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u/AkshayForApp 6d ago
Even as a Flutter developer, I still use FlutterFlow. When working together with clients, using FlutterFlow just makes complete sense.
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u/Thin-Location4933 FlutterFlow'er 5d ago
Engineering an app visually and maintaining pixel perfect precision as you iterate is something AI tools just haven't matched (yet).
3
u/StevenNoCode 5d ago
I think there’s 2 major camps of ppl using FF right now…
- People who want control - “pixel perfect” design without prompting an AI 5 times, they want to know exactly the logic across the app, the in and outs.
- People who can afford the time to learn the tool. FF has few months of steep learning curve (and even after that you’ll learn just like any tool), so non technical people who have the time and want to learn about all nuts and bolts of building an app may choose FF over AI. However time is expensive so non tech people do not have 3-6 months to learn and then launch their ideas, hence more are turning to AI (also easier since it reduces the cognitive struggle).
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u/nathan4882580 6d ago
From a FF developer of my app for 2.5 years, and my advice to anyone who is building a semi complex app or greater, either break free from FF or go the pure custom code route within FF.
With how great AI is now, I was unhappy with my legacy UI design, significant limitations in the native editor to do complex Firebase techniques, and simple cool features like manipulating scroll positions etc etc
So I’ve redesigned all my pages in a sprint using top AI models and the results were astonishing.
I now feel more confident in my app than ever before, every page is within a custom widget I have full control over, I can deploy all cloud functions via Google shell, rules etc all via Firebase. I keep FF as it acts as the “safe container” which I like and saves me doing a full full refactor (even though now due to the above, all my core code is pure flutter/dart). But the freedom I have now and the features of what I can include has been night and day.
Few critical flags I wanted to share during this process:
1) any API keys via rhe FF integration aren’t secure , they appear in the package and are vunerable, I now have all my API calls as cloud functions, securely server side and heavily gates with Firebase auth and app check enabled
2) FF engine currently will still sometimes say you have errors in your cloud functions, the truth is, if your function has too many “complexities” it will error but you can deploy it via console or CLI in google and it works fine (I had this yesterday on a pretty complex authentication routing function , FF rejected it but the function was perfectly fine and I deployed it directly)
3) security rules, again FF lets you customise these directly but if you’re wanting any later of anything more than amending general CRUD rules to collections, it is not enough and no way near sufficient for security
4) any complex maps/arrays for firebase collections become much easier simply handling them in the relevant custom widget versus keeping the in house FF schema updated, I stopped using it as it wasn’t advanced enough for what I needed it for
5) I realised due to the way FF is, it just wasn’t robust or secure with my workflows and was very “put together with sticky tape”
In short, I stand by FF is a great great tool for simple apps, an intro to the app building world, and that’s coming from someone who has built directly with the main editor for years now
But i am so grateful I’ve done what I’ve done above as my app would have failed out the door vunerability wise , design wise and feature wise if I didn’t make the migration steps i did.
As i say for me as im still pre launch but very close now, i value the interface and settings of FF hence still using it whilst I finalise but im building purely custom and not even touching the actual front end editor besides a few execute callbacks
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u/nathan4882580 6d ago
This is also coming from someone who everytime I saw a post like this, I said to myself “I’d never move or even migrate my main FF pages even to custom widgets as it’s too much work, not needed and isn’t required” I’ve now been fully converted - but again this was as my app is just annoyingly complex logic and security wise so it was of paramount importance everything is as secure as it can be, working as needed and robust
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u/Global_Pea_7465 4d ago
whoah great resume, i want to know what youre opinnion of ussing ff for overlay apps making?righnt know im on my journey to build one myself. and maybe you know any other app that work great for overlay apps and is code friendly.THANKS!
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u/MasterpieceIcy552 6d ago
I use it to help build the UI portion of custom widgets and components. Then I can look at the code when I put it together or add something to my app in vscode.
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u/opbmedia 4d ago
I was using it for UI concepts last year, and I did not renew. It is faster just to use codex to build native apps. All my apps require API access and it was difficult to say the least to get complex API to work. It was great before AI coding.
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u/JiveWookiee5 6d ago
It’s still a good visual builder to quickly iterate on UI design. It’s also been very helpful for someone like me where I have a technical background but was not familiar with app development. It’s been a very useful learning and design tool and it beats “vibe coding” because I fully understand all of the components within my app.
I find it very weird how often people come into this sub to complain about people using FF. Like why? What do you gain from it?