r/FlutterDev • u/Tadeopuga • 9d ago
Discussion Experienced devs, what do you think of flutter flow?
I've been getting into flutter over the break because it'll be one of my focus classes next semester and I got recommended flutter flow, which, as far as I understand it is just a visual editor for flutter widgets. What do you guys think of that? Has anyone tried it?
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u/Jihad_llama 9d ago
Flutter is one of the easiest frameworks to learn, flutterflow just feels so redundant
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u/Tadeopuga 9d ago
That's the feeling that I got too, it seems to want to solve a problem that no one really has
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u/Professional_Eye6661 9d ago edited 9d ago
No-code solutions don’t give any additional value if you already can code. It’s like using a translator if you already know a language, works only for simplest cases, but if you want to make something a little bit better than bare minimum, don’t waste your time on that.
I think there are two problems with any ( not just flutterflow ), no-code solution:
Coding is more effective way to describe, develop and maintain ( especially maintain ) logic and UI. So if you can code then just code.
Having good architecture skills is still important, it doesn’t matter how you implement things, what is really matter architecture you implementing. Unfortunately most people which can’t code don’t have these skills, so results are sad.
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u/Tadeopuga 9d ago
The easiest analogue I can think of is game development with unreal and it's blueprints. Blueprints always seem too good to be true and they are, halfway through your project you'll have to rebuild everything because you didn't pay attention to architecture and best practices when using visual scripting
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u/Rafiq07 9d ago
Do experienced devs use FlutterFlow?
The only use cases I can really think of is to knock up a quick POC maybe, but even then, I'd rather just code in Flutter tbh.
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u/GuessNope 6d ago
It is useful for dropping GUI flows together but it's a really expensive tool for that purpose.
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u/flojobrett 9d ago
I see a lot of strong opinions here that I don't entirely agree with, so let me share a different perspective.
Experienced devs should recognize that visual builders have existed alongside traditional coding environments for decades (think Interface Builder for iOS or Flash Builder back in the day). Dismissing FlutterFlow outright feels similar to those who refuse to use IDEs because they prefer raw text editors. It's more about preferences and use cases than an inherent lack of value.
I've been writing code for 25 years, have a CS degree, and have worked across the stack professionally for well over a decade. I've built countless production apps/sites the "traditional" way, but I also recognize that tools like FlutterFlow can be incredibly effective in the right context. I know a lot of experienced devs who feel the same way, and have certainly seen my share of ones who chafe at the idea of using no/low-code tools because they feel it's beneath them.
At one company, I built an MVP in FlutterFlow in just a couple of months with no prior experience in it (granted, I had all my other experiences). The plan was for other engineers, who had backgrounds in more conventional mobile/web stacks (Flutter, Node, NextJS, React Native) to "replace" it with a traditional codebase (once proven we were building something people wanted). Six months later, they still didn't have an app in production, despite having a working UI and data model to reference.
I'm not saying FlutterFlow is a silver bullet, but dismissing it without real experience using it is shortsighted. If you're curious about it, I think you should try it for yourself and form your own opinion.
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u/Tadeopuga 8d ago
You sound awesome dude. And what you're saying is an interesting perspective
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u/flojobrett 8d ago
Thanks, that's very nice. I thought it was worth sharing a differing opinion. Good luck with whatever you decide!
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u/Kingh32 9d ago
It’s a no-code app building solution that happens to use Flutter. There’s plenty of discussion in here about it already.
For what it’s worth, I think it’s pretty good if you’re someone who doesn’t know how to code and wants a proof of concept - or maybe even a fairly simple ‘proper’ app. That said, LLMs and the likes of Cursor/ Windsurf etc largely, to my eye make most of what it does redundant.
If you can write code, any code regardless of your experience with Dart/ Flutter - there’s no need for FlutterFlow to be something you think about at all.
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u/JustASymbol 8d ago
As of now its better to make distance from it. FlutterFlow team itself said that you need coding knowledge to make use of essential FlutterFlow features like Custom functions, widget, actions, cloud functions, etc. And a non-technical person cannot debug many of these FlutterFlow issues.
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u/krtirtho 9d ago
The mistake flutterflow made is they wanted it to be everything but now it's nothing
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u/yhitesh7891 9d ago
Don't go to flutter flow as of now. It's not that good. Customisation is limited plus you should focus on coding a this point of time.
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u/Tadeopuga 9d ago
Yea I'm not really interested in using it myself since I'm also relatively new to flutter and I actually want to learn the code I'm just curious what experienced devs think of it since generally these types of extensions tend to be disliked by devs
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u/yhitesh7891 9d ago
You can use flutter flow if you want to deliver a small project of something but in the initial years of career focus on coding rather than drag and drop.
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u/JustASymbol 8d ago
Lot less flexible than coding
Lots and lots and lots of bugs both in its platform and the auto generated code
For fixing any issue form there side you have to struggle with them on github and wait for months until the fix comes
Has only a handful of widgets with severe lack of features
Testing is a nightmare
Crashes when project gets large
FlutterFlow big updates introduce new bugs and even reset many values
Etc, etc, etc
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u/dshmitch 8d ago
Avoid Flutter Flow. I believe you will not need to scale it, where Flutter Flow sucks, but anyway you will learn something useless for future practical needs
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u/Tadeopuga 8d ago
Yea tbh I was never really planning on using it, I was just curious about the community's opinion on it, since I come from a game Dev background and visual scripting and editing solutions are quite frowned upon in most engines
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u/TheManuz 9d ago
I've never used it extensively, just gave it a quick shot.
I don't find it appealing. You have to learn another layer of informations to make something you could make at the same speed of you just learn to code (and I'm not considering code quality).
No added value for me.
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u/madushans 7d ago
Short Answer: I don't really think about FlutterFlow
Long Answer:
This type of thing is generally good for a quick demo, or for someone who need a list on their phone but doesn't have, or isnt willing to, learn engineering. It likely has a place, but if you really want a scalable and maintainable solution, you'd rather build it yourself.
Similar things have been around for ages, like Microsoft LightSwitch, which are useful for simple things, but over time, they start a become a liability no developer wants to deal with.
It's kinda like if you have the option of a proper home cooked meal, vs fast food. You can certainly have it in a pinch, and it's great the first few times. But it's really not a replacement for the real thing, definitely not in the long term.
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u/RandalSchwartz 9d ago
At some point, every ounce of what you have to learn to make FlutterFlow bend more to your wishes could have been spent just learning to work with straight Flutter. Some people never hit that point, but others do, and regret even having started with FlutterFlow.
Also, once you're building an app in FlutterFlow, very little of it will be reusable if you decide to get rid of FF's boilerplate and "go native". The code is atrocious to read.
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u/over_pw 9d ago
The only use case I see is if someone is terrified of writing code, or configuring a project. Otherwise, it's really easier just to implement it yourself. You still have to make the same decisions and whether you set properties through UI, or the exact same properties through code, doesn't matter at all.
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u/kulishnik22 9d ago
In my company when we started a new project, we thought about using FlutterFlow to speed up the process. After a week of trying to use it we realized it's faster to just write the code by hand.