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agentifyshtoday at 7:37 PM4 repliesview on HN

This is a welcome addition but why should Flutter devs use this ?

Seems like it requires 32gb of ram! Also Flutter is already very mature and can produce not only near-native mobile apps (the difference is almost negligible) but can target desktop and even web applications.

I do wonder how much of a boost skip offers vs Flutter's mobile apps. Will give skip a try when dram prices normalize.


Replies

marcpruxtoday at 8:08 PM

See my response below on the KMP question: the comparison with CMP mostly applies to Flutter as well.

> near-native mobile apps (the difference is almost negligible)

Not as of the advent of Liquid Glass on iOS (and, to a lesser extent, Material Expressive on Android). Flutter isn't going to be implementing these new interface conventions[1], and so the UI for these apps are stuck on the last generation and are already starting to feel outdated.

Flutter's grim outlook has resulted in a surge of interest in Skip, and it was one of the drivers for us to open up the platform and catch the wave. If you love Dart, or if your apps don't need to look native (e.g., games or very bespoke interfaces), then Flutter might continue to be acceptable. But everyone else is starting to look elsewhere, especially in cases where their business depends on their apps feeling premium and native.

[1] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/170310

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skavitoday at 8:22 PM

Dunno about Skip, but I can always tell when an app is Flutter. They feel like crap. Everything's a bit off with the native looking widgets. And fully custom designs still animate a bit weirdly. And they definitely still stutter. Somehow a tier below React Native.

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well_ackshuallytoday at 8:50 PM

Flutter is fine if you don't care about performance, accessibility, have no need to access native capabilities or non-fluttered widgets (ex: the Google map integration is awful) and overall just want to make an internal app.

The cost of making an excellent flutter app is about the same you'd pay making fully native apps. Except that you're always paying for Skia's costs with Flutter.

This recommends 32GB to run _everything_, so xcode, gradle, emulators, simulators, etc. Not fully surprising.

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trevor-etoday at 8:04 PM

Flutter still doesn't support liquid glass on iOS so it doesn't seem like a serious contender to me at this point. And due to the nature of how Flutter is implemented, it's going to continuously be an uphill battle. Maybe it's fine if you intend on having a completely custom UI and don't care about platform look and feel.

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