Flutter’s Skia Engine Takes Cross-Platform App Development To a New Level

I have been scolded by the internet. By amazing, passionate tech enthusiasts and software engineering professionals. I made the “capital mistake” of omitting something that is inarguably at the very core of my latest software development mistress — Flutter’s — identity. I have been “accused” of forgetting to mention Skia, the graphics engine that makes Google’s new framework the cool new kid on the app development block.

Except it was neither forgetfulness or ignorance that led me to conveniently gloss over Skia in my last Flutter article. I had a few genuine reasons for doing so, and in this one I shall attempt to unpack those, one by one, and hopefully give you a more in-depth, and real-world view on Skia, at least from my perspective. I think it’s important for designers and developers to understand the drawbacks and benefits of this engine and translate the technical jargon to something useful and actionable.

I also think that now, after about a year’s worth of independent Flutter development, it is high time and absolutely worth having a more detailed conversation about Skia. I shall try of course to stay impartial and true to my mission of being objective.

I am quite certain, that by now anyone who has built at least a website or a native app has had their fair share of frustrations either with the browser or the operating system. Some suffer in silence, others take to StackOverflow, while those like me, throw rubber ducks at the wall, try and figure things out, then blog about their findings and maybe, just maybe, shed some additional light on whether Google’s new rendering engine results or not in truly cross-platform UIs.

Is it really Skia that makes Flutter cool?

Absolutely not. If we have learned anything from the likes of Apple, Guinness and Nike, is that a good ad is rarely or ever about specs and technical jargon, even if that’s a UI framework. The first and biggest selling-point of Flutter was, is and will remain its unparalleled developer experience and shallow learning-curve. When I first sat behind the wheel of a Mustang, I couldn’t care less about the size of its engine and the circumference of its pistons. It was all about how that car made me feel and…