Flutter CTO Report 2024
Get insights about Flutter directly from CTOs, CIOs, Tech Leads, and Engineering Managers!

Flutter framework

What is Flutter?

Flutter is an open-source framework developed by Google that enables companies to build high-performance applications for multiple platforms—including mobile (iOS and Android), desktop (Mac, PC, and Linux), web browsers, and IoT devices—using a single codebase.

Simply put, with Flutter, you can create an application that runs smoothly across various platforms without the need to write separate code for each one. This approach significantly speeds up the app development process and broadens your market reach, allowing you to reach more users. Additionally, it offers considerable savings on the Total Cost of Ownership for product owners.

Initially released in beta in May 2017, Flutter's first stable version launched in December 2018, marking its evolution into a robust solution for mobile app development. Since then, the framework has steadily gained popularity, culminating in the development of over one million iOS and Android apps by May 2023.

With this growth, Flutter is no longer a niche solution; it has become a top choice for major enterprises worldwide. In recent years, companies like Credit Agricole, Toyota, Wolt, Bricomarché, Sizeer, and ClickUp have built or migrated their applications to Flutter—and the list keeps growing!

What are the advantages of using Flutter?

Single codebase

Declarative UI for pixel-perfect screens

Effective Dart for high-performance apps

Many open-source libraries

Vast documentation and community support

Improved developer experience

Extendibility for integrating with native SKDs

Add-to-App for gradual migration to Flutter

Single codebase

Flutter is a comprehensive set of software development tools and a cross-platform solution that enables developers to build web, mobile, and desktop applications from a single codebase. One key advantage of this approach is that the same scripts can be used for both iOS and Android native apps without any modifications, significantly enhancing the speed of application development.

What’s the current state of Flutter?

In 2024, Flutter has continued its steady growth and development with the release of Flutter 3.24, which introduces significant advancements that enhance visual performance and user experience, like Flutter GPU API, thanks to which it’s possible to implement detailed graphics and 3D scenes. This year’s improvements in Flutter feature more future-oriented AI capabilities, allowing for easier integration of machine learning models and speech recognition directly into apps.

It’s worth mentioning that the fast-paced development of Flutter isn't limited to mobile; the Flutter for Web platform is also maturing rapidly. Currently, 64% of CTOs report they are using Flutter to build web applications, highlighting its growing popularity. One of the most notable updates in Flutter for Web is the stable support for compiling web apps to WebAssembly (Wasm), which can significantly enhance performance. Additionally, the latest version introduces hot reload for the web, a feature that streamlines the development process by allowing real-time updates during coding sessions. If you want to learn more about the strategic vision behind Flutter for Web, be sure to check out our interview with Kevin Moore, Product Manager at Google.

The numbers speak for themselves: according to our survey, a whopping 98.9% of CTOs and Tech Leads express satisfaction with Flutter, and 95.7% would choose it again for their next software projects. This should come as no surprise, given that over 80% of respondents report building more than one app using Flutter, showcasing its reliability and scalability. The Flutter community remains a driving force, actively contributing to its ecosystem with new plugins and resources. This ongoing support ensures Flutter remains robust, versatile, and capable of delivering high-performance apps across iOS, Android, web, and desktop, solidifying its position as the go-to choice for cross-platform app development.

top frameworks used by CTOs

Discover how CTOs and Tech Leads are using Flutter in 2024

What is Flutter used for?

Mobile app icon

Mobile apps

Flutter is the go-to solution for developing high-performance mobile applications for Android and iOS. You can build native-like apps with a single codebase that offer smooth user experiences and platform-specific functionalities.

Web app icon

Web apps

With Flutter, you can build responsive web applications that run seamlessly on the most popular browsers, including Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. It’s also ideal for developing PWAs and SPAs, allowing you to create dynamic, efficient web experiences.

Desktop app icon

Desktop apps

Flutter also enables you to build robust Windows, macOS, and Linux desktop apps. Whether you need a highly customizable design or are building a media-rich app with offline capabilities, Flutter for desktop is a powerful and flexible solution.

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Embedded devices

Flutter extends beyond mobile, web, and desktop, making it an excellent choice for building applications on embedded devices like smart displays and IoT systems. Its efficient architecture ensures fast performance even on resource-constrained devices.

What’s the future of Flutter?

It’s safe to say that the future of Flutter looks incredibly bright. Flutter has already established itself as the go-to framework for large-scale applications, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Furthermore, development teams using Flutter are already harnessing future-oriented advancements in AI, like Large Language Models within their development tools, enabling them to build even more efficient applications.

It’s important to highlight the contribution of the incredibly active Flutter community, as they continuously improve the framework and enrich its ecosystem with a wide range of plugins, packages, and resources. There's no doubt that their efforts are the driving force behind the constant development of this cross-platform framework and will continue to shape its future, ensuring it remains relevant and powerful for developers around the globe.

If you’d like to learn more, check out our exclusive interview where our CEO, Łukasz Kosman, sat down with Craig Labetz, Developer Relations Engineer at Google, to discuss the future of Flutter. You’ll gain expert insights directly from Silicon Valley about what’s next for Flutter, including the answer to the everlasting question: "Will Google kill Flutter?".

Will Google kill Flutter? Separating facts from speculation

How can your business benefit from Flutter?

High Flutter app performance

Flutter aims to provide 60 frames per second (fps) performance or 120 fps performance on devices capable of 120Hz updates. Despite being a cross-platform framework, Flutter matches the speed and responsiveness of native apps.

Cost-effective

The cost of building an app often depends on the number of operating systems it needs to support. With Flutter, development is highly cost-effective as the same codebase can be used across iOS and Android. This way, you can significantly reduce development time and costs without compromising quality.

Less testing

With Flutter, fewer code versions mean less testing is required. The development team doesn’t have to write separate tests for each platform, accelerating and simplifying the release process.

Easy integration

Flutter can be seamlessly integrated into existing applications piecemeal as a library or module, meaning you don’t have to rewrite your entire app to take advantage of it. Even if your app was originally developed with native code, you can incorporate Flutter to fully enjoy the benefits of cross-platform development.

What makes us experts in Flutter?

Flutter has been our core technology since 2018

We’ve been developing mobile apps with Flutter since 2018 because we believe this cross-platform framework is the perfect solution for building future-proof mobile applications. Over the past few years, we’ve delivered medium- and large-scale Flutter apps to a wide range of clients, proving that Flutter is the backbone of our expertise. This extensive experience has allowed our mobile team to sharpen their exceptional skills in Flutter, which we bring to every project.

We are proud to be an official Flutter consultancy firm

LeanCode is recognized as one of the top global Flutter companies listed on the official Flutter.dev page. We’re thankful to Google’s FlutterDev team for this recognition, which motivates us to continue sharing our Flutter expertise and delivering top-tier applications for our clients.

We have two GDEs for Dart and Flutter on board

As one of the few Flutter agencies worldwide, we proudly have two Google Developer Experts (GDEs) for Dart and Flutter on our team: Mateusz Wojtczak and Albert Wolszon. They have earned this recognition for their significant contributions to the Flutter community, innovative approaches, and commitment to sharing knowledge. Their expertise enhances our capabilities and inspires our entire team to push the boundaries of what’s possible with Flutter.

We have a team of 30+ Flutter Developers

A large-scale Flutter team opens up a broad spectrum of possibilities—from crafting smaller Flutter applications to developing enterprise-scale solutions involving a dozen Flutter developers or even more. Moreover, our team members have moved from general skills to specialized expertise in various areas, like Bluetooth technology, payment integrations (Stripe, Google Pay, Apple Pay), design systems, media services, and more.

We have a CoreLibrary for Flutter

At LeanCode, we've developed a CoreLibrary specifically for building mobile apps in Flutter. This library contains Flutter packages we’ve created, such as user authentication, Flutter communication with the backend services, or chat functionalities. We also have experience in developing and maintaining component libraries within a design system.

We create our own Flutter packages

At LeanCode, we are the authors of numerous open-source Flutter and Dart packages, which we actively maintain, such as Patrol—a default UI testing framework for Flutter applications. These packages significantly simplify and streamline the development process for our clients' digital products by minimizing the need for additional code and reducing the risk of bugs.

We develop a Flutter UI testing framework

LeanCode is developing Patrol—a Flutter-first UI testing framework that revolutionizes the testing of Flutter apps. Although we use it internally, it’s also an open-source project that gains new users each month. Patrol can drive your Flutter app in ways no other tool can, interacting with the operating system's UI, opening the notification shade, and toggling Wi-Fi and Location settings to enable real-world scenario testing. Patrol is designed specifically for automated testing of app UIs.

We actively support the Flutter community

We organize the Flutter Warsaw event, the largest European meetup dedicated to Flutter, with nearly 2,000 members and 18 editions so far. Additionally, in 2020 we organized the Flutter Europe conference, which was the largest Flutter conference in the world until recently. We also sponsor all major Flutter-related events in Europe, such as Fluttercon Berlin, Flutter & Friends in Stockholm, and the Flutter Festival in Prague. Our developers are committed to sharing their knowledge by speaking at tech conferences across Europe, Tokyo, and New York.

Learn more about Flutter from our seasoned experts

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