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Starting 2025, I’d like to take a step back and look at how far Flutter, Google's open-source UI toolkit, has come. This year has been filled with growth, innovation, and new milestones that have solidified Flutter’s place as a leading cross-platform framework. Developers around the world continue to use Flutter to create natively compiled applications that run seamlessly across mobile, web, and desktop platforms.
2024: The year Generative AI took center stage
While Flutter’s journey has been impressive, it’s impossible to ignore the role generative AI played in shaping the tech landscape this year. Ranging from large language models (LLMs) to AI-powered tools and more, companies like Google have accelerated their AI efforts, creating tools that democratize AI and make it accessible to developers as well as end-users.
For developers, generative AI has made it easier than ever to integrate intelligent features into apps, often with little experience in AI. This shift has greatly impacted how software is built and has shaped the priorities of the development community in 2024.
Explore Flutter’s approach to AI integration here.
The competitive evolution of Cross-Platform Development
In the world of cross-platform development, competition has been fierce. With powerful players like React Native, SwiftUI, and Jetpack Compose, developers have a variety of tools at their disposal to choose from. Flutter has not only kept pace with its competitors but has continued to innovate and adapt, ensuring its position as a go-to framework for developers looking to build beautiful, high-performance apps.
Flutter’s success lies in its unique Developer Experience (DX), which continues to impress with features like Hot Reload and Hot Restart. These tools make Flutter an incredibly efficient and enjoyable framework to work with, allowing developers to see changes in real-time and experiment freely.
However, Flutter has not rested on its past successes. This year, new advancements have continued to push the envelope, showing that Flutter is more than just a development tool; it’s a framework designed to help developers stay on the cutting edge.
Looking back and moving forward
Reflecting on Flutter’s journey through 2024, one key theme stands out: adaptability. New features, such as generative AI, show how Flutter has continuously evolved to meet the needs of the development community.
In February, Flutter developers were introduced to the Google Generative AI SDK for Dart, which made it easier than ever to integrate generative AI features. This marked a significant moment for Flutter as it allowed developers to streamline the process of adding AI-powered functionalities directly into their Flutter applications.
Read more about how to integrate AI features into your Flutter projects here.
Google I/O 2024
Google I/O 2024 was a landmark event for Flutter, as the framework took center stage with the announcement of Flutter version 3.22 and Dart 3.4. These releases were packed with new features and updates that promised to improve the developer experience. Among the highlights was the introduction of Impeller, a new rendering engine that replaced Skia, which now provides smoother graphics performance on both iOS and Android devices.
Introducing Impeller: A leap forward in Graphics Rendering
The introduction of Impeller on Android was a game-changer for Flutter’s graphical rendering capabilities. By enabling the --enable-impeller flag, developers can leverage Impeller's next-generation rendering engine. Impeller offers improved animation performance and reduces rendering jank, resulting in smoother user experiences on both iOS and Android devices.
This is just one example of how Flutter continues to innovate in ways that directly benefit developers and users alike.
The future of Code with Dart: What’s next after Macros?
The debut of macros in Dart, showcased by Kevin Moore at Google I/O, brings unparalleled flexibility to code generation. Unlike the traditional build_runner approach, macros enable compile-time transformations directly within the Dart language, streamlining processes like serialization, validation, and UI scaffolding. This feature empowers developers to write cleaner, more maintainable code while reducing boilerplate, opening new doors for innovation in productivity and extensibility. With Dart macros, Flutter developers can look forward to a future of smarter, more dynamic codebases.
However, despite the initial excitement, the Flutter team ultimately decided to cancel macros, citing technical challenges and long-term maintenance concerns. While macros promised a more integrated approach to code generation, the complexity of their implementation and the potential impact on tooling led the team to pivot away from this direction. The challenges around stability, tooling, and performance show that the team is prioritizing practical impact over experimental complexity, which is the right call. Though macros won't be part of Dart's future, the discussions and experiments around them have provided valuable insights, concepts like augmentations have already made their way into the language.
If you are curious on understanding how macros were supposed to work I’ve delved deeper into this topic in a dedicated blog post, which you can check out here: Discovering New Capabilities in Code Generation with Macros in Dart.
WebAssembly for Flutter web
The introduction of WebAssembly (Wasm) support in Flutter 3.22 marked a significant leap forward in Flutter’s web capabilities. Wasm enables faster startup times and near-native performance, making Flutter a strong contender for building high-performance web applications. This improvement is a major step towards closing the performance gap between native and web apps, making Flutter even more versatile.
Check out how Wasm is improving Flutter web performance.
Flutter Conf Latam at Perú
Beyond technical advancements, 2024 proved that the strength of the Flutter ecosystem lies in its community. Throughout the year, numerous events worldwide brought developers together to share knowledge, explore new trends, and connect with peers.
In Latin America, Flutter Conf Latam stood out as the region’s biggest Flutter event for the second year in a row—first in Colombia (2023) and then in Peru (2024). These large-scale gatherings, alongside countless local meetups, highlight how essential community-driven events are for learning, networking, and showcasing real-world Flutter applications.
Such events are more than just talks and workshops; they’re a testament to the creativity and passion driving Flutter forward. Whether at a small meetup or a major conference, these spaces foster collaboration and innovation, shaping the future of Flutter one connection at a time.
Build with AI: Flutter AI Toolkit
In December 2024, the Flutter team introduced the Flutter AI Toolkit, a comprehensive set of AI chat widgets designed to seamlessly integrate AI-powered chat experiences into Flutter applications. This toolkit simplifies the development process by providing features such as multi-turn chat, rich text display, voice input, multimedia attachments, custom response widgets, and customizable styling. These capabilities allow developers to create sophisticated, context-aware chat interfaces that improve user engagement across various platforms, including iOS, Android, web, and macOS.
The Flutter AI Toolkit supports integration with multiple Large Language Models (LLMs), offering out-of-the-box compatibility with Google's Gemini and Vertex AI through the Google AI Dart SDK and Vertex AI in Firebase SDK, respectively. Developers can also incorporate other LLMs by utilizing the toolkit's provider interface for custom implementations. This release underscores Flutter's commitment to providing developers with powerful tools to build dynamic, AI-enhanced applications efficiently.
For more information, you can read the full announcement here: https://medium.com/flutter/announcing-flutter-ai-toolkit-e36b16a840d2
#FlutterInProduction Event
The #FlutterInProduction event was a vibrant celebration of Flutter’s incredible growth in 2024, reaffirming its place as a production-grade framework. The numbers speak volumes about its momentum:
- 1M+ developers actively use Flutter every month
- 28% of new iOS apps are built with Flutter
- 475 contributors this year, including 119 Googlers
- Meetups in 64 countries, forming a global, thriving community
This event highlighted not just the numbers but the real world impact of Flutter through inspiring success stories from global brands:
- Headspace demonstrated delivering smooth user experiences for millions worldwide.
- LG showcased Flutter’s versatility in building cutting-edge interfaces across devices.
Looking ahead: Flutter's Tentative Roadmap for 20252024 concluded on a high note with the #FlutterInProduction event, celebrating Flutter's evolution and its solidification as a production-ready framework. The event highlighted Flutter’s journey through various eras, culminating in what we now recognize as the "Production Era." This milestone marks Flutter as no longer a bet but a reliable, mature framework for building robust, production-grade applications.During the event, the Flutter team teased an exciting and ambitious roadmap for 2025. Here are some key updates that have us looking forward with anticipation:
- Flutter on iOS
The recent Flutter 3.27 release brought significant updates to the Cupertino widget library, https://docs.flutter.dev/ui/widgets/cupertino boosting the native iOS look and feel. With these improvements on Cupertino, Flutter achieves feature parity with many Material UI counterparts, allowing developers to craft iOS applications that smoothly blend into the Apple ecosystem. Notably, one in four apps on the App Store is built using Flutter, underscoring the importance of these advancements.Additionally, Flutter is transitioning to align with the latest Swift ecosystem standards. This includes adopting the Swift Package Manager and gradually phasing out CocoaPods. While this migration will take time, it demonstrates Flutter's commitment to staying current with modern development practices. For more details, check out the related discussion.
- Live Widget Previewer with visual editing
Flutter’s famed hot reload has been a game-changer for developers since day one, enabling instant visualization of code changes. But 2025 could see this taken a step further with a live widget previewer. Inspired by tools in frameworks like SwiftUI and Jetpack Compose, this feature would allow developers to preview specific widgets without running the entire app on a simulator or device.Using annotations like @Preview(), developers could see how widgets render across various device configurations, orientations (portrait/landscape), and themes; all within their code editor, such as VS Code. This innovation promises to streamline UI development significantly.
- Direct Native Interop
The Dart team envisions a future where calling platform-native APIs can be done directly from Dart with minimal overhead. While platform channels currently serve this purpose, direct native interop could remove the need for complex native implementations altogether.This approach simplifies development, allowing developers to focus only on Dart code, improving efficiency and reducing boilerplate. While knowledge of native platforms remains valuable, this innovation could significantly boost productivity.
- Improved developer productivity: Concise widgets and shorthands
Flutter is exploring ways to make code more concise and intuitive, starting with a fresh approach to decorators. This would provide a shorthand for styling widgets, much like modern frameworks have adopted.
For example, instead of verbose widget declarations, developers could use decorators for cleaner, easier-to-read code. Similarly, shorthand options for repetitive patterns, such as MainAxisAlignment, could reduce clutter and augment productivity.
These changes, while not guaranteed, reflect Flutter's forward-thinking and flexible approach. By adopting features that shine in other frameworks while maintaining its openness and adaptability, Flutter continues to cater to a diverse developer community. The roadmap for 2025 is a testament to the Flutter team's commitment to innovation and developer satisfaction, making the future of Flutter brighter than ever.
Looking ahead to 2025: What's next for Flutter?
As we look ahead to 2025, there are exciting updates on the horizon for Flutter. Some key developments include improvements to the Cupertino widget library for iOS development, improved native interop, and even more concise and intuitive code. These features promise to further elevate Flutter’s status as a mature, production-ready framework that empowers developers to build innovative applications with ease.
2024 has been a year of growth and innovation for Flutter. As we move into 2025, it’s clear that Flutter will continue to lead the charge in cross-platform development, empowering developers with cutting-edge tools and features. Whether it’s through generative AI, improved graphics rendering, or more efficient code generation, Flutter is setting the stage for an exciting future.
