Should I use FlutterFlow to create Flutter apps faster? Flutter vs FlutterFlow

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FlutterFlow is a relatively new app builder, but it is based on Flutter logic and works with the Flutter widgets. But since FlutterFlow also has things like Firebase and Google Maps integration, this builder is very far ahead of others. Still, many people wonder if they should use FlutterFlow to build their apps faster.

We’re going to deal with this issue today by comparing Flutter and FlutterFlow.

How long will it take me to learn one of the technologies?

This question can be answered very easily. Flutter is a framework where you have to work with real code and program yourself. Whereas FlutterFlow is very easy to learn. You only need to learn the basic widgets and logic of Flutter. For everything else, like Firebase and Google Maps integration, there are tutorials from the official FlutterFlow YouTube channel.

But to answer the question concretely: To master Flutter basically you need about 2 months and if you want to master it really well you need at least 6 months, depends on how much time you invest in programming.

To learn FlutterFlow basically you don’t need longer than one day and to master it correctly well only at most 1–2 weeks.

So the intermediate score is 1:0 for FlutterFlow.

How creative can I be?

This question can also be answered very easily, but one should go a little further here.

By creativity I mean how much can I create without it being pre-made.

Since Flutter has a very large number of widgets (173 to be exact), which can all be customized very easily, you have a very large variety there and can create a lot.

With FlutterFlow it looks different again. Here you have only 35 widgets, but already prefabricated components, such as a Google login button, but also a complete text form or a stylized card. These components are very limited and are limited to 6. Of course you can also create your own widgets in FlutterFlow, but again only from these 35 widgets.

Now Flutter has collected a point and it is 1:1.

How visual can I build my apps?

Well, this point is also very easy to answer. Flutter is, as I said in the beginning, a framework and you have to write real code. With FlutterFlow this is different, because it is a visual app builder, which is very easy to use. By dragging and dropping you can arrange widgets very quickly and also by the visualization with all the integrations, FlutterFlow is far ahead of Flutter. Theming also goes visually with FlutterFlow.

Now FlutterFlow is in the lead again and it is 2:1.

Pub.dev and custom packages.

FlutterFlow uses certain packages to leverage their already built-in integrations, such as Google Maps. Also, FlutterFlow uses packages like url_launcher, page_transition or intl, but you can’t add more custom packages or use more from pub.dev.

This is of course different with Flutter, since you can use any package that exists on pub.dev and also create your own.

This makes it 2:2 again and thus a draw.

Responsive Layout

It’s always important that an app is responsive and especially important with Flutter, which is designed to reach multiple platforms with one codebase. This is not supported by FlutterFlow, which is not good in the realm of Flutter. That’s where things look different again with Flutter. There you can create Responsive Apps and websites.

After this point Flutter is the first time in lead with a 2:3.

Bugs & Bugfix

Flutter and FlutterFlow both don’t have many bugs, but still one technology has more than the other. FlutterFlow. This would not be too bad, because FlutterFlow is still very new and not even a year old, but it is not open source, so the community can’t fix bugs, only the team of the project. This is of course different with Flutter. This is open source and a huge community helps to improve the whole thing and fix bugs.

This gives Flutter even more advantage and the score is 2:4.

Community and help with problems

Flutter has been around longer than FlutterFlow and therefore the community is much bigger. You will find solutions to problems much faster and if you don’t find one, you will get an answer to your own question much faster. This is not the case with FlutterFlow. Here the probability is still very low that you will find solutions to a problem or even get answers to your own question.

To be fair, you won’t run into that many problems with FlutterFlow, since it’s safely coded anyway, despite the few bugs. Still, it’s a problem because even with Flutter you’ll often look at UI designs that you won’t find with FlutterFlow.

Flutter gets the point here too and it is now 2:5.

Conclusion

This was it. At the beginning, when we looked at it very superficially, it looked like FlutterFlow could keep up with Flutter, but in the end FlutterFlow is not that good for professional app development.

If FlutterFlow really wants to keep up with Flutter, it needs to add the following:

Note: In the following list, some things are added that I have not highlighted here now, because this would then no longer be a direct comparison and they are self-evident in Flutter, but I have also taken out some, because these are simply not possible in a SaaS product.

1. code editing and being able to add any widget from Flutter by code.
2. Pub.dev and custom packages integration → This also needs code editing to be there, as FlutterFlow logically can’t add drag and drop for each package.
3. responsive layout

I would really appreciate your feedback, whether they are positive or negative 😊

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Small information again at the end:

This blogpost only refers to the functions of FlutterFlow that are available for free, the reason being that Flutter is also completely free and in my opinion only this is a fair comparison.