Flutter vs Kotlin – Which One is Better for Your Next Project?

Technically, the comparison should be between Dart and Kotlin. Since Dart is the programming language for Flutter and Kotlin is a Java-based programming language. However, we have taken two frameworks, Flutter and Kotlin Multiplatform. These two frameworks are gaining popularity due to the growing need for advanced apps in the market. 

Why is this Debate – Flutter vs. Kotlin?

The “Flutter vs. Kotlin Multiplatform” debate is a hot topic in the mobile app development world. Below, we can see a comparison between both platforms.

Not only is the average number of Flutter users way higher than Kotlin but with the passing of years, Flutter has become more and more popular amongst multiple businesses and startups.  

Small businesses and startups are adopting the Flutter framework more and more due to its multiple benefits, such as hot reload, superb animation, and faster time to market. These businesses hire flutter app developers to leverage the benefits and stay ahead in the market. It is not just small businesses or startups, companies like Google, BMW, and Toyota are preferably choosing Flutter for their apps. We will discuss the benefits of both frameworks in the next section.  

Let’s take the debate further and discuss which is the best choice for your apps 

What is Flutter?

A Google product that competes with other frameworks in the cross-platform industry. Arrived in 2018 with a ton of amazing animation and user interface innovations.  

How Using Flutter Can Be Beneficial for Your Apps?

• • Faster Development with hot reloads: Faster development saves you time. And in the competitive world, time is money. The more you save, the more you are ahead.
  • Higher Native-like Performance: With faster app loads and seamless animations, efficiency is bound to increase. Better efficiency, better apps.
  • Cost-effective development: Deliver high-quality apps for your users and be economical with Flutter.
  • Customizable widgets with stunning UI:  Create visually appealing apps gliding smoothly like butter animations. 
  • Launch Faster: More and more businesses are using Flutter for their MVP development. It saves time, is cost-effective, and is faster to market. 

What is Kotlin?

Among other languages, Kotlin is statically typed and operates on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Its smooth compatibility with Java makes it an obvious choice for developing Android apps. This makes it possible for developers to utilize pre-existing Java frameworks and libraries. Additionally, server-side programming is done with Kotlin. Numerous backend frameworks are also written in Kotlin.

What is Kotlin Multiplatform?

Kotlin Multiplatform, introduced by JetBrains, allows developers to share business logic across multiple platforms while maintaining native UI and performance. Unlike Flutter, which offers a unified UI framework, Kotlin Multiplatform focuses on sharing code while letting developers use platform-specific tools for UI design.

How Using Kotlin Can Be Beneficial for Your Apps?

• Fewer crashes, greater stability. Kotlin reduces the possibility of crashes by eliminating null pointer exceptions.
• Quicker App Updates. Fast app enhancement with quicker bug fixes and app updates.   
• Secure and Reliable Apps. With robust data security and privacy, you can build secure apps.
• Effective in Modern App Development. Flexibility makes sure that apps run smoothly on multiple devices. 

How Can Flutter and Kotlin be Used in AI-Powered Apps?

You can use Flutter or Kotlin to build AI-powered apps. Building image recognition apps that can recognize the background and edit them. Healthcare apps for complete nursing solutions, AI-powered Chatbots, or personalized recommendations. The world is stepping into an AI-assisted world where each of your needs is an app, and AI drives that app. 

Popular Flutter Apps with AI-Powered Features

A cross-platform development strategy is perfect for AI-driven projects where quick prototyping and iteration are essential because it drastically cuts down on development time and effort. Hire Flutter developers who are skilled in integrating AI features and proficient in such projects. Here are some well-known examples of Flutter apps fueled by AI – 

• Google Assistant – An AI-powered assistant that works on AI-powered voice recognition and NLP to process user requests. Makes use of Flutter for certain UI elements to make the interactions 
• Reflectly – This well-known journaling app analyzes user entries using artificial intelligence to offer tailored observations and insights.
• Prisma -This photo-editing program uses artificial intelligence (AI) to apply artistic filters and styles to photos, turning them into original and imaginative works.
• JDoodle – AI-powered features like code completion, syntax highlighting, and error detection are integrated into this code editor and compiler application.

Popular Kotlin Apps with AI-Powered Features

Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile (KMM) saves time and effort by enabling developers to exchange business logic, including AI/ML model implementations, across several platforms. Some AI-powered Kotlin apps that are the talk of the town- 

• Google Photos – Although it does not use Kotlin completely, Google Photos makes extensive use of Kotlin and AI for functions like automatic enhancements, the creation of cinematic memories, and photo management (grouping like photos, detecting faces).
• Grammarly Keyboard – is a well-known keyboard application that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze spelling and grammar, provide real-time correction suggestions, and enhance writing quality.
• SoundHound – This AI-powered music detection app can accurately identify songs even when there is background noise or insufficient audio.
• Shazam – Shazam uses artificial intelligence (AI), much like SoundHound, to recognize music that is playing in the background and provide song titles and artist details.

Flutter vs Kotlin Comparison Table

A table summarizing the different aspects of Flutter vs Kotlin

Feature	Flutter	Kotlin
Programming Language	Dart	Kotlin
Backed By	Google & Community	JetBrains
Launched in	2017	2011, 2020 (Multiplatform)
Architecture	Everything is a Widget	Share Business logic, Native UI
UI Approach	Custom rendering engine	Platform-native UI
Code Sharing	Upto 90%	50-90% business logic
Learning Curve	Moderate	Steep
Compilation	Native ARM	Platform-specific
Hot Reload	Yes	Limited
Testing Tools	Built-in testing	Kotlin test framework
IDE Support	Android Studio	IntelliJ IDEA
App Size	Large	Smaller as compared to Flutter
Community Size	Large and Active	Growing
Popular Apps	Gpay, BMW, Toyota, Google Ads	Pinterest, Trello, Slack, Evernote

Comparative Analysis of Flutter vs Kotlin

A detailed comparative analysis between two frameworks Flutter vs Kotlin Multiplatform, can be done on various factors. 

1. Popularity

While both Flutter and Kotlin are open-source and free, Flutter is more popular than Kotlin and is becoming more popular by the day. From a business visionary’s point of view, we find that Flutter has a bigger networking size than Kotlin. Kotlin has 31.3.8k clients and 49.7k stars on GitHub, while Flutter has 12.1k customers and 167k stars. Therefore, Flutter wins the comparison of prevalence.

2. Flutter vs Kotlin Performance

Flutter –  Known for its excellent performance due to its rendering engine (Skia).

Flutter apps are created using the Dart programming language. Because these apps are promptly turned into machine code, they run quickly. It modifies the rendering engine so that each view component is drawn separately from the web view and the device’s original manufacturer’s widgets.

Kotlin is a multipurpose programming language. Java is often compared to other languages. However, most cross-platform and Android apps are built using object-oriented programming languages. Performance-wise, Kotlin applications perform better on all platforms and execute faster.

 Performance can vary depending on the amount of shared logic and the platform-specific implementations.

3. UI/UX

Flutter – Offers a rich set of pre-built widgets and customization options for creating visually appealing UIs. Flutter is a straightforward UI framework that provides a set of uniform graphical primitives that enable the development of highly expressive user interfaces. It is an open-source, cross-platform UI framework that speeds up and improves programming.

Kotlin Multiplatform – Primarily focuses on shared business logic, requiring platform-specific UI frameworks for each platform. The Kotlin interface is also really good. It can be applied to the development of native, web, and desktop applications. Additionally, its many functional programming features let you write high-quality code in fewer lines. Additionally, it is compatible with iOS and Android.

4. Development Speed & Accuracy

Flutter – Hot reload speeds up development considerably, allowing for quick experimentation and iteration. The robust documentation and sizable community also help to accelerate the learning curve. Fantastic support from the Flutter community is another reason for the quick development speed. 

Kotlin Multiplatform – Because of the complexity of code sharing and the requirement to comprehend multiplatform principles, there may be a higher initial learning curve. In the long term, nevertheless, it is more effective for projects that have a lot of shared logic. Developers having good knowledge of Java can also take up Kotlin quickly. 

5. Market Adoption & Community Support 

 Flutter – Flutter is a platform that continuously achieves success in the market. Boasts a large and active community, extensive documentation, and a vast ecosystem of third-party packages. The Flutter community, on the basis of GitHub stars and general industry trends, is picking up the pace very quickly. It is widely adopted due to its cross-platform approach. 

Kotlin Multiplatform – It has a growing community and a supportive ecosystem, but it may not be as mature as Flutter’s. The community is young and has yet to achieve the level of Flutter’s popularity. Due to its ability to use a cross-platform approach, Flutter is widely accepted as opposed to Kotlin, which is primarily used for Android apps. 

6. Platform Compatibility

Flutter is praised for its cross-platform capabilities since it can be used to construct web, mobile, and embedded apps from a single codebase. In contrast to other cross-platform frameworks that depend on bridges or interpreters, it compiles native code, which enhances performance on mobile devices. Flutter is compatible with Google Fuchsia, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and the web.

Despite being platform-neutral, Kotlin is well known for its robust support for Android development. Developers may exchange functionality across platforms (iOS, Android, Web, and Desktop) with Kotlin’s multiplatform capability, which also permits platform-specific implementations as needed. However, Flutter’s support for platforms other than Android is more developed, particularly when it comes to UI creation. 

7. Integration Capabilities

Flutter is well known for its beautiful user interface. It offers numerous widget modification options and is quite easy to use. Its UI is its strongest point, but it also has strong backend capabilities. However, activating them may require a little more effort. When in doubt, you can discuss the integration capabilities of Flutter with your Flutter app development company. 

However, Kotlin offers developers a great degree of flexibility to construct and adapt their programs as needed because it is a general-purpose programming language. Because of this, it’s a great choice for developing intricate and expansive applications that could be a bit more difficult to complete using a framework like Flutter.

Food for thought – A few questions you must ask the developer while having the app discussion

• How well do Flutter and Kotlin integrate with existing native applications?
• Can they be used together in a single project?

Learning Curve:

Flutter – Generally considered easier to learn than Kotlin Multiplatform, especially for developers with prior experience in Dart or other UI frameworks. Learning Dart, a language with a distinct syntax closer to C-languages, is necessary to comprehend Flutter. Despite being seen as easy to learn, Dart is very different from widely used languages like Javascript, Java, or C++.

Kotlin Multiplatform – Requires learning Kotlin and understanding how to structure code for multiplatform environments. Because Kotlin and Java have nearly identical syntax, learning Kotlin is much easier for Java developers. For people who are already familiar with Java, this similarity lowers the learning curve.

8. Language Support

Dart, the official language for Flutter is created by Google. For developers who are familiar with Java or JavaScript, Dart’s syntax is simple, but its limited use outside of Flutter may be a disadvantage. Dart’s declarative and reactive programming approach makes it easier to create user interfaces and manage state, which has an impact on development. Skilled coders who are proficient with Dart can manage such situations. 

Kotlin is completely compatible with Java and operates on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). This facilitates the transfer for developers who have experience with Java. Kotlin’s current features and succinct syntax cut down on boilerplate code while increasing efficiency. Its vast library support and community resources are guaranteed by its ubiquitous use, especially in Android development. By selecting Kotlin, you may take advantage of a well-known environment.

9. Documentation

Since Flutter is an open-source platform, as was previously said, it provides extensive documentation. In addition, it offers consumers outstanding performance when it comes to testing features that can UT the widgets during integration. 

On the other hand, the user makes widget tests to test the UI and runs them at UT speed. Kotlin’s documentation lags much behind that of Flutter because it is a very young framework.

Choosing the Right Framework

While working on your desired app, you need a framework that is best compatible with it. There are a few factors that you need to check off from your framework selection checklist. Factors to consider when choosing between Flutter and Kotlin Multiplatform:

•  Project requirements (e.g., UI complexity, performance needs, shared logic requirements)
•  Team expertise
•  Project timeline and budget
•  Long-term maintainability and scalability

Conclusion

Two potential frameworks.

One Promise – create stunning mobile applications.

Flutter vs Kotlin and their suitability for a given project, taking into account their similarities and differences. Another thing is relying on the specifics of the project, including the kind of app, its complexity, its development cost, and other factors. 

Let us be the app development partner you need in your business journey.

Solguruz can assist you if you’re still unsure between Flutter and Kotlin regarding which framework or programming language to utilize for your project. We can assist you in selecting a programming language or framework that satisfies all of your performance and functionality requirements because we have demonstrated expertise and experience developing apps using Flutter and Kotlin. 

FAQs

1. Which is better, Kotlin or Flutter, for Mobile App Development?

Both. If you need a cross-platform approach and animation or quick MVP development, then Flutter is your choice. If you need a dedicated Android app with Java-based shared business logic, then Kotlin is your go-to option. 

2. Will Google replace Kotlin with Flutter?

No, Kotlin and Flutter are growing in the market. With Java as the core programming language, it seems hard to replace Kotlin. 

3. Is Flutter still relevant in 2025?

Flutter is growing its popularity and becoming more and more relevant. With the increase in animation and graphical apps, Flutter will be utilized more in 2025.

4. Is Kotlin faster than Dart?

If Kotlin is faster than Dart depends on the application you are developing, and the app needs. 

5. Kotlin vs Flutter – Which is Suitable For MVP Development?

Flutter may be a better option for teams working on an MVP app or who need to prioritize iteration and development speed above native performance and can quickly learn Dart.