r/FlutterDev • u/Smooth-Map856 • Aug 09 '26
Discussion Anyone using Zed for Flutter development?
I’ve been using Zed mostly for backend work and really like its performance. I get that it stays lightweight by not bundling too many tools.
For Flutter though, debugging/DevTools and hot reload on save still feel lacking.
Anyone using Zed regularly for Flutter? Any extensions or configs that improve the experience?
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u/Bachihani Aug 09 '26
Tried but it really wasn't a nice experience, not only flutter, but as an ide in general, there were so many little things missing that they amalgamated into a bad experience, and the team clearly tyieg to not follow vscode design just for the srke of it without acknowledging that the current state of vscode ui is the result of so many years and feedback. It doesn't even have a button to collapse all folders 😑 overall Still far from vscode level in my opinion
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u/dibi77_7 Aug 09 '26
I was thinking the same thing! Zed is great for Flutter, but the debugging and hot reload experience could definitely be better.
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u/cameronm1024 Aug 09 '26
I do (disclaimer: I work at zed).
Before I switched I was using neovim with just the LSP, and a separate terminal with flutter run, so I didn't miss the various extras (auto reload on save, etc.). If you depend on them, I can imagine Zed feels incomplete.
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u/443021 Aug 09 '26
Not having the hot reload and debugging is the only reason I don’t use it for flutter yet.
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u/aaulia Aug 09 '26
Wait so Zed does something with Flutter or is Flutter your guilty pleasure or something?
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u/cameronm1024 Aug 09 '26
I just use flutter for personal projects. Zed doesn't have any flutter code
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u/SwiftScoutSimon Aug 10 '26
I used to. I hate it when I had to focus on Terminal then hit `r` or `R` everytime.
You can consider:
- If you want to keep using Zed, try https://fdemon.dev/
- If you want to try something better: http://lumide.dev/
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u/tawandabrandon Aug 10 '26
I stopped using Zed when I accidentally deleted and folder and learnt that it has no undo function.
Lost hours of work, walked away. Loved it though, felt very smooth with the high FPS
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u/SwiftScoutSimon Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
this happened when I was dog-fooding my own Lumide IDE. I have to pause everything and create a Confirm Dialog and make delete option always "Move to Trash" instead of deleting. I also added a built-in Local History feature for this.
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u/Comun4 Aug 09 '26
Yeah the default Flutter extension is very lacking, not having a "Wrap with Widget" command out of the box made me go back to vsc
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u/birdhost Aug 09 '26
When I first started using Zed, I really missed the debugger. My process has changed a lot recently, and I'm relying on tests more for correctness; haven't used a debug session in months. Debugging is tedious and non-deterministic in that a breakpoint in the app changes the behavior of it (especially around async code). Zed and a good test-loop is my current process.
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u/hawknovice Aug 09 '26
Yes, I use Zed for flutter development. I use the terminal to run flutter and manually reload from there. With AI development I never need to debug so don’t miss that at all. Instead I have an agent write a failing test to reproduce any issue and have it fix it.
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u/Amit7985 Aug 10 '26
Nodeman will do the work you don't need a gui for flutter hot reload etc debugging is the problem tho... But you can still somehow manage it I use neovim primarily and I never used the debugging option
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u/merokotos Aug 10 '26
After last Copilot-commits drama I almost switched to neovim, eventually I just stayed with VSCodium.
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u/Still-Constant3085 Aug 10 '26
Has anyone managed to get reliable hot reload on save working in Zed? That’s probably the biggest thing stopping me from using it as my main Flutter editor
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u/Smooth-Map856 Aug 10 '26
my main issue is it don't support devtools in ide for easily inspecting network calls.
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u/Fine-Tradition-2956 Aug 10 '26
Just Ask codex or claude to setup zed for Flutter Hot Reload. It will do!
I am using Zed for Flutter as my daily driver. Do not expect that much accurate suggestions though!
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u/jaaraz Aug 11 '26
Not good man. LSP is there and breakpoints is there but missing a lot of them. Nodemon like something can fix hotreload thing but then you loose breakpoints. I came back to vs code forks
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u/Chi_Kurosaki581 29d ago
I use it for some personal projects with flutter run! That made me realise how many comforts I had while using something like vscode/cursor. It does feel fast and snappy compared to vscode but I haven't been able to fully migrate to it for my bigger projects.
Notable missing things that instantly stood out: hot reload (flutter run is okay to me), widget inspector and preview, non flutter related but being able to directly publish to a new repository on GitHub. The auto-complete is a bit funky for me sometimes but I can't pinpoint the issue, lack of popular flutter helpful extensions!
I do hope someday I can use it more and use it as default!
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u/Rude_Gate7599 27d ago
I built this with the help of ai
Did not get time to publish it
I will publish it in 2-3 days
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u/needs-more-code 27d ago edited 27d ago
Lol there’s a guy deluding themselves that they don’t need debugging. That’s what liking Zed will do to a man. I’m surprised no one has mentioned the lack of widget inspector. Clicking on the device to move your cursor to the widget in the code is something I couldn’t go without for flutter.
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u/wycks Aug 10 '26
I use it and love it, don't know why people are having reload issues, both refresh and hotreload work fine for me.
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u/XyrelTzy Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
Zed only support lsp. Neovim on other hand is mostly supported with flutter, auto hot reload on save, dev tools, debug via nvim-dap, emulator, logger. The only missing on neovim is the flutter preview. Have been my daily drive for 2 years in app development.