Flutter vs. Ionic for cross-platform development

Mobile application development often leverages frameworks like Flutter and Ionic due to their ability to facilitate cross-platform app creation with a single codebase for Android and iOS, among other advantages. Flutter, developed by Google, employs a widget-based layout using the Dart language and is known for its high performance and consistent native UI experience across platforms, extending support to desktop and web applications. It utilizes a binary messaging protocol for near-native performance and AOT compilation for efficient rendering. Ionic, initially built on Apache Cordova, uses web-based UI components compatible with popular frontend libraries like Angular and React, and it excels in turning web apps into hybrid mobile apps with Capacitor.js. Although Ionic offers a native-like UI experience, it relies on webview components, which can impact performance on low-end devices. While Flutter provides official support for desktop applications and uses the Skia graphics library for rendering, Ionic relies on the community-driven Electron framework for desktop app generation. Both frameworks support web application development, but Flutter's web apps use HTML Canvas, potentially affecting SEO. In choosing between them, Flutter is recommended for complex applications requiring high performance and beautiful UI, while Ionic is favored for less complex apps and scenarios where web developers transition to mobile app development without changing tech stacks.