The EdTech industry has been rising at a phenomenal rate since the pandemic. The EdTech industry has brought schools into mobile phones, making education accessible just by a click of your smartphone. The learning behavior of students is shifting toward digital learning, and this is all possible because of technology.
Mobile app development has made it possible for education businesses to move online and educate more students through online courses accessible through mobile phone apps. The education technology market is rising many folds due to the increasing demand for online education. Even a student sitting in some remote corner of the world can learn anything on his mobile phone without ever stepping out of their house. People are pursuing higher education from the comfort of their homes or while managing a full-time job.
The global education technology market size was valued at USD 106.46 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.5% from 2022 to 2030. Education technology (EdTech) includes hardware and software technology used to educate students on a virtual level to improve classroom learning. Digital content is comparatively easy to generate than printed content, which tends to incur higher production costs. Digital books are available in different languages and can be easily translated and retrieved by a wider user base. Moreover, learners, especially those with physical disabilities, can listen to the educational content in an audio format to improve their vocabulary and encourage better interpretive reading.
For instance, in January 2022, Texthelp Ltd., a prominent assistive technology provider for the EdTech market, launched OrbitNote. This pdf-enabled app would be helpful for visually impaired students to access the document by leaving voice notes. Technology is disrupting traditional limitations and making education accessible to all.
Rising Competition in the EdTech Market
New players are entering daily into the EdTech space, and many new startups are emerging to encash this lucrative market but also to spread the reach of education as far as possible. The challenge is to make online education more affordable and effective at the same time using the current technology.
As you all know, mobile app development plays a huge role in the EdTech industry because most online learning platforms reach their students via smartphone apps. Mobile apps have made it possible for EdTech companies to deliver quality content at affordable rates to more and more students as technically possible.
According to the current statistics, EdTech app development is the third most frequently installed app on mobile devices, with a current rate of 8.47%. And hence EdTech app developers are increasing in demand. Other than that, there are stats that the global market of m-learning apps was seen at $165.36 billion in past years and is expected to grow by $243 billion in 2022. After all, the demand for mobile education apps has remained high, and these mobile apps offer the best support to earn massive profits for each student.
Since there are so many options for students in terms of choosing an EdTech platform to learn, EdTech businesses must buckle up in creating apps that give a better and smooth learning experience. For this, businesses must invest in the right app development technologies like Flutter, Drupal, etc. Though there are many options for businesses to choose from, Flutter and Drupal are the most popular choices for mobile app development. There might be a dilemma about whether you should hire Drupal developers or Flutter developers; for this, you must understand which technology is best suited to build your EdTech apps.
“WTF: What The Flutter” has to offer?
Flutter, written with Dart programming language, is a cross-platform mobile application development framework, more like a software development kit; Google created Flutter in 2018. It is used to build robust apps for multiple mobiles, desktop OS, and the web from a single codebase without the need to code differently for each OS. Also, Flutter is an open-source platform that invites community contributions to its code repository.
Since Flutter’s launch and subsequent expansion into development for desktop and web, It has been adopted widely and has seen huge expansion. According to Stack Overflow Trends, Flutter has surpassed both React native and Xamarin in terms of the questions asked about their respective technologies. Google Trends display increasing users’ interest in Flutter, with searches about the framework soaring in the past two years. Google also claims that over 500,000 developers have adapted Flutter for app development. Hence, many businesses hire Flutter developers for their mobile app development projects.
What’s the Catch in Drupal?
In the mobile app development market, Drupal is an important player in the market. It is popular as a good old CMS (Content Management System) and LMS (Learning Management System), which is crucial for EdTech app development. The range of mobile apps Drupal can deliver is impressive. Drupal has seen evolution and adaptation, resulting in a huge user base of the CMS and LMS as well. Currently, over 600,000 websites and apps are made using Drupal. Most of them are developed by freelance Drupal developers.
The usage statistics for Drupal throughout the years are mapped on the graph shown above, which clearly shows that Drupal is quite popular among developers and is widely used in the mobile app development industry. Now take a look at this pie chart below:
As an API-first CMS and LMS, Drupal makes it easy to communicate smoothly with any application. It is these APIs that link Drupal to the mobile application. For this reason, 12.29% of science & education businesses rely on Drupal for building their mobile apps.
Drupal or Flutter: Which One is Better Suited For EdTech Apps?
The primary reason why an EdTeach business wants to build a mobile app is to reach more students and expand marketing avenues. Both Drupal and Flutter occupy large parts of the commercial spectrum. As per the statistics and reports, Drupal seems to dominate the education app development industry since it is a good CMS and LMS. But Flutter is also not behind because its cross-platform ability saves costs and fastens the development process. As per the latest trends, connecting Drupal with Flutter for app development is applied in many EdTech app development projects.
Drupal’s greatest strength is its ability to mold into any customization, and in case customization does not exist, creating an API for your requirement is always an option. Drupal allows for decoupling and connecting with Flutter through its web services like REST API. While Drupal acts as a powerful backend managing content, Flutter helps to build a native mobile app.
To Conclude:
Both Flutter & Drupal have their share of pros and cons. Both these technologies are widely used in mobile app development, but when it comes to EdTech apps, Drupal seems to have a little edge over flutter. Though as per the recent trends, both Flutter & Drupal are used together in EdTech app development because of their collective advantages.
You can hire Flutter developers, Drupal developers, and other freelance developers on the emerging freelancing portal halogig.com. The AI engine of halogig will connect you to developers with industry-relevant skills specific to your industry (like EdTech, Healthcare, etc.).
