Kraken 0.8.0: Flutter 2.2.2 Support, 10% Faster First Paint, New HTML & CSS Features
Kraken 0.8.0 introduces Flutter 2.2.2 compatibility with Dart Null Safety, boosts first‑paint performance by 10% through Bridge optimizations, enhances Flexbox layout speed, adds new HTML tags and CSS units, fixes numerous bugs, and outlines upcoming features like QuickJS and SSR support.
Official site: https://openkraken.com/
GitHub: https://github.com/openkraken/kraken
Since its open‑source launch on April 21, 2021, the Kraken rendering engine—compatible with W3C standards—has attracted strong community interest. After more than two months of iteration and extensive bug fixing, Kraken 0.8.0 is now released.
Update Highlights
Support for the latest Flutter stable version
Version 0.8 supports Flutter stable v2.2.2 and fully embraces Dart Null Safety.
Performance improvements
This release optimizes Bridge runtime performance. By reducing unnecessary copies during JavaScript binding property accesses, the first‑screen performance improves by about 10% compared with version 0.7.
Flexbox layout performance boost
Flexbox layout speed is enhanced through a new style‑change detection strategy that minimizes redundant layout operations, delivering faster rendering even with deeply nested Flexbox structures.
New HTML tags and CSS unit support
Kraken 0.8.0 adds common semantic HTML tags such as h1‑h6 and strong, introduces the vmin and vmax CSS units, and supports inheritance of text styles. It also implements margin collapsing, despite it being considered a design mistake by the W3C CSS Working Group, to maintain broad compatibility.
Extensive bug fixes
Community feedback after open‑sourcing highlighted issues such as black/white screens during integration, Vue/React page failures, and event bubbling that did not follow W3C standards. All these problems have been resolved in v0.8.0.
Community Adoption
Several companies have expressed interest in integrating Kraken into their apps, including:
Youku
Gaode Maps
QQ Music
Lujinso
Tuya Tech
If your product is also exploring Kraken, feel free to comment.
What’s Next
The team’s primary goal is to achieve ultra‑fast startup performance. In the upcoming 0.9 release, Kraken plans to:
Support QuickJS with bytecode loading.
Add HTML text format support and an SSR rendering solution.
Stay tuned for Kraken’s progress, and raise any questions on the GitHub repository.
Taobao Frontend Technology
The frontend landscape is constantly evolving, with rapid innovations across familiar languages. Like us, your understanding of the frontend is continually refreshed. Join us on Taobao, a vibrant, all‑encompassing platform, to uncover limitless potential.
How this landed with the community
Was this worth your time?
0 Comments
Thoughtful readers leave field notes, pushback, and hard-won operational detail here.