Desktop applications have held their importance and will continue to do so even with the advent of modern web apps, progressive web apps and mobile apps in the market. Desktop app development is also progressing at par with all other interfaces.
Just like cross platform framework approach in mobile app development, more companies are opting for cross platform solution for desktop applications too. Businesses want to have their enterprise software functioning on Windows, Mac, Linux and other popular desktop operating systems.
Today we will be comparing a veteran desktop application development framework – Electron with the new kid in town – Flutter web, to see how they bid against each other to power your custom web app solution.
Note: If you plan to go with Flutter, you should hire Flutter developer from a full-stack Flutter app development company and not from a company that only expertise in Flutter mobile app development.
Before diving in the differences between Flutter Desktop and Electron let us understand both the platforms individually first –
What is Electron?
Electron is a free and open-source software framework solution by GitHub that is used for developing desktop apps by leveraging web technologies that get rendered using Chromium browser engine, and a backend using Node.js environment.
It helps developers build cross platform desktop apps for platforms like Mac, Windows, Linux and more with ease. Electron is a time-tested desktop software development framework that powers most of the popular desktop apps we use frequently like – Visual Studio Code, Microsoft Teams, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Slack and more. Electron simplifies the desktop app development process and is almost substituting conventional desktop apps.
What is the benefit of using Electron.js?
Electron is an open-source and free desktop framework which was build by GitHub in 2013. All apps made with Electron act similar to web apps but are able to read and write data from your computer file system. There are many advantages of using Electron to power your desktop application. Here are some of them –
Easier Entry and Learning Curve
Electron is based on frontend technologies like JavaScript, CSS3 and HTML5 with other web technologies. This means that almost all developers with web development skills can make use of Electron without having to learn additional concepts. Also, web developers are generally less expensive than software engineers so even small-size businesses and mid-scale agencies can afford Electron as a platform to power their desktop apps.
Cross Platform Support
One of the biggest advantages of Electron is that when developers write an application on Electron, that application will be executable on all top desktop operating systems such as Linux, Windows and MacOS.
Electron provides out-of-the-box support for majority of desktop operating system designs and elements such as notification tray applets, OS menu bars and media keys, which eliminates the need to develop each element from scratch, saving desktop app development time and effort.
Faster Development Speed
Traditional desktop app development was extremely time-consuming even if you wanted to develop a basic app since developers needed to write all aspects of desktop app from scratch using inefficient programming languages which barely had any developer support tools. Electron makes use of one of the best programming languages of modern web i.e., JavaScript. JavaScript code is interpreted line by line allowing developers to debug and optimize it efficiently and with ease. This results in speedy app development.
Automatic Updates and Easy to Follow Installers
The concept of automatic updates is nothing new in 2022, mobile apps have been providing over-the-air updates for their operating system, and mobile apps provide users with an option to enable automatic updates so their apps get updated as soon as a new version is made available. Also, the mobile apps are installed in one bundled file through a simple installer. Taking inspiration from this, Electron enables its desktop apps to support automatic updates with the autoUpdater component. Also, developers can easily create custom and simple installers using the ‘electron-builder’ package.
What is Flutter Desktop?
Flutter as a software development kit is an ambitious yet promising framework that aims to enable developers to write single code-base to power applications on multiple platforms such as mobile, desktop, web, wearables, smartTVs and more. Earlier desktop for Flutter was in experimentation phases, but with launch of Flutter 2.0, Flutter desktop support for Linux, Windows and MacOS was made available in the stable versions of Flutter.
Flutter Desktop comes with support for compiling a native macOS, Windows or Linux based app. It also comes with many plugins for each operating system and the ability for developers to create their own custom plugins if needed. Since Flutter Desktop is relatively new, it doesn’t have big names or companies under its portfolio yet, but it sure it creating a lot of buzz and seems to have some promising benefits too.
What is the benefit of using Flutter Desktop?
Flutter has only recently matured a little in the mobile app development sphere but here it is tip-toeing in the realm of desktop applications as well. Well then the question arises, why would anyone bother with Flutter Desktop when there are stable, proven cross platform desktop frameworks like Electron available. And the answer to that question is because Flutter has some interesting benefits that cannot be overlooked. Here are the top benefits of Flutter desktop app development –
Flutter Performance
We saw how Electron makes use of JavaScript a modern frontend framework compared to traditional desktop app development programming languages such as C++. Well, while JavaScript is a powerful web app development framework, it isn’t the best fit for desktop applications. It was never intended for developing the user interface of a desktop app. Contrary to this Flutter compiles to machine code which results in unparalleled performance. There is no time wasted on interpreting code as it gets compiled ahead of time. Flutter also is able to maintain 60 FPS for complicated draw calls.
Better Space Utilization
Electron apps are highly performant but at the cost of heavy files and app sizes. Even a basic ‘Hello World’ project in Electron could go up to 100 MB which is massive. The reason behind this large size is that Electron app uses chromium browser and Node. For all Electron app users get Node.js and a light instance of chromium to support its backend.
However, due to the nature of JavaScript, tree-shaking Electron apps becomes difficult. Opposed to this Flutter uses Dart programming language which knows what part of your app is being used at compile time. This results in more effective tree-shaking and causes lesser issues to the disk.
Type Safety of Codes
When you write HTML codes for your Electron based project there are chances of your code being wrong or inefficient. However, Electron still tries parsing and displaying your code as much as possible.
Especially if you use modern frameworks such as Angular with Electron, you can still get some type-safety which will still make your app fail at compile time if your code is faulty, but the chances of that happening reduces largely. Flutter allows you to design the UI in the same language as you develop the business logic. Hence, it prohibits the developer to write incorrect UI code and provides your UI logic the same level of type safety as your business logic.
Final Words
Flutter Desktop and Electron are both reliable, trustable, secure, robust and scalable cross desktop application development frameworks that can be used for powering your custom desktop application. Hire dedicated developers that can help you select the one that best suits your project requirements.
Author Bio
Ronak Patel is a CEO and Founder of Aglowid IT Solutions, an ever-emerging Top Web and Mobile Development company with a motto of turning clients into successful businesses. He believes that Client’s success is company’s success and so that he always makes sure that Aglowid helps their client’s business to reach to its true potential with the help of his best team with the standard development process he set up for the company.
