This is How to Build a Flutter Web App in 2023 [8 Steps]

What is Flutter?

Flutter is an open-source UI development kit from Google. It enables the creation of cross-platform mobile applications and web apps. Alibaba, Baidu, and Google Pay are a few of the most popular brands leveraging Flutter.

One of the most important features of Flutter is hot reloading. It helps developers to hasten the process of adding new code to the web app, debugging it, and seeing how it works in real time.

The feature works by injecting updated source code files into the running Dart VM. Once the virtual machine updates the classes with the latest versions of fields and functions, Flutter automatically rebuilds the widget tree. This allows developers to quickly see the effects of code changes.

Another important highlight of Flutter is the built-in rendering engine. It facilitates the rendering of code on several terminals. This is the main reason why it delivers superior performance to React Native, WebView, and other tools.

Since its release in 2017, Flutter has become a top choice for both cross-platform mobile app development and web app development. The recent release of Flutter 3.3 in August 2022 features an early preview of Impeller, its new rendering engine.

Why Use Flutter for Developing Your Web App?

There are several good and great reasons to choose Flutter for developing your next web app, including faster development, the ability to create mesmerising UIs, and reduced development costs. Other best ones are:

1. Strong Backing from Google

Flutter is developed proactively by Google. This means that one can expect frequent bug fixes and newer releases. Since it is an open-source project, you can also tweak it to meet your distinct project development requirements.

Google itself uses Flutter heavily for developing projects. This ensures long-term support for the development of the project.

2. Develop for Mobile and Web Simultaneously

Flutter is the go-to option for organisations looking to develop an app for both mobile and the web side-by-side. Using the UI development kit grants developers the flexibility to create and use a single codebase for making the app available on multiple platforms.

This approach not only saves organisations the hassle of developing the same app for different platforms but also reduces the development cost significantly while making the development process speedier.

3. A Top Choice for Developing a Minimum Viable Product

Investors like to first assess an MVP to decide the feasibility of the project. It also helps them decide what they want in the app and what they don’t. Flutter is an ideal technology solution to develop a minimum viable product.

Thanks to Flutter’s compatibility with Firebase (another project backed by Google), there is no need for different backends for developing an MVP.

If you find developing an MVP for your web app too tricky, then you can hire a reliable Flutter web app developer.

How to Build a Flutter Web App?

To make it easier for you to comprehend the web app development process using Flutter, we will be dividing the entire process into 8 steps. So, let us start with the first step; market research.

Step 1 Do Your (Market) Research

Well, first things first. You can’t do any business without conducting rigorous market research. Therefore, before you get your hands dirty with developing a web app using Flutter, you need to carry out extensive market research to check the feasibility and practicality of your webapp.

The market research also includes analysing current market trends and competitors. You can implement the strategies that have worked well for others before you and learn from their mistakes. The end result should be a refined idea and a well-thought-out strategy.

Step 2 Identify Your Target Audience

Once you’re done with conducting market research and checking the feasibility of your idea, the next step in developing a Flutter web app is to mark your target audience. This is an important factor to develop the various aspects of your web app, especially its UI and UX.

Identifying the target audience will help you decide the features that you want to add to the MVP of your web application. Knowing what your target audience wants makes it much easier to focus on features and functionality that are required and leave out features that are not required.

Mind you, identifying the target audience can be tricky. A better approach will be to ask users first-hand – using a survey or questionnaire – for features and functionalities that they are looking for.

Step 3 Brainstorm an Enthralling UI/UX Design

They say the first impression is the last impression. It is not only applicable to humans but also to web apps. The user that is using your web app for the first time will be carefully observing its look and feel. It can make or break the deal.

No matter how good your app is in terms of functionality, if it fails to leave a mark on the user, it won’t be able to fulfil its objectives.

Therefore, you need to ensure that your web app has a captivating UI and UX. Although Flutter eases the process of developing immaculate user interfaces, you need to decide what visual elements to add and where to place them.

You can leverage Flutter’s colour palette selection and animation features to deliver a superb visual experience. The overall desirability of your web app is the sum of its attractiveness and functionality. Thankfully, Flutter can help you with both.

Your web app must be engaging, intuitive, and simple. However, you need to be very careful while designing your web app. Making it rely too much on just appearance might be a bad idea. As such, you must strike a perfect balance between attractiveness and usability.

Step 4 Build a Minimum Viable Product

Before making your web app available on the market, it is recommended to test it on target platforms. A minimum viable product is an ideal solution for this disposition.

MVP is a rendition of your web app that contains only the most essential features. You can understand it as a bare-bones version of your final product.

A minimum viable product will give you a good idea of how well your product will be received once it makes its way to the market. Once you’re satisfied with the results of your MVP, you can work on adding other features to it and develop the final product.

Step 5 Test.Test.Test

Testing is the most important part of app development that can decide the ultimate fate of your project. Modern testing methodologies integrate testing way earlier in the software development life cycle. A rigorous testing regime ensures that the app has:

• Minimum bugs and defects,
• Optimised development time and cost, and
• Superior quality assurance.

Although testing techniques chosen are specific to the project, usually, UI/UX, regression, and functionality forms of testing are performed.

In UI/UX testing, various components that the user uses to interact with the app are tested for stability and proper operation. Regression testing ensures that the web app under development doesn’t break by implementing changes in the code.

Functionality testing is a form of black box testing that ensures that the web application delivers all the desired functionality. Multiple iterations of testing can be performed for developing a high-end product.

Step 6 Choose a Server to Host Your WebApp

The sixth step in developing a Flutter web app is choosing a server to host your web application. Moreover, you need to purchase a domain to host your app. Be sure to add an SSL certificate to the domain before hosting your web application.

Depending on your location, there are all sorts of server providers available. These range from global and regional solutions to local options.

The benefit of choosing a global server like Nginx and Apache is that you’ll get everything you need. However, there is no solution that doesn’t have its drawbacks. Therefore, choose according to what you need and what you can manage.

Step 7 WebApp Deployment

So now that you’re done with coming up with the idea, testing it, coding it, designing it, and hosting it, the penultimate step is to deploy the web application.

For doing the same, you need to upload the final version of your web app to the hosting solution you’ve chosen. Now, customers can use it.

Step 8/Final Step Maintenance and Regular Revisions

Deploying a web application is just the beginning. Now, you need to continuously monitor it for bugs and issues. You need to provide regular updates to fix the issues and also focus on gradually improving your product to make it more and more enticing to users.

You can use Flutter’s in-app tools to analyse the performance of your web application. Test out ideas that improve user engagement and address user concerns at the earliest possible.

What to Build with Flutter?

Flutter can be used for developing almost all types of mobile and web apps. From social media websites to online payment apps, Flutter has transformed several app ideas into reality and profitable businesses. Following are some of the best app ideas to develop using Flutter:

• Banking apps
• Games
• Journaling apps
• Mobile wallets
• Music streaming apps
• Project management software

Top 6 Brands Using Flutter to Power Their Solutions

Let’s take a look at 6 global brands leveraging Flutter for their mobile and web apps:

1. eBay Motors

Type – Online car marketplace

eBay Motors embraced the open-source UI development kit to offer a smooth car purchasing experience on Android and iOS mobile devices. They have developed their mobile apps using Flutter from scratch.

2. ClickUp

Type – Project management tool

Another major brand utilising Flutter is ClickUp. It is one of the most popular project management tools. ClickUp lets you manage projects with a slew of integrations and automation.

3. Invoice Ninja

Type – Invoicing and billing tool

More than 180k businesses rely on Invoice Ninja. It is a popular tool that helps individuals and businesses with invoice generation, billing, and tracking expenses. Invoice Ninja uses Flutter to power the desktop, mobile, and web versions of their service.

4. Sonos

Type – Wireless audio provider

Sonos uses Flutter for developing mobile apps for their users to control Sonos devices. These apps feature smooth transitions and sleek designs.

Interestingly, Sonos hasn’t developed their mobile app from scratch using Flutter. Instead, they integrated Flutter into their existing app.

5. Square

Type – Financial services platform

Square is a popular payment service that leverages Flutter for offering its services. Moreover, it offers two first-party Flutter SDKs that help businesses to connect their app with Square’s payment services.

The Flutter plugin for the Reader SDK enables payments in a mobile or web app. For facilitating in-app payments, the Flutter plugin for the In-App Payments SDK is available.

6. Twilio

Type – Communication API provider

It provides a galore of communication tools to facilitate business-customer conversations. This includes text messages, voice messages, and videos. Businesses can use flutter_bloc and twilio_programmable_video to create chat room apps.

Get a Customised Flutter Web App from Apptunix

We agree that web app development can get complicated at times, especially if you need to develop a web app on your own. At times like this, you can always count on an experienced Flutter web app developer like Apptunix.

Apptunix is a global provider of mobile app development services. We have catered to clients around the globe and across the markets. Our team of tech experts is well-versed in a wide array of technologies, both new and traditional.

We can help you with some particular aspects of the web app development process or develop everything from scratch. Get in touch with our experts to know more about how we can help you to realise your web app project.

Conclusion

Flutter is a leading choice when it comes to developing web and mobile apps that are fast, easy to use, and requires adding an alluring user experience. Being open-source and backed by Google makes it even better.

The open-source UI development kit is the go-to option when you require development with a tight budget and time constraints.

Although there are other options available for both web app development and cross-platform mobile app development, Flutter is here to stay for many more years to come.