In recent times, the debate surrounding Kotlin Multiplatform (KMM) and Flutter has intensified, with some suggesting that KMM might supersede Flutter as the go-to solution for cross-platform mobile development. But is this truly the case?
Is Kotlin Multiplatform Replacing Flutter?
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Re: Is Kotlin Multiplatform Replacing Flutter?
#2Not sure... for some types of apps they might "compete" but for many not, I think: I view (after some toying with Flutter) the GPU UI renderers ala Flutter, QT/QML, gioUI, slint.dev etc as modern Flash-like options in a "can do anything graphically you could do with HTML+CSS+JS, which isn't the prime choice for some devs or some apps or those that don't want to have to end up with Ionic/Electron" manner — whereas KMM likely (my vague assumption) abstracts the common native GUI components shared among all platforms, plus allow platform-specific special ones too, I suppose? Or is KMM also going for custom GPU rendition?
Flutter & co. might just much more emphasize their graphical / fully-brandable nature rather than focus on their always-catching-up-and-slightly-off apings-of-native-UX.
If my KMM assumptions are somewhat correct, then it'll probably eat some of Flutter&co's lunch but not that much of it..
Re: Is Kotlin Multiplatform Replacing Flutter?
#3Not sure... for some types of apps they might "compete" but for many not, I think: I view (after some toying with Flutter) the GPU UI renderers ala Flutter, QT/QML, gioUI, slint.dev etc as modern Flash-like options in a "can do anything graphically you could do with HTML+CSS+JS, which isn't the prime choice for some devs or some apps or those that don't want to have to end up with Ionic/Electron" manner — whereas KMM…
KMM has two ways to do UI. You can do it natively and use Kotlin only for shared business logic (it inter-ops with Swift/Objective C). Or, you can take the new Android UI toolkit (Jetpack Compose) and it use it on desktop/iOS/web as well, for your whole app.
Re: Is Kotlin Multiplatform Replacing Flutter?
#4I really see zero compelling evidence of this whatsoever. It seems like some random bullshit Twitter drama without any substance behind it.
Re: Is Kotlin Multiplatform Replacing Flutter?
#5I'm not a frontend engineer or really a fully experienced backend engineer. I have done systems stuff, lots of OPS, scaling and other things adjacent.
Flutter is interesting to me because I can use a tool like flutterflow to build an app and throw together the backend reasonably comfortably (with some possible future footguns included).
Not knowing Kotlin means this is less attractive to me, but I can see the benefit if I knew one language that could span frontend and backend very nicely.
Re: Is Kotlin Multiplatform Replacing Flutter?
#6No, it isn’t. Flutter is doing great.
Re: Is Kotlin Multiplatform Replacing Flutter?
#7Not sure... for some types of apps they might "compete" but for many not, I think: I view (after some toying with Flutter) the GPU UI renderers ala Flutter, QT/QML, gioUI, slint.dev etc as modern Flash-like options in a "can do anything graphically you could do with HTML+CSS+JS, which isn't the prime choice for some devs or some apps or those that don't want to have to end up with Ionic/Electron" manner — whereas KMM…
KMM has two ways to do UI. You can do it natively and use Kotlin only for shared business logic (it inter-ops with Swift/Objective C). Or, you can take the new Android UI toolkit (Jetpack Compose) and it use it on desktop/iOS/web as well, for your whole app.
Dart also has native interop with Swift, Objective C, Rust, C, Java, Kotlin and JavaScript.
It also has more compile targets as far as I am aware too. On top of the standard web, iOS, macOS, windows and Linux across all the standard chipsets plus emerging ones like RISC-V plus it also has support for WASM.
I don’t know of anyone with that level of cross platform and cross language interop out there currently which is also something you would want to write significant business logic or UI in.
Re: Is Kotlin Multiplatform Replacing Flutter?
#8It depends on which platforms interest you, but the general lack of multiplatform Kotlin libraries makes me doubt this will happen any time soon. I tried and gave up on Compose Multiplatform after realizing this for my most recent project, last year. (I went web instead.)
Re: Is Kotlin Multiplatform Replacing Flutter?
#9Since when was Flutter the "go-to solution for cross-platform development"?
Maybe for hobbyists but in the corporate space it's still React Native.
The problem with Flutter, and this extends even further with KMP is that the scope of your skills is limited to making mobile apps whereas with React Native you are learning and using skills that can apply to a complete stack.
KMP is even worse in this regard as they expect you to build two frontends (yes I'm aware of compose multi platform but it's a separate product entirely) so unless you have some crazy business logic that Dart or JavaScript can't handle you're sacrificing the largest benefit in cross platform app development for the smallest.
As for whether Google are replacing Flutter I think they made a massive PR goof with the launch and have introduced a lot of uncertainty. Possibly it's their long term plan but currently it's just a tiny niche product.
Re: Is Kotlin Multiplatform Replacing Flutter?
#10Flutter is pretty good for UIs. As for the code sharing aspect I would pick Rust.