Problem Statement
What is the difference between Hot Reload and Hot Restart in Flutter?
Explanation
Hot Reload injects updated source code files into the running Dart Virtual Machine (VM), rebuilds the widget tree while preserving the app state, making it perfect for UI changes, bug fixes, and iterative development. Changes appear in less than a second without losing your place in the app, navigation stack, or form data.
Hot Restart restarts the entire application from scratch, losing all state and reinitializing everything from the main function. Use Hot Restart when you've changed code that affects app initialization, modified main function, changed global variables, or updated dependencies, as these changes require a full restart to take effect.
Hot Reload uses JIT compilation during development to quickly compile changes, while production builds use AOT compilation for optimal performance. Hot Reload doesn't work for changes in native code, asset changes require app restart, and some state management changes might need Hot Restart to properly update.
