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| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +title: "Zoho Tables" |
| 3 | +description: "Learn how the Zoho Tables team built their multi-platform spreadsheet-database hybrid using Flutter, achieving feature parity in 14% less time with a 60% smaller team." |
| 4 | +headline: "Zoho Tables" |
| 5 | +summary: "Building a spreadsheet-database hybrid with Flutter" |
| 6 | +appName: "Zoho Tables" |
| 7 | +companyName: "Zoho" |
| 8 | +logo: "images/third_party/case_studies/zoho-tables/zoho.png" |
| 9 | +card: "images/third_party/case_studies/zoho-tables/zoho.png" |
| 10 | +videoEmbedUrl: "https://www.youtube.com/embed/YWAuwAR28KY" |
| 11 | +locations: |
| 12 | + - India |
| 13 | +platforms: |
| 14 | + - Mobile |
| 15 | +industries: |
| 16 | + - Productivity |
| 17 | +successMetrics: |
| 18 | + - perc: 60 |
| 19 | + desc: "smaller team size" |
| 20 | + - perc: 50 |
| 21 | + desc: "reduction in developer costs" |
| 22 | + - perc: 42 |
| 23 | + desc: "higher refresh rates" |
| 24 | +tags: |
| 25 | + - mobile |
| 26 | + - android |
| 27 | + - ios |
| 28 | +publishDate: "2026-05-01" |
| 29 | +--- |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +[Zoho](http://www.zoho.com) serves over 130 million users |
| 32 | +across 180 countries across a catalog of 55 applications. |
| 33 | +The duplication of efforts across Android, iPhone, and iPad platforms |
| 34 | +presented a massive drain on engineering resources. |
| 35 | +To address this challenge, the team adopted Flutter |
| 36 | +to build [Zoho Tables](https://www.zoho.com/tables/) |
| 37 | +with a fraction of their engineering resources. |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +<Image src="images/third_party/case_studies/zoho-tables/tablet_and_ipad.png" format="fullwidth" alt="iPhone and iPad" /> |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | +**Why Flutter?** |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | +Before committing to a technology, |
| 44 | +the Zoho Tables team built rigorous proofs of concept, |
| 45 | +ran widget tests, and benchmarked refresh rates |
| 46 | +for different cross-platform technologies. |
| 47 | +Flutter consistently outperformed the competition, |
| 48 | +demonstrating a 42% higher refresh rate. |
| 49 | +This high performance was essential |
| 50 | +for the application's "infinite canvas," |
| 51 | +which hosts massive spreadsheets, galleries, and calendars. |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +<Image src="images/third_party/case_studies/zoho-tables/Android.png" format="fullwidth" alt="Android" /> |
| 54 | + |
| 55 | +Additionally, Flutter's comprehensive documentation |
| 56 | +enabled their existing Java and Swift developers |
| 57 | +to transition to Dart almost immediately, |
| 58 | +making it possible to build functional user interface components |
| 59 | +in no time. |
| 60 | +Flutter also enabled the team to respect platform-specific |
| 61 | +design conventions using Material and Cupertino libraries |
| 62 | +while maintaining a single codebase. |
| 63 | + |
| 64 | +**Their solution: Building with Flutter** |
| 65 | + |
| 66 | +The team built the Zoho Tables mobile application |
| 67 | +by rendering content on a custom canvas |
| 68 | +using Flutter's custom paint and scroll physics. |
| 69 | +This custom implementation achieved smooth scrolling |
| 70 | +for users interacting with anywhere from 100 to 100,000 rows of data. |
| 71 | + |
| 72 | +<Image src="images/third_party/case_studies/zoho-tables/iPhone.png" format="fullwidth" alt="iPhone" /> |
| 73 | + |
| 74 | +To integrate native hardware features, |
| 75 | +the team combined Flutter's platform channels with native APIs. |
| 76 | +This approach brought support for Apple Pencil and Samsung S Pen, |
| 77 | +allowing users to sketch, take notes, |
| 78 | +and even create a new database by drawing a form. |
| 79 | +For state management, the team used a combination of |
| 80 | +[BLoC](https://pub.dev/packages/bloc), `ValueNotifier`, |
| 81 | +and `ValueListenableBuilder` to organize a codebase |
| 82 | +of over one million lines of code. |
| 83 | +The team is also experimenting with using Flutter's GenUI SDK |
| 84 | +to let users build rich dashboards with AI |
| 85 | +and integrate Zoho Tables with AI agents with Gemini. |
| 86 | + |
| 87 | +**Key results and business impact** |
| 88 | + |
| 89 | +By adopting Flutter, the Zoho Tables team |
| 90 | +achieved significant development velocity and cost reductions: |
| 91 | + |
| 92 | +* Reached feature parity with their web application |
| 93 | + in 14% less time. |
| 94 | +* Shipped on mobile with a team that was 60% smaller |
| 95 | + than the web application team. |
| 96 | +* Reduced overall developer costs by 50%. |
| 97 | +* Decreased build times by 70% using hot reload |
| 98 | + and fast compilation. |
| 99 | +* Achieved a 42% higher refresh rate |
| 100 | + compared to other cross-platform options. |
| 101 | + |
| 102 | +<br /> |
| 103 | +<br /> |
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