Flutter, the most loved cross-platform UI SDK from Google, is widely considered technology specific to mobile app projects. However, Flutter was conceptualized to reuse the same code across mobile, desktop, and web platforms from the very first release. The only impediment that Flutter had earlier was a lack of support for web and desktop apps. Fortunately, Flutter 3.0 release diminished this shortcoming forever. Flutter is now a fully-fledged SDK for web development as well.
Just for what Flutter is known among mobile app developers, the same flexibility and compatibility now make Flutter, an excellent choice for web developers. Flutter can be used to develop web apps that can run across all leading browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Safari.
Globally renowned Flutter app development company knows the latest result-driven web development capabilities offered by the flutter framework. Before describing the tools for Flutter web development, let us begin by explaining the key strengths of Flutter for web development.
Is Flutter good for Web Development? How?
Flutter is increasingly being preferred for building web apps for several reasons. Apart from code reusability, flexibility with tools, and the scope of modular customization through widgets, Flutter also lowers the development cycle and cost to a minimum.
Start with Web and Extent to Mobile or Vice Versa
A business can start with a simple web app and later on can reuse the same code for mobile apps. You can use Flutter for another way round as well. Ultimately, using a single codebase can make a consistent digital presence across the web and mobile platforms.
The best part is, for addressing device-specific resolution and screen dimension differences, Flutter can also help carry out platform checks beforehand. This ultimately helps render different screen types for web and mobile apps.
If you have a Flutter-based mobile app up and running, you can use the same code to develop a crisp, lightweight, modular, and aesthetically appealing website or web app using the same codebase. This ease of extending across all platforms makes Flutter an ideal cross-platform solution.
There is another reason many ambitious app projects use Flutter for web-based promotions. Just alongside your Flutter mobile app, you can create a demo web app built on Flutter for the demo.
Flutter Pros for Web
Leave aside mobile apps, even if you build a simple website or web app, Flutter offers you a well-equipped solution to build dynamic pages. Do you want to create feature-rich and design-savvy single-page web apps with Flutter? You have chosen the right technology.
What are the key pros that make Flutter Web popular? Let’s have a quick look.
- Flutter is capable of rendering all modern web-specific visual effects such as transition, animation, and rich graphics.
- Flutter is low footprint technology but can easily handle massive amounts of data.
- Flutter comes with inbuilt widget support for adhering to both Material Design and Cupertino to address UI elements of both iOS and Android browsers.
- Do you want to use Flutter for developing online games? Well, Flutter is capable of deploying a fully loaded game engine that provides far-engaging physics and animations.
- Flutter is also great for developing Progressive Web Apps (PWA).
- Flutter is known for the high-speed rendering of animations with 60 frames per second speed.
- Finally, Flutter, with a modular architecture, fits into MVP web projects and offers startups the option of incremental development.
Where Do Flutter Web Developers Differ from Others?
When building web apps, Flutter follows the same modular mobile app architecture and is a User Interface (UI) kit that connects with the backend API. Now for fast-paced and high-performance rendering, Flutter uses the Skia rendering engine. This rendering engine gives Flutter web developers unmatched control in shaping the look and feel of the web app.
On the other hand, Flutter comes with its robust UI widget repository where you can use native UI widgets for different platforms and shape your web app to perfection. Flutter web, just like its mobile counterparts, deals with UI rendering similarly.
Flutter web uses the screen as a complete canvas where the HTML elements are rendered. Since Flutter web uses the most widely used and easier web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and Javascript, you often do not require source code for rendering all the features.
Flutter web supports two rendering engines such as DomCavas and CanvasKit from Skia. The first one follows the tried and tested HTML/CSS/JS technologies and several Canvas APIs for rendering widgets on the web.
CanvasKit from Skia, on the other hand, makes use of two rendering technologies such as WebAssembly and WebGL. Both speed up hardware responses from the web browsers and ensure streamlined graphics and animation rendering.
Flutter Web Development with IDE: A Step by Step Guide
When your web environment setup is created, the Flutter web project needs a particular IDE for building the web app. Below, we provide an example of using an IDE and the respective process to create the web app.
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code now gets full support for Flutter web projects after the recent release of Flutter v3.0. To work with this environment for your Flutter web project, follow the below-mentioned instructions.
- First, install Flutter SDK.
- Now set up the Visual Studio Code
- Make configuration changes so that the Visual Studio Code points to the local Flutter SDK.
- Now run the newly created web project command using Visual Studio Code.
- Start debugging the web app now by simply pressing F5.
- Now, the Visual Studio Code will run the app by utilizing its command-line tool.
Wrapping Up
Flutter web has emerged as the powerful extension of Flutter mobile with renewed vigor and capabilities after the Flutter 3.0 version was released. Like the popularity of Flutter for mobile app development, Flutter web will also gain popularity because of its flexibility, modularity, and rich features.
