Flutter vs Java

Flutter and Java are both used for developing cross-platform applications. Flutter is a cross-platform mobile framework from Google. Flutter help developer and designer to build modern mobile application for Android and iOS. Java is one of the widely used object-oriented and class-based programming languages for mobile, web and desktop applications.

Let's dive into deep in both of them one by one to understand the difference between both of them.

Flutter

Designing the mobile app is a very challenging task. There are several frameworks available to design the mobile app. A rich set of features are provided by these frameworks. The native framework provided by Android is based on Java and Kotlin language. The framework provided by iOS is based on the Objective-C/Swift language. Now, it is clear that we require two different languages with frameworks to develop a mobile app for both operating systems.

To overcome this problem, we have several cross-platform development tools or frameworks that are able to develop a mobile app for both operating systems. By using these frameworks, we can write code once and can deploy it on various platforms like Android, iOS, and Desktop. Ionic, PhoneGap, Xamarin, and React Native are some of the frameworks of the cross-platform development family.

Flutter is a new cross-platform framework developed by Google. In order to create a beautiful and fast application for web, desktop and mobile using a single language and codebase, the use of flutter is growing day by day. It is a free and open-source framework or tool which is currently maintained by ECMA standard. Dart programming language is used by the flutter for developing applications. Dart programming has the same features as Kotlin and Swift and can be trans-compiled into JavaScript code.

Pros

1. Hot Reload. It means whenever a developer makes changes in the code, the changes immediately visible in the app itself.
2. Cross-platform. It means it allows us to write code once and deploy on various platforms or Operating System.
3. Performance is its third advantage. Its aim is to provide 60 frames per second performance on devices.
4. Backed by Google.
5. Flutter codes are compiled into native code.
6. It is an open-source framework. We don't need to purchase it. It is freely available in the market.
7. Flutter allows rapid prototyping.
8. It provides flexible and expressive UI.
9. Singleton codebase.
10. It provides fast development.
11. It provides material design.

Cons

1. In order to use flutter, we need to learn the dart programming language.
2. It doesn't support a 3D graphics engine.
3. Lack of community support.
4. Lack of promotion.
5. Lack of friendly documentation.
6. Graphics programming.

Java

Java is one of the widely used, class-based, and object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems in 1995. It provides a rich set of libraries that are used to developed mobile, web and desktop applications. Java is very easy to learn and understand. It is a platform-independent language and secures using a virtual machine. Java programming language is suitable to develop not only the Desktop application but also Mobile and Web applications too.

Pros

1. It provides a set of libraries to develop web, mobile and desktop applications.
2. It is a widely-used programming language.
3. It provides excellent tooling.
4. It has a set of documentation.
5. A large set of developers are available.
6. It has excellent performance.
7. Used to develop Web, Mobile and Desktop applications.
8. It is very easy to learn and understand.
9. Excellent SDK and JDK.
10. It is an open-source.

Cons

1. Verbosity is the first disadvantage of Java. It means we need to write more code in more words than needed.
2. It has NullpointerException.
3. It has a boilerplate code.
4. Read-eval-print-loop is not present.
5. Graphics programming.
6. It is a strict type of programming language.
7. It returns wildcard type.
8. Floating-point errors.
9. No properties are available.
10. No optional parameters are available.

Difference Between Flutter and Java

Flutter is a "Cross-Platform Mobile Development" tool and Java is a "Language". Based on these two factors, we can differentiate both. Let's understand the key difference between Flutter and Java.

Let's understand the tools that are integrated with Flutter and Java both.

Use of Flutter and Java