The native environment allows you to achieve maximum performance.
Native code uses less RAM, loads the processor less when working with rather heavy animation, since there are no various transformations for displaying the image that Flutter has.
Minuses
Native development can cost more.
One Flutter developer can often perform the tasks of two native specialists (iOS, Android), as noted above. However, to implement individual native functions for which there are no ready-made plugins, the developer will need to know both iOS and Android in order to adapt native plugins to Flutter or create them from scratch.
However, this does not mean that the costs will automatically increase exactly 2 times, since the costs depend on the specifics of the project, the amount of work, the qualifications of employees and other factors.
Separate tests for each platform.
As with native development, you need to provide for testing the application for Android and iOS. At the same time, there may be differences in the logic of features in different versions.
For animations, cross-platform development is preferred.
When creating various complex animations, each platform may require a different approach, which will increase labor costs. In turn, the cross-platform Flutter not only provides the developer with a layer between the code and system widgets, but also helps in their rendering, providing high speed of action and responsiveness of the interface.
Who is native development suitable for?
multifunctional projects with a high load and multi-stage nesting, such as super applications of Tinkoff and other banks;
large trading platforms with a lot of content, such as Ozone, Aliexpress, Beru;
if you have already formed an IT team, and it has a deeper expertise in native development than in cross-platform.
Summing up
We devoted one of our online broadcasts with business representatives to how to choose a technology stack in order to optimize the budget and terms of product creation. As a result, together with the experts, we formulated several recommendations.
Cross-platform development is suitable for situations where:
The product is not yet widely known, user demand is not formed and it is necessary to quickly bring the MVP to the market as a pilot version.
When the market is formed, but the business wants to overtake competitors and implement a new feature, high development speed for two platforms at once is important. You do not need a lot of time for writing code, testing, and you can save resources.
At the same time, many necessary libraries have already been implemented in Flutter, there is no need to wait for the release of individual tools – they are there and work well, have detailed documentation.
Flutter is a fairly young technology that is now on the hype, as it was with React Native some time ago. React Native was supposed to take on native development. But that did not happen. Mobile native development exists and develops, large vendors support their languages. Flutter is implemented taking into account the errors that existed in earlier solutions.
Rinat, head of the mobile direction
In our practice, native projects make up at least 50%, but there are also projects of leading brands that are actively implementing hybrid development. Each technology has advantages and disadvantages. For which platform the future – time will tell
Honestly about Zero-code: who will suit, how much it costs, when is it better to go into development
At the end of April, we organized a discussion about Zero-code in the Clubhouse. We brought together several professionals in technology and development to finally find out when it is profitable to use Zero-code, what its capabilities and limitations are, and when it is more logical to start development right away.
We got a small battle, and we collected the most important conclusions in the article.
Briefly about terms
Zero-code, No-code and Low-code are approaches in which the tasks of automating and launching IT products are solved without programming or with a minimum amount of code.
Developers, as a rule, are not attracted at the same time: entrepreneurs, designers or products manage themselves. This does not mean that developers are no longer needed: thanks to their work, Zero-code tools arise, which are now used by “civilian” developers.
Zero-code tools are, for example, Tilda. With it, you can publish a landing page on the Internet without writing a single line of code.
Through Ecwid, you can build online stores, in Adalo and Glide – mobile applications, in Airtable – create a database, through Zapier – connect services with each other, and with Integromat – even build complex chat bots with a lot of integrations. Now there are dozens of Zero-code tools on the market that allow you to create almost any IT product: from a mobile application to a marketplace.
To make it more convenient, further in the text we combine the English Zero-code and No-code into the Russian “zerocoding”.
“Zerocoding is the shortest path from idea to implementation. It is as fast as possible, cheap, it is done by the hands of the person who came up with the idea. Previously, it was impossible to come up with something and then, sitting over coffee, collect it and show it to the world. Zerocoding gives the author the ability to turn ideas and hypotheses into finished products that can be quickly confronted with reality and checked whether someone needs it or not.”
Vadim Mikhalev, founder of the largest zerocoder community and the first online zerocoder university Zerocoder.ru
“I would describe zero-coding as a lot of products that have run the spectrum from no code to full development. Let’s say the code is React, Ruby, and so on. And the absence of code is Tilda, for example. And in this interval there are a huge number of solutions that vary in complexity. The more complex the task, the more flexible and powerful the product is needed. The tools for using which it is important to understand at least a little in development are the so-called “low-code” solutions.
Programmers do not like zero-coding – in many ways it is snobbery, but there are also well-reasoned reasons
Programmers often dislike zerocoding. In some cases, this is dictated by distrust of everything new, unwillingness to change. But another important reason is that any zero-coding platform for a programmer is a poorly managed and incomprehensible thing, a black box. It is difficult to test and impossible to change for yourself.