We will be learning about two very popular mobile development platforms that is kotlin and flutter.
In this topic on kotlin vs flutter, we will not only learn about them but also will compare these two.
so let's go ahead and have a look at what we will be covering today.
1 - What is kotlin
2 - What is flutter
3 - Comparison between kotlin and flutter (various aspects)
4 - Advantages of kotlin and
5 - Advantages of flutter
1 - What is kotlin
Kotlin is a journal purpose statically typed programming language, developed by jetbrains in 2010 and later released in 2016.
Here statically typed means the type of the variable is known at the compile time.
Kotlin is interoperable with java which means both the languages can share and use the information or we can say,
we can use kotlin side by side with java,
and just like java compiler the kotlin compiler also generates the byte code which can run on jvm that is java virtual machine
it is very easy and friendly language and kotlin language is developed by selecting the good features of different languages like
Java
Javascript
C-sharp etc.
Also in 2017 google announced kotlin as an official supported language for android.
2 - What is flutter
Flutter is a user interface toolkit which was developed by google in 2017.
It is not only used to develop mobile applications,
but web applications desktop applications and some embedded device as well.
Flutter is not a language but a development kit which contains all the necessary libraries,tools, documentations etc to build the software.
dart is the programming language which is used in flutter.
that was developed by google in 2011, and is very suitable for mobile and web applications.
Flutter is an open source framework and offer a complete package of widgets tools etc for the development purpose.
3 - Comparison between kotlin and flutter (various aspects)
Performance
With kotlin the kotlin applications directly interact with the device,
which is why the kotlin apps runs faster than the flutter apps,
also the kotlin code compiles in the same format of the platform in which it is written,
which is why it is more suitable for cross-platform mobile app development and that makes kotlin a robust platform.
On the other end if we look at flutter its debugging and development process is quite faster because of its features which is hot reload and hot restart,
these features allows the developers to change the code instantly and see its effect which helps in speeding up the development process and helps in building apps at much faster rate.
Although comparing kotlin and flutter is not that fair because they don't have the common grounds when it comes to performance.
Flutter is a ui toolkit its performance depends on how the interface of the app looks and its frames per seconds etc.
On the other hand kotlin is a programming language which is used to develop android and cross platform apps.
Its measurement of performance is bit different from flutter.
Both kotlin and flutter have different approaches and amazing performance,
but still if we have to compare them then flutter has the upper hand because of its hot reload feature.
Compare kotlin and flutter in terms of
Ease of learning.
Kotlin is quite an easy language especially if you know java,
then it will be very easy for you to understand and learn this language,
because kotlin is inspired from java language and the users of java language will find the syntax of kotlin very familiar.
For the beginners also kotlin is an easy language.
learning this language will hardly take a month because of its concise and easy to learn syntax.
Now coming to flutter to learn flutter first you have to learn dart programming,
to develop web mobile and desktop applications,
which is also an easy language to learn its documentation is more comprehensive than kotlin.
although kotlin has lesser learning resources than flutter but still it is easier to learn it,
because in flutter you have to learn the dart programming from scratch,
but it is not so in case of kotlin and also kotlin syntax is similar to java which gives kotlin an upper hand.
Popularity
Kotlin's popularity on github is 40k stars, which is quite less than flutters.
on the other hand flutter's popularity on github is 98.9 k stars.
Since its 1.0 release which is quite good.
However as per google trends comparison the difference between average interest is not that much between flutter and kotlin.
cotton language lies at 72 and flutter language lies at 76,
in terms of average popularity out of 100.
as per stack overflow the percentage of stack overflow questions for flutter is approx 2.50,
and for kotlin it is 1.17 percent.
Integration of third-party libraries
Kotlin language doesn't require a set of libraries and tools to make a connection,
because it works with native platform ecosystem.
The app developers can deploy the same libraries and third party tools instead of making new one.
on the other hand flutter is a ui development tool.
so it needs third party libraries and tools to make a connection with native environment.
Apps developed by kotlin and flutter
Kotlin has developed many apps including vmware pinterest coursera zometo netflix and uber etc.
On the other hand flutter has developed apps including cryptograph google ads post muse hamilton app tree etc.
4 - Advantages of kotlin
Null safety.
Null safety is one of the most innovative feature that comes with gotling language.
Null safety feature eliminates the risk of null pointer exception.
the kotlin type system helps in differentiating between nullable and non-nullable references,
and kotlin doesn't compile the code which tries to return null.
Robust performance
Robust performance as we already discussed that in kotlin language the code we write is compiled in the same format as the platform of which it is planned.
This feature provides the performance to the native app development which makes cotton language a robust platform.
Easy to learn syntax
Kotlin language is easy and simple to comprehend.
it is inspired from languages like java c-sharp etc.
its syntax is also quite similar and less strict to java.
due to its similarity with java the users who knew java found this language very familiar to java and easy to grasp.
Also due to its interoperable nature with java both languages can co-exist which make things easier for developers.
Concise and easy to maintain
In kotlin language you don't have to write extra code.
Unlike java you don't have to write the entire code you can simply write the same code with fear lines.
Also kotlin has a single code base that makes,
it a stable language for development and you can easily detect errors before running the code.
5 - Advantages of flutter
Hot Reload
This feature allows you to see the change that you have created like fixing bugs building user interface etc,
and those changes are then reflected instantly.
Also it helps you to write the code faster with ease.
Less development cost
In flutter you have the advantage of using the same code because of native app development.
Which allows us to reuse most part of the code.
This helps in cutting the development time and resources along with that,
it helps in reducing the budget up to 30 to 40 percent.
Widgets
flutter sdk comes with numerous widgets which offers many capabilities.
These widgets helps in making the app attractive.
It is used to display,
It is used to design something and,
It is also used to handle the interactions as well.
the choice of widgets is responsible for the design or view of the screen.
MVP and prototype development
Mvp stands for minimum viable product.
it is a simpler version of the app or software that solves the problem statement.
mvp helps in giving the true potential of the idea.
It helps in attracting the interest of the users in the product,
that you are planning to launch.
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