Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Flutter VS Electron

Compare Flutter VS Electron and see what are their differences

Not enough products to filter down. Redirecting to the primary Text Database.

Flutter logo Flutter

Build beautiful native apps in record time 🚀

Electron logo Electron

Build cross platform desktop apps with web technologies
  • Flutter Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-12-14
  • Electron Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-01

Flutter features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Development
    Flutter allows you to create applications that run on multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, web, and desktop, using a single codebase, thereby significantly reducing development time and effort.
  • Hot Reload
    The Hot Reload feature allows developers to see the results of their code changes almost instantly without a full restart, boosting productivity and making the debugging process more efficient.
  • Rich Set of Pre-Built Widgets
    Flutter offers a comprehensive collection of customizable widgets that follow modern design guidelines, allowing developers to build attractive and consistent UIs effortlessly.
  • Performance
    Flutter applications are compiled directly to native ARM code, which can result in superior performance comparable to native applications.
  • Strong Community Support
    As an open-source project, Flutter has a large and active community, providing abundant resources, third-party libraries, and plugins to accelerate development.

Possible disadvantages of Flutter

  • Large App Size
    Flutter apps tend to have a larger file size compared to native apps, which could be a concern for users with limited storage space or slow internet connections.
  • Limited Ecosystem
    While Flutter is growing rapidly, its ecosystem is not yet as mature as those of more established frameworks, meaning that certain third-party libraries, tools, and plugins might be lacking or underdeveloped.
  • Platform-Specific APIs
    Despite its cross-platform capabilities, Flutter may require the development of custom platform-specific code for certain functionalities, which could complicate the development process.
  • Learning Curve
    Flutter uses Dart, a programming language that is less commonly used compared to JavaScript, Java, or Swift, which may result in a steeper learning curve for new developers.
  • State Management Complexity
    Managing states effectively in large applications can be challenging in Flutter, potentially leading to convoluted code if not handled properly.

Electron features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    Electron allows developers to create applications that run on Windows, macOS, and Linux using a single codebase, making it easier to reach a broader audience.
  • Web Technologies
    Developers can utilize HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (including popular frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue) to build Electron apps, enabling a more accessible development process for web developers.
  • Rich Ecosystem
    Electron benefits from the vast ecosystem of Node.js, granting access to a multitude of packages and modules, and simplifying the inclusion of various functionalities in applications.
  • Auto-Update Mechanism
    Electron has built-in support for auto-updating applications, which saves developers time and effort in managing updates and improves the user experience by keeping the application up-to-date seamlessly.
  • Active Community
    An active community and extensive documentation provide a wealth of resources for developers, from tutorials to plugins, making it easier to find support and improve productivity.

Possible disadvantages of Electron

  • Large File Size
    Because Electron packages both the application code and a version of Chromium, applications tend to be significantly larger in file size compared to native counterparts.
  • High Memory Consumption
    Electron apps can consume more memory because each window runs its instance of Chromium, which can lead to inefficient resource usage, especially on systems with limited memory.
  • Performance
    Due to its reliance on web technologies and Chromium, Electron applications may not perform as well as optimally coded native apps, particularly in resource-intensive scenarios.
  • Security Concerns
    Electron's use of web technologies and features like Node.js integration increases the attack surface, requiring careful handling of security practices to prevent vulnerabilities such as injection attacks.
  • Complexity in Debugging
    Debugging Electron applications can be more complex due to the blend of backend (Node.js) and frontend (browser-like) code, requiring developers to be proficient in multiple debugging tools and techniques.

Flutter videos

beginning of flutter youtube channel

Electron videos

💻 Why You Should Build Desktop Software With Electron

More videos:

  • Review - What is Electron: The Hard Parts Made Easy
  • Review - Electron Matrix Review Video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Flutter and Electron)
Development Tools
78 78%
22% 22
Developer Tools
84 84%
16% 16
Rapid Application Development
JavaScript Framework
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Flutter and Electron. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Flutter and Electron

Flutter Reviews

Explore 9 Top Eclipse Alternatives for 2024
With Flutter 2’s release in 2021, developers now have full support to construct intuitive Windows apps, marking another milestone in Flutter’s inclusive cross-platform vision.
Source: aircada.com
Top 10 Flutter Alternatives for Cross-Platform App Development
So, above are some of the Flutter alternatives you can consider for your upcoming projects. To make the right selection, you should analyze the characteristics of your applications, which will help you make the most appropriate selection. You can also get in touch with a Flutter development company to go with the right option.
Top 5 Flutter Alternatives for Cross-Platform Development
Qt’s native capabilities contribute to its good app performance and size. Compared to Flutter, Flutter apps tend to be larger than native apps. However, the framework’s features and language are designed to boost Flutter app performance.
Source: www.miquido.com
Exploring 15 Powerful Flutter Alternatives
Beyond official Flutter built by Google, Flutter Community is an open-source fork-adding capability and component. Flutter Community has specifically expanded device testing coverage beyond Google’s in-house capabilities. With contributors volunteering devices for testing worldwide, Flutter Community tracks compatibility across over 3000 device variants spanning multiple...
Top 10 Android Studio Alternatives For App Development
Flutter is a framework that is used by stack developers to build multi-platform apps from a single codebase. It is an open-source project which was developed by Google to build app UI.

Electron Reviews

Electron.js Alternatives For Cross-Platform Development
All of this changed when Electron.js came into the picture. The framework allowed developers to create a unique cross-platform desktop application without any hurdles. However, it uses up quite a bit of resource making it harder for developers to create lightweight applications. With this blog, we will look into suitable alternatives for Electron.js.
Source: www.atatus.com
12 Best Frameworks and Toolkits to Build Desktop Applications
If you are looking for an alternative to the Electronjs desktop application development framework, Neutralinojs is a viable option. A few applications may become bulky with Electron, but Neutralinojs can help avoid such problems.
Source: geekflare.com
10 Best Tools to Develop Cross-Platform Desktop Apps 
Electron.js is compatible with a variety of frameworks, libraries, access to hardware-level APIs and chromium engine, and Node.js support. Electron Fiddle feature is great for experimentation as it allows developers to play around with concepts and templates. Simplification is at the center of Electron because developers don’t have to spend unnecessary time on the packaging,...
Electron Alternatives﹣5 Best JavaScript Frameworks for Desktop Apps
If you’re a JavaScript developer, you’re going to need to learn a few relatively simple things on how Electron works and it’s API. You will most probably be able to set up your first Electron desktop application in just a few days.
Source: brainhub.eu
Frameworks & Tools to Develop Cross-Platform Desktop Apps – Best of
Enyo is an open-source JavaScript framework, like Electron, that allows developers to create native-quality apps for desktop, mobile, and TV. Enyo can run across all the relatively modern and standard web-based environments. It’s battle-tested and comes with a beautiful cross-platform UI toolkit for creating rich user interfaces.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Flutter seems to be a lot more popular than Electron. While we know about 363 links to Flutter, we've tracked only 14 mentions of Electron. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Flutter mentions (363)

  • 🚀 iOS vs Android Development: Which One Should You Learn First? (The Truth No One Tells You!)
    🎯 Still confused? Start with Flutter, which lets you build both iOS & Android apps with one codebase! Check it out here. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Writing and Reading NFC in Flutter | Comprehensive Guide
    Flutter provides robust support for NFC through third-party packages, making implementation seamless. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Building cost-effective AI-driven MVPs with Flutter development services
    Flutter is a powerful, popular, and open-source platform known for its developer-friendly environment, wide ecosystem of libraries, extensions and other tools. A key feature of Flutter app development services is that it promotes the development of cross-platform applications without needing to build or write two or three different codebases. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • How to Build a CRUD Application Using Flutter & Strapi
    In this tutorial, I'll show you how to build a full-featured mobile CRUD application with Flutter and Strapi 5. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • React v19 has been released
    I don't agree but if you're looking for something that renderers everything in a canvas it's called Flutter https://flutter.dev/, and strangely it's made by Google, even though Flutter's success means the end of scraping the web for search. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
View more

Electron mentions (14)

  • Design Systems with Web Components
    So we talked a lot about the Atomic Design Principle, but you could just use that in any system and start creating. You could have Angular components, React Components, and Vue Components. But if you notice these don't easily work Everwhere. So the solution is to use Web Components because the modern browser can already understand these, and any Front-End framework can then utilize these components. You can use... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Building Apps with Tauri and Elixir
    For the longest time, building desktop apps was a daunting task to web developers. That is, until technologies like Electron made creating these apps more approachable to a wider audience. Today, we’ve got a wide array of native applications built with solutions like Electron, Tauri, Capacitor, and many more. While these are great solutions, sometimes configuration can be tricky and the applications we create can... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • SvelteKit + Electron: Create your desktop web app
    I make a new Adapter for SvelteKit apps that prerenders your entire site as a collection of static files for use with Electron. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Electron: Build Desktop Applications Using Plain Javascript
    Electron is a cross-platform shell — a user interface for accessing operating system services both via command line (CLI) and graphical user interface (GUI). - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Circuit To Turn On Desktop PC
    Electron (https://electronjs.org/) is a framework for developing cross-platform desktop applications using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. This is the technology behind many popular apps like Slack, Discord and Visual Studio Code. Join for discussions around Electron! Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Flutter and Electron, you can also consider the following products

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Qt - Powerful, flexible and easy to use, Qt will help you not only meet your tight deadline, but also reduce the maintainable code by an astonishing percentage.

import.io - Import. io helps its users find the internet data they need, organize and store it, and transform it into a format that provides them with the context they need.

Ionic Framework - A front-end SDK to develop applications with HTML5 , CSS3 and JavaScript.

Xamarin - Create iOS, Android and Mac apps in C#

Content Grabber - Content Grabber is an automated web scraping tool.