Flutter Vs Swift: Which Technology Is Best To Develop An IOS App?

A customized iOS app can make your business more popular among a huge audience. You can enhance brand reputation and gain a loyal customer base with a feature-rich iOS app. These days, evolving technology offers several options for developing a tailored iOS business app. One of them is a Flutter platform. A reputed Flutter application development company can make an iOS app with a native-like experience in a cost-effective way using this platform. 

In this article, we will compare Flutter, a robust cross-platform app development platform and Swift, a popular programming language for developing iOS applications. 

Let’s start from the introduction of Flutter and its role in the mobile app development domain. 

What is Flutter?

Google has created an open-source framework or a software development kit (SDK) using Dart programming language. It is called Flutter and it has gained traction in the developer’s community soon after its release in May 2017. It is a robust platform useful for developing feature-rich, natively compiled, cross-platform applications from a single codebase.

A reputed Flutter application development company can use this framework to build enterprise-grade apps with advanced features for multiple platforms. 

Which is the Popular Flutter-based Applications? 

Some of the popular Flutter applications are-

• Google Ads
• Google Pay
• New York Times
• Square
• Groupon

Here is a brief introduction on Swift, an official programming language for developing native iOS apps. 

What is Swift? 

Swift, a compiled programming language, was created specifically by Apple for the development of native iOS applications. The language has advanced significantly in the area of creating mobile applications while being only a few years old. 

Companies that had been producing apps in Objective-C switched to Swift because of its versatility, simplicity, and clarity.

With this language, the process of creating codes is now easy and convenient. Swift is considered to be one of the prominent ways for developing tailored iOS applications. 

Which are the Leading Applications Developed with Swift?

There are many popular and famous brand applications developed through Swift. Some of them are: 

• SlideShare 
• Airbnb 
• Lyft 
• Twitter 
• Uber Driver

After going through the introduction, let’s compare both from the iOS application development perspective. 

Comparison between Flutter and Swift

Here we take four different aspects to compare Flutter and Swift. Here it is fair to mention that while comparing both these iOS app development approaches, we are not attempting to show any technology superior than the other 

UI Development

Swift 

It enables developers to use Apple's UIKit or SwiftUI frameworks for building the user interface (UI) of iOS apps. UIKit is a mature and powerful framework, while SwiftUI is a newer, declarative framework introduced in iOS 13 that simplifies UI development with its reactive and composable nature.

Flutter

Flutter, on the other hand, takes a different approach to UI development. It provides developers with its own set of customizable UI widgets, which are rendered using the Skia graphics engine. Flutter also offers a hot reload feature that facilitates rapid UI development and implementation.

Also Read:  : Your Super Guide to Hire Flutter App Developers in 2023

Performance and Native Access

Swift 

Since Swift is the primary and official programming language for iOS, it provides direct access to the underlying APIs and frameworks related to iOS. This allows for fine-grained control and optimization, resulting in high-performance native iOS apps.

Flutter

Flutter uses its rendering engine and UI framework, which can introduce a performance overhead compared to fully native development. 

However, Flutter's performance has improved significantly over time, and it provides a bridge to access native APIs. When you hire Flutter app developers, they can leverage native functionality easily for ensuring excellent performance. 

Code Sharing and Cross-Platform Development

Swift 

Swift is a preferred language for building apps for iPhones. App developers can integrate features that can leverage the core features of iPhones with ease. 

Though it is also useful in developing apps for macOS, watchOS, and tvOS as well, code sharing between these platforms remains limited.

Flutter

Flutter is a cross-platform framework, meaning a single codebase is useful to develop apps for iOS, Android, web, and desktop platforms. 

Recently, Flutter has announced support for macOS and Linux also. A reliable Flutter app development company can share the code easily and ensure faster development across different platforms.

Also Read: Your Step-by-step Guide to Build a Custom Web Application with Flutter

Ecosystem and Community Support

Swift 

Swift has a strong and growing ecosystem with comprehensive documentation, libraries, and tools available. It benefits from being the primary language for iOS app development with Apple's support and has a growing community of developers. 

Swift app developers get the support from the community with ease and come up with innovative app features using this advanced programming language. 

Flutter 

Although Flutter's ecosystem is not as mature as that of Swift for iOS app development, it has gained substantial popularity and community support. It has a growing number of packages and libraries available through the Flutter package manager (pub.dev). 

What's more, the software giant Google actively maintains and updates this framework. In other words, Flutter app development services can easily bridge the gap between native functionality and custom features. 

Ultimately, for iOS app development, the choice between Flutter and Swift depends on factors such as the project requirements, team expertise, desired level of code sharing, and performance optimization needs.

Which is a More Inexpensive Option for Developing iOS Apps- Flutter or Swift?

Regarding iOS app development, budget is one of the most important factors. Both Swift and Flutter are great technologies, but they have different costs. Cost of Flutter app development is less than Swift app development because the hourly rate of Flutter app developers is less than their Swift counterparts. 

Here, we believe Flutter is the clear winner if you're on a tight budget. It's a great programming language known for its hot reload feature and low development costs.

If you're not on a tight budget and need an app that's highly performant and takes advantage of the latest features of iOS, then Swift is a good choice.

Concluding Lines

So, which one should you choose- Flutter or Swift? Well, the answer depends on your business requirements, preferences, and even budgetary limitations. If you're looking for a reliable and powerful cross-platform development framework, then Flutter is a great option as it offers features like hot reload, rich widgets, and faster development. If you need native performance, a strong type of system, and powerful development tools, then Swift is a better choice.

The best way to decide is to consult a Flutter app development company. They can help you assess your needs and requirements and recommend the best development framework for your iOS app project.

InheritX is a renowned Flutter application development company. We can build custom cross-platform apps with desired features for different industry sectors. Do you want to know the scope of Flutter application development services for your business? Simply drop us a line at contact@inheritx.comand our expert consultants will get back to you.