Flutter Vs Ionic

Building cross-platform mobile, and don’t know how to choose between Ionic framework vs. flutter? This guide from ProCoders can help.

In a world that’s increasingly working on mobile devices, companies can’t afford to have anything less than world-class mobile applications. That means having cross-platform apps that can work seamlessly, no matter what operating system your end user is working on.

To accomplish this, most experienced developers will look to the most popular choices: Ionic, or Flutter. Sussing out which one of these is best for your project is a trickier business. It all comes down to how well you understand the debate between Flutter vs. Ionic framework.

If you want your development to run smoothly, it’s important that you understand the performance differences between of Ionic vs. Flutter, Ionic 4, and how that will play out for your project. Let’s dig deeper.

Flutter

A short overview

Developed by Google in 2018, Flutter is considered a gold-standard that’s scalable and fast, with a UX platform that plugs directly into your backend code. Flutter uses Dart as its code. It works well with JavaScript for backend functions, and similarly, with Objective C and Swift in iOS. It’s a major differentiator between the Ionic and Flutter

Google’s sponsorship of Flutter made it an immediate, runaway success. The framework’s thriving user community comes fully stocked with open-source libraries, resources, and answers to your programming dilemmas.

Matching up Flutter vs. Ionic performance, Flutter can definitely come out on top, depending on the mobile app performance you’re needing. Apps without web counterparts that are light and easy to load may do best with this technology. For a more detailed drill down of Flutter vs. the Ionic 4 platform, let’s look at the key traits of the frameworks.

Advantages

In a comparison of Flutter vs. Ionic, Flutter has many worthy selling points, including:

• Hot-reloading — Changes appear as you code. It’s one of the reasons why developers come down in favour of Flutter in a matchup between Flutter vs. Ionic performance
• RichWidgets — Combined with RichWidgets, Flutter can offer you a world of choices for rich, layered functionality in your apps that are compatible on any operating system
• Flawless back-end integration — Whether your backend is in Java or Objective C, Flutter will integrate smoothly enough to make your frontend look as native as your backend. And it makes your cross-platform code sharing go better, too
• Quick iteration — Flutter’s fast cycling trims hours off your coding and quality control

Disadvantages

In any discussion of Flutter vs. Ionic framework, it’s important to remember there are very specific performance downsides. They may or may not be important, depending on the needs of your project. But here are some common disadvantages you may experience:

• Immaturity of platform — Because Flutter was launched less than three years ago, there hasn’t been as many community-generated tools and libraries built yet. Still, there’s many options, and more are coming every day
• Rendering issues — if you’re using vectored or moving images, you may have issues in rendering your plug-ins on time
• Platform compatibility — While Flutter does, in general, offer cross-platform interoperability, there are still apps it won’t play nicely with, including tvOS, Android Auto, CarPlay and watchOS
• Updating roadblocks — While some platforms will allow you to instantly post system changes, Flutter makes you work through its processes, every time. When it comes to Flutter vs. Ionic performance, that’s a point you can’t overlook

What’s Flutter used for?

To truly understand Ionic framework vs. Flutter, it helps to see them in a real use case environment. You’re most likely to see Flutter used for:

• Minimally Viable Product (MVPs), which can utilize Flutter’s light construction to make speedy first edition or proof of concept apps
• Apps using material design language
• Simple Logic OS Plugins
• Skia used for high-speed, high performance rendering
• User interfaces that use code-dense widgets
• UX with heavy data integration and user interaction

Ionic

With all the advantages it has, shouldn’t Flutter win in a matchup between Ionic vs. Flutter? Not so fast. Whether either framework is good or bad depends very much on what you need your cross-platform app to do. Let’s take a longer look.

A Short Overview

Ionic is an open-source framework for creating user interfaces that work on any operating system. Released in 2013, Ionic works with well-known languages like HTML, CSS, React Native, Angular, Vue.JS and JavaScript for integration with your backend.

It’s a simple, well integrated framework that makes it possible to design beautiful, responsive UI. In the battle between Flutter vs. Ionic 4, Ionic often comes out the winner due to the performance of the framework, and the ease of programming it.

Advantages

In the matchup between Flutter vs. Ionic 4, Ionic is often chosen because of its integration with JavaScript, making it a developer darling, as the majority of programmers are very comfortable with this language. In addition, developers also like:

• Simplified developer interface — the platform operates with a capacitor, which creates an easy-to-use interface for working with SDK and Native API on all platforms
• One version does it all — Ionic operates on a singular codebase that’s anchored in the whole array of JS libraries. This eliminates duplications of code to sync with other platforms.
• Works to scale — There’s no hard limit to the amount of users. Keep scaling up. Ionic can handle it.

Disadvantages

When it comes to Flutter vs. Ionic 4, Ionic may come out on top for its speed and elegance. But it has its downsides, too, such as:

• Too reliant on plug-ins — Ionic converts all plug-ins to JavaScript. This is fine if you’ve got JavaScript plugins ready off the shelf. If you’d like to use another plugin that uses other languages/libraries, you may find yourself trying to version them back over to JavaScript on your own
• Absence of Hot Reloading — in a contest between Flutter vs. Ionic 4, this is one area where Ionic’s framework performance really falls down. Because it doesn’t accommodate hot reloading, the program refreshes every time a change is made. This can really slow down your development speed
• Code Uglification? — While this isn’t the case on the newer updates of Ionic, older versions don’t provide code uglification, eliminating an important security tool from your toolbox
• Complex apps are left in the cold — Memory intensive apps don’t do so well here, as it requires the notoriously slow WebView for rendering

What is Ionic Used for?

When it comes to a contest between Ionic and Flutter, Ionic is the only framework out there that allows developers to create with a single, simple to use JavaScript codebase. You’ll find it used most often in hybrid app development, MVC mobile applications, apps with heavy backend integration, and any kind of app that is lightweight, and fast, with a high performance UI/UX load.

Flutter vs Ionic Major Attributes Comparison

Conclusion:

Companies trying to suss out the differences between Ionic vs. Flutter should really look to the end product they want to achieve to make a framework decision. Do you have an app that’s lightweight, with lots of moving pictures and elaborate user interfaces? Choose Ionic. Heavier apps where seamless backend access is key will most likely benefit from using Flutter.

We at AppleTech are adept at developing scalable and robust solutions built on both frameworks. Reach out to us today.