Why I Chose Flutter for Mobile Development
Flutter changed how I build apps. Here's why I picked it over React Native and native development — and haven't looked back.
After spending time exploring React Native and native Android development, I landed on Flutter) — and it's been the right call for everything I've built since.
The Cross-Platform Promise (That Actually Works)
Most cross-platform tools promise write-once, run-anywhere but deliver a compromised experience on both platforms. Flutter is different. It renders its own widgets directly to a canvas using Skia (now Impeller), so the UI is pixel-perfect and identical on iOS and Android. No native component wrappers, no platform inconsistencies.
When I built Debbol, having a single codebase that ran identically on both platforms cut my development time roughly in half compared to what a native approach would have taken.
Dart Is Underrated
I was skeptical about Dart) at first. It felt like an unnecessary detour when JavaScript already exists. But after a few weeks with it, I genuinely enjoy it. It's typed by default, has excellent null safety, and compiles to native ARM code. The syntax is clean and familiar if you know Java or TypeScript.
The tooling is also excellent — dart analyze catches errors before I even run the app.
Hot Reload Is a Superpower
This sounds minor but it changes everything. With Flutter's hot reload, I can tweak a widget, adjust padding, or change a color and see the result in under a second without losing app state. For UI-heavy work like building Keepr's password entry screens, this made iteration dramatically faster.
When I'd Choose Something Else
Flutter isn't always the right tool. If a project needs deep platform-specific APIs, a heavy web presence, or a tiny binary size, the calculus changes. And for pure web apps, React is still my go-to.
But for a solo developer shipping mobile apps? Flutter is the most productive environment I've found.