Flutter
Overview
Flutter is Google’s open-source UI toolkit for building natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase. Written in Dart, it sidesteps the whole webview question entirely: apps compile ahead-of-time into native binaries and render every pixel with their own high-performance engine — no Chromium, no Node.js, and no system webview in the chain.
That means smooth, consistent performance across Windows, macOS, and Linux, plus mobile and web support as a bonus. The trade-off is that Flutter apps are not really web apps under the hood: you write in Dart and use Flutter’s widget system rather than a DOM, so it is a bigger conceptual change if you are coming from an Electron or web background.
Key Features
- Native performance: Ahead-of-time compilation renders every pixel with its own engine.
- Own rendering: No Chromium, Node.js, or system webview in the chain.
- Single codebase: One codebase targets Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and the web.
- Dart language: Modern, approachable language with strong tooling.
- Rich widget system: A large library of Material and Cupertino widgets.
- BSD-3-Clause licence: Free and open source.
Use Cases
- Builds needing maximum native performance plus mobile and web reach.
- Cross-platform apps where consistent rendering across every platform matters.
- Teams comfortable adopting Dart and Flutter’s widget model.
Platforms
Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Web
Licence
BSD-3-Clause