Difference between initialRoute and home in MaterialApp

Question

Why is there the initialRoute property when home already exists in Flutter?

Answer 1

It's more about code readability (but not limited to), see all of them are doing the same job but in different ways:

runApp(
  MaterialApp(
    home: HomePage(),
  ),
);

or

runApp(
  MaterialApp(
    initialRoute: '/',
    routes: {
      '/': (_) => HomePage(),
    },
  ),
);

---

Use of onGenerateInitialRoute/onGenerateRoute allows you to change navigator animation too.

runApp(
  MaterialApp(
    onGenerateInitialRoutes: (route) {
      return [
        MaterialPageRoute(builder: (_) => HomePage())
      ];
    }
  ),
);

or

runApp(
  MaterialApp(
    initialRoute: '/',
    onGenerateRoute: (settings) {
      if (settings.name == '/') return MaterialPageRoute(builder: (_) => HomePage());
      return MaterialPageRoute(builder: (_) => UnknownPage()); // you can do this in `onUnknownRoute` too
    },
  ),
);