Flutter Rust Bridge- Are they vital for cross-platform App development?

Flutter is Google’s portable UI stable platform used for crafting natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop. So, the first question arises, why do we need Rust? Within the competitive market, the popularity of Flutter among desktop and cross-platform apps does not carry forward anyway. To be more precise, the native code with the underlying operating system is hard to get with the flutter. 

In this blog, we have introduced the new and effective Flutter Rust bridge that implements the desired effectiveness and functionality in cross-platform and desktop app development. 

Before that, let us understand:

Rust 

As per the Stack survey results, Rust is the most loved language among developers for years. Many large tech companies like Microsoft, Facebook, and Dropbox have used this language. 

Being the most loved programming language, it focuses on security and performance. Rust is a fast and memory-efficient language that works without any specific runtime or garbage collector. As a result, it gives the best solutions for bare-metal and embedded development. 

More or less, it can solve problems that other languages struggle with and also easily integrates with other languages. 

Benefits of using Rust 

• Safety- Designed with the memory safety feature, Rust prevents null pointers, dangling pointers, or data races from theft. The core library of Rust also includes a unique option type that tests the value to avoid any common errors with pointers. It benefits the developers by giving a stricter compiler than other languages. While in production, it guarantees the best memory security. 
• Performance- When it comes to performance, Rust is blazing fast! Within no time it compiles native codes across different platforms. It adds the corresponding LLVM or assembly instructions to get rid of the extra memory space. In the last part, it offers improved performance with a sharp runtime. 
• Backend Development- Rust is also beneficial for backend and web development. The varieties of libraries, tools, and community support help rust developers build, test, optimize, run and perform apps smoothly. For instance, Facebook uses Rust to control the backend and bring back efficiency, security, and flexibility. 

The drawback of using platform-specific language!

Flutter as per its nature is a cross-platform language, which means that developers working with Flutter will not encounter a bona-fide platform-specific language like Kotlin or Swift. 

For instance, if you want to create data transmitting amidst Flutter and native code, developers need to create the bindings to transfer the data back and forth. It is a bipolerate process and can be frustrating and time-consuming. Hence, binding the updates within the changing implementation process becomes really a hectic task. 

In such a case, the search of Stack Overflow is not rough along with its implementation. Kotlin and Swift manage the memory accessibility for the developers and automatically dispose of unnecessary objects. Despite the difficulties, it is not impossible to get memory leaks. 

Further, the process gets totally different if you look for a desktop application like Microsoft and Linux. 

C++ is used by developers to implement native functionality. Making the process more difficult, the developers need to manage the particular memory lane and track references. Additionally, any expectations that occur at the native layer remaining uncaught can lead to a desktop crash. 

In short, the codes are unsafe for beginners’ use and are not very appealing to the eyes of the audience. 

Rust integrates with Flutter- How & Why? 

Flutter is a Dart-written framework that builds natively compiled apps across various platforms. Mainly supported by Dart, it is primarily designed to build effective web and mobile apps. Flutter developers create UI and apps effective on multiple platforms just with a single codebase. 

On the other hand, Rust is a reliable, flexible, and efficient language for backend and web development. Despite the effective workflow, it also struggles with UI/UX development, where Flutter performs royally. 

So, now you might guess why Flutter and Rust are integrated with each other. 

As Rust can perform on its own without the need for a garbage collector, developers use the Rust projects as the library for Flutter via FFI (foreign-function interface). So, it is easier to replace the Flutter performance-critical code with Rust code and ignore the memory safety issues lately. The integration helps the developers to perform seamlessly and avoid issues that other programming languages can have. 

If you want to know when the integration of Flutter and Rust will take place, you can directly consult Flutter Development Company. 

Consult with the Flutter developers now! 

The integration is a must and beneficial for the developers. It gets more important as there are various drawbacks to using a particular platform-specific language.