Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

SDL VS Flutter

Compare SDL VS Flutter and see what are their differences

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SDL logo SDL

Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform multimedia library designed to provide low level...

Flutter logo Flutter

Build beautiful native apps in record time 🚀
  • SDL Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-26
  • Flutter Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-12-14

SDL features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    SDL supports multiple operating systems including Windows, Mac OS, Linux, iOS, and Android, allowing developers to write code once and run it on various platforms.
  • Simplified Development
    SDL provides a simple and straightforward API for handling graphics, sound, and input, making it easier for developers to create multimedia applications and games without needing to write platform-specific code.
  • Community Support
    SDL has a large and active community along with extensive documentation and tutorials, which can be immensely helpful for both new and experienced developers.
  • Extensible
    SDL is highly extensible with multiple add-on libraries available, such as SDL_image, SDL_mixer, and SDL_ttf, which provide additional functionality for handling images, audio, and fonts respectively.
  • Lightweight and Efficient
    SDL is designed to be lightweight and efficient, capable of running on a wide range of hardware with minimal overhead, making it suitable for performance-critical applications such as games.
  • Open Source
    SDL is open-source software, licensed under the zlib license, which allows developers to use, modify, and distribute their own SDL-based software freely.

Possible disadvantages of SDL

  • Limited 3D Support
    SDL is primarily designed for 2D graphics and does not include advanced 3D graphics functionality, limiting its use for 3D game development without integrating it with other libraries like OpenGL.
  • Learning Curve
    While simpler than many alternatives, SDL still requires a learning curve, especially for developers who are unfamiliar with C/C++ programming or game development concepts.
  • Less Abstracted than Some Frameworks
    SDL offers lower-level access to hardware and does not provide high-level abstractions found in some other game development frameworks, which can result in more complex code for certain tasks.
  • Controller and Input Limitations
    SDL's support for various controllers and input devices can be less comprehensive than some other libraries, requiring additional effort or third-party solutions to achieve full functionality.
  • Debugging and Profiling
    Debugging and profiling SDL applications can be more challenging compared to using certain other game development frameworks that come with integrated tools for these purposes.

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.

SDL videos

Useful review features in SDL Trados Studio

More videos:

  • Review - Reviewing translations in SDL Trados Studio 2019
  • Review - Doral SDL-A All-Season TIRE REVIEW + SNOW

Flutter videos

beginning of flutter youtube channel

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to SDL and Flutter)
Game Engine
100 100%
0% 0
Development Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Game Development
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

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

SDL Reviews

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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.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Flutter seems to be a lot more popular than SDL. While we know about 363 links to Flutter, we've tracked only 19 mentions of SDL. 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.

SDL mentions (19)

  • New Year, New Game Engine - Nikola Engine Devlog 0
    You see, for the past several years I have used many programming languages and many more game frameworks and libraries. Programming languages like Java, C#, C++, and even, sadly, JavaScript (I know...). Game frameworks like LWJGL, SDL2, Raylib, MonoGame, SFML, and many more. Essentially, I have seen it all. Out of all of them, I think SDL2 was closer to what I was looking for, though, Raylib was the one I used the... - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • How was Pico8 made?
    In addition to the excellent video /u/DookieChumo linked, you can also look in the manual to see some of the technologies used. It's written in C, using SDL. If you're interested in something like a devlog, you could read the changelog to see its changes and the development of features over the years. Lua is fairly easy to embed into other programs, so you can write programs that use Lua scripts to decide what to... Source: over 2 years ago
  • How does one make their own GUI from scratch? (no GUI libraries)
    You could use the cross-platform library SDL. It has Python bindings: PySDL2. Source: over 2 years ago
  • I want to become a game dev one day, can you guys help me?
    You can use SDL, which is pretty easy to get into, has straight-forward (if somewhat sparse) documentation and has lots of pretty decent tutorials - see the links on the web site. Source: over 2 years ago
  • what #include<iostream> does in C++ Program ?
    Official website is https://libsdl.org where you can read more about download and install this library because it might not work on your computer. Source: over 2 years ago
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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 / 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 / 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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What are some alternatives?

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

Rev.com - Transcriptions, captions, and subtitles that are affordable, fast, and high-quality.

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

One Hour Translation - Professional translation services for 75 languages on a 24/7 basis.

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.

ABBYY - ABBYY's leading AI and machine learning technology solutions range from process analysis, data capture, pdf editor, text and content recognition (OCR) and extraction, combining process and content insights to deliver digital intelligence.

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