Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Flutter VS MIT App Inventor

Compare Flutter VS MIT App Inventor and see what are their differences

Flutter logo Flutter

Build beautiful native apps in record time 🚀

MIT App Inventor logo MIT App Inventor

App Inventor is a cloud-based tool, which means you can create apps for phones or tablets right in your web browser.
  • Flutter Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-12-14
  • MIT App Inventor Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-23

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.

MIT App Inventor features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    MIT App Inventor offers a drag-and-drop interface, making it accessible for beginners and non-programmers to create mobile applications without writing code.
  • Educational Value
    The platform is designed to teach the fundamentals of programming and computational thinking, which makes it an excellent tool for educators and students.
  • Cloud-Based
    Projects are stored in the cloud, allowing users to access their work from any device with internet connectivity.
  • Extensive Resources
    A wealth of tutorials, guides, and community forums are available to help users learn and troubleshoot.
  • Rapid Prototyping
    The platform enables quick development and testing of app prototypes, which is useful for iterative design processes.
  • Real-Time Testing
    Real-time testing on connected devices speeds up the development cycle by providing immediate feedback.

Possible disadvantages of MIT App Inventor

  • Limited Functionality
    Advanced features and custom functionality can be difficult or impossible to implement due to the platform's limitations.
  • Performance Issues
    Apps created with MIT App Inventor may not be as optimized or performant as those developed with more complex programming environments.
  • Dependency on Internet
    Since it is a cloud-based tool, a stable internet connection is required to access services, which might be a constraint in some situations.
  • Basic User Interface Design
    The drag-and-drop interface may lead to less polished or professional UI/UX compared to apps designed with dedicated design tools.
  • Limited Platform Support
    Primarily supports Android development, which might be a downside for those looking to develop iOS applications.
  • Learning Curve for Complex Apps
    While it is user-friendly for simple applications, creating more complex apps can still require a significant amount of learning and problem-solving.

Flutter videos

beginning of flutter youtube channel

MIT App Inventor videos

MIT App Inventor: Mobile Apps. Built by You.

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How to Send Data to a Google Sheet with MIT App Inventor
  • Review - Thunkable Vs AppyBuilder Vs Makroid Vs MIT App Inventor ||difference||
  • Tutorial - Create First App in MIT App Inventor 2

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Flutter and MIT App Inventor)
Development Tools
100 100%
0% 0
IDE
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
67 67%
33% 33
Application Builder
53 53%
47% 47

User comments

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Reviews

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

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.

MIT App Inventor Reviews

Top 10 Android Studio Alternatives For App Development
MIT App Inventor is a visual programming environment which is developed by Google. It allows users to build apps for tablets and smartphones.
Top 5 App Builder To Build Your Own App Without Coding
Undoubtedly, Kodular has been the best app builder in recent years. It was founded on 6 July 2017 by the partnership of 7 people such as Conor shipp, Vishwas Adiga, Pavitra Golchha, Sander Jochems, Sivagiri Visakan, and Diego Barreiro. It is a Builder based on the MIT App inventor. You can make your apps on this platform without any charges. Everything is 100% free in this...
THE BEST 34 APP DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE IN 2022 LIST
AppInventor.org is a site for learning and teaching how to program mobile apps with MIT’s App Inventor. These tutorials are refined versions of the tutorials that have been on the Google and MIT App Inventor sites from App Inventor’s inception– thousands of beginners have used them to learn programming and learn App Inventor.
Best Mobile App Development Tools for Kids
MIT App Inventor is a web application integrated development environment originally provided by Google and now maintained by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It allows newcomers to computer programming to create application software(apps) for two operating systems (OS): Android, and iOS. It is free and open-source software released under dual licensing.
Source: codinghero.ai
10 Best Android Studio Alternatives For App Development
Thunkable is a powerful drag and drops app builder. And this is made by two of the very first MIT engineers on the MIT app inventor. The platform is geared for the most professional users, who may want higher quality and robust apps for their business, community or just for themselves. Thus, Thunkable has an amazingly active and engaged community. And it also offers live...
Source: techdator.net

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Flutter should be more popular than MIT App Inventor. It has been mentiond 363 times since March 2021. 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
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MIT App Inventor mentions (41)

  • Awesome-no-code-tools
    App Inventor - Create powerful Android apps without code using blocs coding. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Looking for savable graphing methods
    First thought, play with MIT App Inventor https://appinventor.mit.edu/, they have dedicated blocks for graphing and cross-platform implementations of Bluetooth for Android and iOS. The data format is still up to you. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • App for recording time periods
    Or you could go to https://appinventor.mit.edu/ and design your own custom app (no widget, though). Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Easiest code to learn to make an app?
    If you want to make a mobile app you could try https://appinventor.mit.edu/. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Trying to have a Ubuntu server I can turn on from my phone, log in as user, and start the Docker containers for my server. How do I automate this process?
    Maybe a raspberry pi that's on 24/7 connected to wifi and use that to send the wake over lan signal to the server? Arduino on the power pins also works, I did something quite similar but with a Bluetooth board, the code was really simple I just made an Android app with MIT app inventor that sent a signal to the hc_05 bt board, once the Arduino received that signal it shorted the power pin to 5v for half a second... Source: about 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Flutter and MIT App Inventor, you can also consider the following products

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Thunkable - Powerful but easy to use, drag-and-drop mobile app builder.

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.

Kodular - Much more than a modern app creator without coding

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

Android Studio - Android development environment based on IntelliJ IDEA