“There are approximately 2.7 million apps available in Google Play Store, which makes it the largest app store. On the other hand, Apple’s App Store managed to hold the second position with approximately 1.82 million apps. And roughly 1 million apps found for other mobile platforms.”
Do these statistics put you in a dilemma of which platform you should choose from? Do you feel confused about whether to go for a native app or a cross-platform app for your idea? Well, in such a fiercely competitive market, targeting a single platform is not a good idea to survive in the market. Cross-platform apps are a great alternative for businesses to save their sinking boat with greater brand visibility and increased reach.
Once upon a time, to develop a cross-platform app, React Native and Flutter were the only options available for the businesses to choose from. The developers and entrepreneurs prefer to go for Flutter app development in India. But in recent years Kotlin has managed to draw attention from developers around the world.
Of course, Flutter and Kotlin both are different in terms of tools and features offered. While Flutter is an open-source platform, Kotlin is itself a programming language. Thus, comparing both is like comparing an apple with an orange. To help you get an idea about which one is better among these two tools, let’s take a closer look at the strengths and weaknesses of them.
Related Reading – Flutter App Development – What Makes it Most Desirable in 2020
Popularity Index
Since both, Flutter and Kotlin, are open source, they are in huge demand. Talking about the numbers, Flutter is used by approximately half a million developers every month. Nearly 2 million developers have used Flutter after its first release in 2018. Flutter app development India has witnessed a great month-on-month growth of 10% in March’20. In terms of apps, roughly 50,000 apps are already published in the Google Play Store.
On the other hand, nearly 1.1 million developers are using Kotlin for mobile app development, mainly Android apps. In terms of market share, Kotlin has 25.30% of market share among the top applications. As per the Google trends, the popularity of Flutter is increasing day-by-day.
Performance Index
In terms of performance both, Flutter and Kotlin bring a variety of features. Flutter is offering a hot reload feature, which makes it easy for the developers to perform real-time changes in their code or review front-end modifications without worrying about saving a file.
On the other hand, Kotlin helps developers compile the code without changing the format. This makes Kotlin a great choice for developers willing to achieve a higher amount of scalability and flexibility.
Experience & Expertise Index
Flutter is considered a tool and hence, developers getting into Flutter app development in India are required to use a variety of widgets available to customize the interface. This greatly simplifies and speeds up the development process. Moreover, it comes with an advanced SDK, so you can hire Flutter app developers to get a customized app to fulfill your business requirements.
On the Kotlin side, developers get the freedom to customize user interfaces without any restrictions. Kotlin enables developers to utilize their creativity in the best possible way.
Also Read – Why choose Flutter for cross-platform app development in 2020?
Ease of learning Index
Both Flutter and Kotlin, are easy to learn and master. However, both require skills of JavaScript and Java to understand Flutter and Kotlin better. For Flutter app development India, the developers are required to gain knowledge of the DART language. But it is not that difficult to understand if a developer has already worked on JavaScript.
Kotlin itself is a programming language. If a developer is having expertise in Java, it would be easy to understand the concepts of Kotlin.
Money & Time Index
When any Flutter app development company starts developing an app, they are supposed to use only a single codebase for a cross-platform app. This greatly reduces time and money spent on having a separate codebase for separate platforms.
When dealing with Kotlin, it is lacking full native-like functionalities. This requires developers to maintain a separate codebase that at the end pile up the development cost and time.
Wrapping Up…
For developing the mobile app, either native or cross-platform, Flutter, and Kotlin are well-suitable and reliable for the developers as well as for the businesses. However, both tools are having a few negative sides too. While Flutter app development India suffers from larger app size and limited educational resources, Kotlin is lacking support for full-native, more expensive, and slow compilation problems for the developers.
Based on the discussion, Flutter is better than Kotlin due to the benefits it offers to the developers. However, based on your project requirements, you can think of choosing either Kotlin or can choose the Flutter app development company. What’s your take on this? Share your views in the comments.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Kotlin is a programming language developed by JetBrains, and it’s often used for cross-platform app development. It can be used with frameworks like Kotlin Multiplatform or with Flutter for building cross-platform applications.
Flutter is an open-source UI toolkit by Google for building natively compiled applications. It uses the Dart programming language and is renowned for its single codebase approach, allowing developers to create cross-platform apps for iOS and Android.
Kotlin offers cross-platform development through Kotlin Multiplatform, allowing developers to share code between different platforms. It promotes code reuse, reducing duplication and improving maintainability.
Flutter and Kotlin serve as different approaches to cross-platform development. Flutter uses a single codebase and a unified UI toolkit, while Kotlin Multiplatform focuses on sharing code between platforms while maintaining platform-specific UI components.
Yes, Kotlin is fully interoperable with Java, making it suitable for native Android app development. Google has officially supported it as a first-class language for Android development.
Kotlin has a relatively smooth learning curve, especially for developers familiar with Java. Flutter’s Dart programming language may have a learning curve for developers not accustomed to it, but its simplicity facilitates a quick adaptation.
Both Kotlin and Flutter can achieve high performance. Kotlin’s performance is influenced by its integration with the Android ecosystem, while Flutter’s performance is attributed to its compilation to native ARM code and its efficient UI rendering.
