result is also high quality, it's probably a win-win. Flutter-powered solutions fit three criteria:

Nowadays, the cost of mobile app development is about $30,000 (the figure is approximate, of course). If you develop two native apps, you'll have to pay twice, while creating an app for multiple platforms can put an even bigger strain on your budget. With Flutter, you only have to pay for one source code that runs on multiple platforms, significantly reducing your overall development costs. Moreover, the user interface and business logic of the app won't change depending on the platform.

The "write code once and apply it twice" approach benefits not only the budget but also the time to market. In most cases, it takes at least half as many working hours to create a Flutter application (as opposed to native development for both platforms).

With Flutter, you get a well-functioning cross-platform app with an eye-catching design quickly and cost-effectively.

Given the capabilities of Flutter, this framework is a common foundation for our apps (the Medu case is one of the latest). However, there is no one-size-fits-all technology that suits all business needs. Before deciding on the framework, you need to make a thorough analysis of the target audience, market, and your project’s needs. And only then proceed to its implementation.

With 7+ years of experience in developing various digital health solutions, our tech team with med expertise can support you in developing a product from A to Z with a powerful tech stack at its core. Let's start developing user-friendly med-focused solutions together. Contact us, and we will go over all the details.

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