Flutter App Development Guide 2025 (Cost, Benefits & Steps to Build)

Introduction:

In this fast and competitive world, flutter has been the go-to choice for developers because of its faster development, cross-platform compatibility, and other stunning benefits. Statista research shows that 46% of software developers have already switched to Flutter for their app development projects and the numbers are still rising.

Flutter has been gaining huge popularity since its launch in 2017 and hence been among the top 4 development frameworks across the globe. This has also caused a rise in software developers' jobs day by day.  Statista survey says that there were 26.4 million software developers globally.

If you belong to the app development industry or someone who is looking to develop an app in Flutter, this guide is best to read. This article discusses the complete details of Flutter app development cost, benefits, steps, and various other essential terms.

What is Flutter?

Google's Flutter is a free, open-source mobile UI framework introduced in May 2017. With just one codebase, it enables Flutter app developers to produce native mobile applications. This implies that you can construct two distinct apps using a single programming language and codebase for Android and iOS.

• SDK (Software Development Kit)- Flutter has an SDK with a collection of tools consisting of libraries, frameworks, and APIs, enabling developers to create feature-rich applications.
• The framework is a collection of customizable buttons, sliders, and text inputs that can be reused in user interfaces (UIs).
• Dart- Flutter App Development happens with Google's language Dart which focuses on front-end development.

According to the Stack Overflow survey, Futter is the most loved framework among developers.

What are the Important Layers of Flutter?

You must understand its architecture and important layers to provide a smooth user experience. Below are the three layers of the flutter.

1. Framework Layer

The framework layer is responsible for user interaction and the overall UI of the app. It contains a set of useful tools, widgets, libraries, a rendering engine, animation, and necessary building blocks of Flutter UI. Developers can develop good user experience, advanced gesture recognition, and other user operations to align with app needs.

2. Engine Layer

This is like the engine behind the framework layers. The flutter engine is written in C++ and is responsible for rendering UI components. The engine layer handles input events and manages your platform-specific tasks. You can give your app native-like features with the platform specific code.

3. Platform Layer

The platform layer is the last layer that contains platform-specific code. It provides necessary plugins to integrate native-like functionalities into Flutter apps. In simple words, you can find specific features like a camera, GPS, network connections, and more for your Flutter app.

Types of Apps Built Using Flutter

Since its release, Flutter has been used to create various user-friendly mobile applications for Android and iOS without incurring the extra expense of creating separate codebases. This makes it an economic and favorable choice for startups. You can undoubtedly build a feature-rich application for various industries, harnessing different device elements such as geolocation, network, storage, camera, and other third-party SDKs.

Read More: Flutter Best Practices To Follow In 2024

But it is also a choice of many influential brands making Flutter a universal choice for app development. Some well-known brands using Flutter are eBay motors, Groupon, Alibaba, Google Ads, Google Assistance, etc.

Why Choose Flutter App Development?

• Cross-platform Support: One of the biggest reasons behind selecting Flutter is it is a cross-platform framework that enables users to access your product or application from any device. 
• Powerful UI Engine: Flutter's UI rendering is pixel-perfect. Every pixel on the device screen is within your control as a Flutter app development company. So it is because of the Flutter engine, which is responsible for interpreting Flutter code to define precisely what's pulled out on the screen.
• Gives Extraordinary User Experience: Flutter enables the developers to develop flexible and expressive UI. It has a wide range of widgets that aid developers in creating fascinating UI. Hire a flutter application developer with thorough know-how, and a high-performing application developed.
• Best suited for MVP: MVPs are simplified app versions that provide the necessary capabilities and are simple to develop and launch. They aid in testing the concept and gathering initial feedback to improve the app in the following iteration. Additionally, since Flutter and Firebase are compatible, developers don't need separate backends to create straightforward MVPs. Therefore, if you want to design an MVP without spending a big chunk, Flutter is the best option.

Less time to market- Since Flutter uses a single codebase for two platforms, it takes less time to develop applications. In addition, compared to other frameworks, Flutter has a clear edge over others due to its ability to make the apps quickly reach the market.

Reasons Behind Flutter’s Popularity Among App Development Companies

Flutter app development has been the number-one choice for the majority of developers and IT companies for a number of reasons. Below are some of them, let's read.

1. Budget-friendly

Flutter is an open-source mobile app framework that comes with pre-build packages and libraries hence you can easily make budget-friendly apps. Due to its code-reusability feature, it can easily fulfill small and big organizations to develop apps for multiple platforms. 

2. Gives an Amazing User Experience

User experience is an undeniable factor in the app and Flutter fulfils that. Flutter has an amazing rendering engine that allows you to maintain a consistent UI across all the screens and platforms. Flutter UI/UX is easily adapted on different phones and laptops, assuring a guaranteed user-experience.

3. Streamlined Development

Flutter apps are faster to develop because of a number of reasons. The top reasons are the hot reload feature, single codebase, pre-built widgets, strong community support, and many more. You can easily develop a responsive app for iOS and Android app with a single codebase using Flutter prebuilt libraries, tools, and other functionalities.

4. Rich Widgets and Modifications

It provides a collection of rich widgets and libraries to meet the complex user interface needs of enterprises. Developers can use the Flutter UI kit and create stunning user-interface apps in a short time. Also due to a single codebase, it's easy to maintain and upgrade in the future without hassle.

Cost Breakdown for Developing Apps with Flutter

The cost may vary on various things like app complexity, design process, integrations, development team type, location, experience, and other factors. To make you understand, if you hire mobile app developers in-house, flutter app development can cost you around $40,000 to $250,000.

On the other hand, if you for outsourced flutter developer, it can cost you between $25,000 to $200,000.  Hiring a Freelance team is always a reliable option if you are short on budget and want to complete a project on a temporary basis.

Note: Above are just rough estimates of app development cost, there are still many parameters that can cause the price to fluctuate. Hire mobile app development services or consult an expert and get a good budget proposal.

Flutter App Development: A Detailed Step-by-Step Guide

Following the good app development process is important to carry the project in systematic way and avoid future troubles, we have researched the basic yet, important step-by-step guide for Flutter app development.

#1. Ideation and Market Research

Ideation and market research are the first and most important steps before you go into developing the Flutter app from scratch. Do deep market research in your industry and learn what's trending in mobile app development trends. Get a full-proof app idea that is useful to your business as well as your target audience.

#2. UI/UX Design

You need to hire mobile app developers and designers who are well-skilled in creating the best U/UX. create a wireframe design with features, functions, and other layouts to make the developer understand about workings of your app.

#3. Start Development Process

Once you have the app design ready, start the development process. You can use Flutter's prebuilt features, widgets, and libraries, and also use the custom widget library to personalize your app looks.

#4. App Testing

Testing is important to check if the app has any bugs or not. Make sure your app and all features are running properly. This involves testing the app on all platforms, screens, security aspects, checking important functionalities, and much more. Make sure you have a pro-QA team to test the app thoroughly before launching.

#5. Launching

After successful mobile app testing, you can launch on the platform of your choice. If it is an Android app, release it on the Google Play Store, and on the app store if its ios an app.

#6. Maintenance and Updates

App maintenance is a continuous process, provide ongoing app support, help users with bug fixes, and make sure the app is updated on a regular basis. This will deliver a top-notch user experience and increase user retention chances.

When Should You Choose Flutter for Your Next App Development?

When the market is flooded with various frameworks having various benefits, it is evident that you are muddled about when to select Flutter. 

• When you want a multifaceted user interface
• When you need to launch your app fast
• When you need top-notch app performance
• When you need to have hybrid apps on a stringent budget
• When you want a universal app that works on all OS

How ManekTech can Provide you with Reliable Flutter App Development?

Manektech has been a top-notch mobile app development service provider for decades. We don't just develop flutter apps but our team stays connected throughout the initial stage from research, development, and launch to maintenance. You can always rely on your experienced mobile developers to develop high-quality, user-friendly flutter apps. We have access to the world’s best technologies, resources, and tools to meet any complex app development requirements. Speak with our experts regarding your app requirement and get a reliable quote.

Conclusion

That's all from our side. Hope we have answered all your burning questions including what is flutter app development, its cost, and a step-by-step guide.

After knowing about the various aspects of Flutter, it must be pretty clear to the readers why Flutter is a complete package and the right choice for your application development requirements. With Flutter, you can accomplish more with less code and more effectively express yourself. Furthermore, the mobile developer community is becoming increasingly interested in the framework as it expands quickly. As a result, it is now more straightforward for you to Hire Flutter developers from India.