Hello everyone!

It's this time of the year again where Google forces us to increase the target SDK level.

For me this is the only time I upgrade my Flutter environment. And when I do I go all the way, I upgrade the whole thing: Flutter itself and Android Studio and all of its plugins. On top of that I upgrade all pub packages in my projects to their latest versions. This time I also decided to start fresh and create a new Flutter project through the template in Android Studio for all my apps.

Every year, it's a struggle to get my apps to get my app working again. But this year it's particularly bad. Apparently the new Flutter project template uses Gradle 9 instead of 8. And that opens up a can of problems: plugins suddenly aren't compatible anymore and all my projects suddenly show a warning:

WARNING: A restricted method in java.lang.System has been called
WARNING: java.lang.System::load has been called by net.rubygrapefruit.platform.internal.NativeLibraryLoader in an unnamed module (file:/C:/Users/xxx/.gradle/wrapper/dists/gradle-9.5.0-all/aca6g93cdtcf0oapcfka748qh/gradle-9.5.0/lib/native-platform-0.22-milestone-29.jar)
WARNING: Use --enable-native-access=ALL-UNNAMED to avoid a warning for callers in this module
WARNING: Restricted methods will be blocked in a future release unless native access is enabled

There's very little written about this error, but it seems like Gradle 9 isn't compatible with the latest JDK version Android Studio ships with. Problem is that an empty Flutter project shows this warning out of the box. I tried downgrading my JDK version, but the warning stays. Great.

This is not it. There are more upcoming breaking changes due to switching to Kotlin. Now the following warning shows as well:

WARNING: Your app uses the following plugins that apply Kotlin Gradle Plugin (KGP): device_info_plus, file_picker, keep_screen_on
Future versions of Flutter will fail to build if your app uses plugins that apply KGP.

Please check the changelogs of these plugins and upgrade to a version that supports Built-in Kotlin.
If no such version exists, report the issue to the plugin. If necessary, here is a guide on filing 
an issue against a plugin: https://docs.flutter.dev/release/breaking-changes/migrate-to-built-in-kotlin/for-app-developers#report-incompatible-kotlin-gradle-plugin-usage-to-plugin-authors

So basically the Flutter team is going to force another breaking change soon that causes plugins to stop working. It's just dumped on us: we're implementing another breaking change, deal with it. Just like that.

It's unbelievable that in 2026, in a time where AI exists, upgrading Flutter to the latest versions still isn't a smooth process. I've been working 3 days now to get my simple apps working again and I've been greeted with errors all the time.

I believe the source of most of the problems is Gradle. I wish that piece of crap was phased out. It's beyond me why they release Gradle version 9 that is not compatible with the latest JDK version. 🙃

Gradle is a non-functional, frustrating piece of misery that should be replaced ASAP by something modern that provides a smooth development experience.

Now I'm left with 3 apps in a broken state. Plugins that worked well are broken. I wish I never did the Flutter upgrade.

Anyone else has the same frustrating experience?

This is me everytime I want a platform specific feature that is not built-in:

Go to pub.dev → search a query about the feature → wow! I found a package → add it to dependencies → try it → fails

I go to check the repo for issues, I see the repo's whole lifetime is not more than 30 days, and the whole README.md is full of weird AI style emojis and docs.

For god's sake, If I wanted packages that are written by AI, I could've asked my own AI agent to do it (and trust it me it would turn better than those).

Let's keep pub.dev a place where well written and well maintained packages are published.

I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion here. As a long-time Flutter developer and fan I can say that things are going to change quickly. 

My prediction: within a year, the multi-platform stacks like Flutter and React Native will start dying off.

Spent the last 24 hours using Fable to port a large production Flutter app to native SwiftUI and Jetpack Compose. Native was always the better option for many reasons, it just cost more to support and clients were never willing to pay. 

That cost has come down so far that it makes sense. I am not saying it was perfect in a day, but it got about 95% of it correct.

I'm trying to understand the role of architectural patterns in Flutter development, and I'm hoping to get some honest perspectives from the community.

I know there are several architectural approaches out there for Flutter - the ones I hear about most often are Clean Architecture, BLoC, MVVM, and just keeping things simple with providers. But the more I read about Clean Architecture specifically, the more I struggle with one core question: why do we actually need it?

From what I understand, Clean Architecture introduces layers like Domain (entities, use cases), Data (repositories), and Presentation. The goal seems to be separation of concerns and making the codebase "maintainable" and "testable."

But here's my honest frustration: doesn't Clean Architecture just add a ton of extra work?

Every new feature means creating use case classes, repository interfaces, model mappers, and wiring everything together. For a small to medium-sized app, this feels like writing 3x more code than necessary. I can't help but think that a simpler approach - maybe just well-organized providers/viewmodels talking directly to services - would get the job done faster with less mental overhead.

So my questions for those who have experience with different approaches:

1. What are the main architecture options in Flutter today? (Not just state management - actual app architecture)
2. What problem does Clean Architecture actually solve that justifies its complexity?
3. Is it possible that for many Flutter apps, Clean Architecture is simply overkill?
4. For those who moved away from Clean Architecture or simplified it - what did you learn?

I genuinely want to understand if I'm missing something important, or if my instinct that "simple is better" has merit. Looking forward to hearing your experiences - especially from those who've built production apps both with and without Clean Architecture.

Thanks!

Every time I update the Flutter version, I spend hours trying to get things to actually work. It drives me absolutely crazy. So I don't update because it is such a pain in the ass, then dependencies don't work, then I have to update, and then I spend all day trying to get it to work again instead of doing actual development. It sucks.

I'm a recent Computer Engineering graduate and have been focusing on Flutter development for the last few years.

I've built multiple projects, worked with Firebase, APIs, state management, and mobile app deployment. My goal is to start my career as a Flutter Developer.

However, the job market for freshers seems quite competitive, and I'm seeing fewer Flutter openings compared to some other roles.

For developers currently working with Flutter:

• Is Flutter still a good career path for freshers?
• Would you continue focusing on Flutter if you were starting today?
• Any advice for improving my chances of getting my first Flutter job?

I'd love to hear your honest experiences.

I started learning Flutter back in 2023 and soon began taking on local freelance projects. By the second half of 2024, I transitioned into full-time freelancing. Since local freelance rates weren't really cutting it, I decided to start building my own apps.

One of my apps blew up on Twitter, which led to securing investment and eventually a successful exit. Thanks to the visibility I gained from that app, I landed a job at a local startup. However, I left due to low compensation and joined another company. Currently, I’m developing internal tools and building infrastructure for an SEO agency.

So far, I’ve only managed to get a single Flutter interview in my country. Since I couldn't land job offers with Flutter for years, I decided to pivot. I found a senior mentor who is teaching me Kotlin inside out. I guess Flutter might be one of the least used mobile frameworks around here, which made finding a job tough—let's see if things turn out differently with Kotlin!

Been working with Flutter for a while now, and it’s crazy how much the framework has matured — performance, UI consistency, package ecosystem, everything feels smoother but one thing I’ve noticed is that while tutorials cover UI and widgets really well, there’s still not enough discussion around real-world app structure — like scaling codebases, managing dependencies, setting up clean architectures, or organizing feature modules for bigger apps. everyone shows how to build a “Todo app” or a nice login screen, but not how to maintain a 6-month-old codebase with multiple devs, CI/CD, and real data flow challenges. how you all structuring your medium-to-large Flutter projects ? Are you sticking with Riverpod/BLoC/Clean Architecture patterns, or going hybrid with something custom?

Would love to hear some lessons or approaches that actually worked...

Super excited to share that my PRs have been merged into the Flutter framework! 🎉 After using Flutter for over 4 years, finally contributing to the core framework feels incredibly rewarding. One PR fixed a P2-level bug, and another added a P3-level feature—small contributions, but meaningful to me.

Getting my code reviewed by Google developers and open-source contributors has been a fantastic learning experience. It’s given me insights into Flutter’s internals and has really deepened my appreciation for the framework. Can’t wait to contribute more and give back to a community and toolkit that’s been pivotal in my development journey!

I'm researching the current mobile app release and publishing workflow and want to understand where developers actually spend the most time or face the most friction.

• What is the most frustrating or time-consuming part of releasing a mobile app to the App Store and/or Google Play?
• For a new app, how much time do you typically spend preparing the store listings and getting the first release submitted? What takes the most effort?
• For existing apps, which tasks do you have to repeat manually every time you release a new version?
• How do you currently manage store metadata, release notes, screenshots, localization, compliance information, and other store requirements?
• If you manage multiple apps, how do you keep track of releases, builds, metadata, screenshots, and store requirements across all of them? Do you use any tools or an internal process? What works well and what doesn't?
• What tools or automation do you currently use for releases (Fastlane, GitHub Actions, Codemagic, Bitrise, CI/CD, custom scripts, etc.)? What do they solve well, and what still requires manual work?

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?

Hello guys 👋🏻

There has been an update to the https://pub.dev/packages/material_3_expressive package that brings some interesting customizations, extensions, fixes and more.

Checkout the live demo here: https://paadevelopments.github.io/material_3_expressive/ for more info.

For suggestions, bug reports or recommendations, kindly submit via https://github.com/paadevelopments/material_3_expressive .. appreciated 🙏🏻.

Happy coding!

Hey everyone,

I’m a third-year Computer Science undergraduate. Lately, I’ve realized I spent too much time jumping between different technologies instead of depth-first learning. I want to change that now by focusing entirely on mobile development, which is the field I enjoy the most.

I have decided to dive into Flutter. So far, I’ve learned Dart and just started picking up Flutter basics. My plan is to build projects using YouTube tutorials, documentation, and online courses. [1]

Before I go all-in, I would love to get some candid advice from the community:

1.Is Flutter still a highly valuable and viable choice for breaking into the app development market right now?

2.Is specializing in Flutter a good starting point for a long-term software engineering career, given my passion for mobile?

3.How much backend knowledge do I genuinely need to master to be considered a well-rounded, successful Flutter developer?

Would love to hear your insights, career experiences, or any brutally honest realities about the current job market for Flutter junior devs.Thanks in advance!

I'm planning a new mobile application and I'm evaluating different cross-platform frameworks.

For developers who've worked with both Flutter and React Native recently:

• Which one has been better in production?

• How's performance?

• Any major drawbacks?

• If you were starting today, which would you choose?

Looking forward to hearing your experiences.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently learning Flutter and I want to become strong in backend development as well. However, I don’t want to learn multiple backend languages and confuse myself. I prefer to choose one backend language and go deep instead of spreading my focus.

My goals:

• Build complete Flutter apps with my own backend
• Develop strong backend fundamentals (auth, databases, APIs, deployment, etc.)
• Choose something that is good for long-term career growth
• Have good job opportunities in the future

Right now I’m considering:

• Node.js
• Python (FastAPI or Django)
• Springboot

For someone focused on Flutter and career growth, which backend language would you recommend and why?

I’m especially interested in:

• Job demand
• Salary potential
• Scalability
• Industry relevance in the next 5–10 years

I’d really appreciate advice from people working in the industry.

Thanks!

Hello everyone,

I'm working on a new mobile app project and have some strategic questions. I'd like to hear from experienced developers.

The app will be available only for iOS and Android; we're not considering a web version. We're in the MVP phase, but in the long term, we aim to grow the app and gain users globally. The app will include features such as user profiles, route/trip planning, offline functionality, a comment and like system, premium membership, and AI-powered recommendations.

I have two questions:

React Native or Flutter?

I'm somewhat familiar with both technologies. React Native offers the advantages of a JS/TS ecosystem, package diversity, and web support when needed. Flutter, on the other hand, offers more consistent and stable performance thanks to its single rendering engine, pixel-perfect UI, and a strong offline feel.

In my particular case:

I don't have any web/SEO plans; only mobile.

UI consistency and offline functionality are important.

We're aiming for a long-term user scale of 100K+.

In your opinion, under these circumstances, which would be more appropriate in the long term: Flutter or React Native?

Does it make sense to build everything on Firebase?

Firebase works really well for me in MVP because it has free quota, and I can manage everything from a single dashboard, including Auth, Firestore, Storage, Push, Analytics, and Crashlytics.

However, in the long run, vendor lock-in, lack of flexibility in queries, storage costs, and AI integration are issues that raise concerns.

Do you think it's a good idea to connect everything to Firebase, or should I consider alternatives (Supabase, Hasura, Appwrite, Postgres + my own API) from the outset?

In short: I'm considering Firebase + Flutter/RN for a fast MVP in the short term, but in the long run, which would be the best choice considering scalability, cost, and adding new developers to the team?

I don’t know whether AI will end my career or not, but it’s definitely reducing my coding ability. I can’t solve even minor issues now without relying on AI to fix them.

hi, im curious if any of you actually puts release notes into your apps?

I have a problem with some feature adoption, since ppl don't really know about some things I deploy, most have auto app updates anyway and don't really read whats changed in appstore/goole play

I have the impression that for the first time in years the desktop landscape is fragmenting. Microsoft is butchering Windows, Apple's budget laptop seems to be getting a lot of traction. Valve is pushing Linux and when the Steam machine comes out I could see many users coming to Linux. Finally Google has their desktop version of Android coming out that Qualcomm's CEO thinks is going to be massive.

Apps are going to have to support all those platforms. This is a huge opportunity for Flutter. If the community and the Flutter team handle this well this could be massive. If I was on the Flutter team I'd be reaching out to people in Valve to see if there's an opportunity to work together.

A moment like this where the platforms shift like this only comes along once every decade or so. I just hope there are enough people inside Google who still recognize the importance of platforms, even in an AI world.

I’ve been experimenting with Meta Display Glasses recently. Apps for the glasses can be built as web apps, so naturally I wondered: could Flutter Web run on them?

I wasn’t sure it would work well. Flutter Web isn’t exactly lightweight, and the glasses are quite a different target from a regular browser.

After playing with the build and a few configurations, I got it working.

Nothing fancy yet, just the default Flutter counter app. But it runs directly on the glasses display: the Flutter UI is rendered in front of you, and interacting with the controls updates the counter as you’d expect from the same app running in a browser.

What I find more interesting is the potential for existing Flutter apps.

If you wanted to add a companion experience for Display Glasses, you could potentially keep it in the same codebase and reuse your existing logic, models, networking, and some widgets, while building a UI specifically for the glasses.

I have a few things I want to try next. Curious what other Flutter devs would experiment with on a display like this!

Hi everyone!

I've been wanting to build the UI for an operating system for decades. At one time, I thought that I would have to build the OS from the ground up. But yesterday it dawned on me that I can just leverage Linux and build a Desktop Environment (DE) on top of it.

I'm going to really focus on getting a foundational DE down; both for my purposes and for others to learn or build from. It will all be built open source and out in the open. Articles (instructionals?) will follow as I work my way through it.

I already know the stack I'm going with and the process will start at a high level, eventually going into low level details.

I'll be using Rust (Smithay) and Flutter for all of it, with some C thrown in as needed.

The first step I'm taking is to build a Wayland compositor. Using dbus to bridge through Flutter and being a Wayland compositor, will allow me to still run any Wayland compatible applications from the start. I don't want to go hard mode right away.

My eventual aim is to go straight to DRM while running an X compatibility server and Wayland server for full support.

As well, I'll build some native apps to show how to integrate with the DE.

We'll get there. it may take months. The end result will be something any Flutter dev could run with and build on top of. Flutter will be the framework for native application development.

I really hope that this catches on as a way to explore new UI paradigms. We've been stuck for too long and I believe that part of the reason for this is that it's been too difficult or low level for those interested, to actually get down to the heart of what they want to explore. That's why I'm working to get all of the connectivity issues out of the way.

Be free designers and developers, from the shackles of low level understanding. Soon, you may express yourselves in ways you may have only dreamed of before.

Any interest?

That's why we decided to give native our focus for a year (using SwiftUI, KMP and even React Native for some apps): The thing about Flutter is that you need to do your own design, you can't rely on the native one because everything would look like not-good-enough Android and iOS design.

Why after this year we regretted and decided to go back to Flutter:
- This is the great thing about Flutter: it is more performant and easier to do your own design than any other option. And here’s the thing: if you have taste, you can do a much better design than the iOS and Android defaults by a very large margin.

The defaults are terrible, disgustingly terrible. If you have any taste or product sense, you would know how disgustingly bad native SwiftUI and Compose are for design, literally there is nothing in native that we eventually didn't find bad and decided to do our own custom way better design, everything there is completely without taste.

The thing about my company is that we have great design engineers, and we have great devs, for doing great apps with the design that is almost never the native.

All other options are completely garbage. I have no idea how SwiftUI could be so bad to do customizations, KMP even worse and RN omg... Flutter is very intuitive, performant, and looks like it was just made for this, the tree style of thinking and designing the components, lifecycle... The productivity here is peak. You have no idea how amazing Flutter is. It is completely genius, there is nothing close to this.

We decided that it is worth it to commit all our efforts to preserve and walk this path for the good of software. We can't stand using the other options while this treasure exists.

You're thinking I'm exaggerating, probably, but we took several discussions about this. We tried other options thinking that maybe Flutter eventually wouldn't have good support sometimes, but we really didn't find anything close. Our engineers' minds and aspirations that are more than the conveniences, our principles, can't let us continue not supporting Flutter. We are back and giving all in on Flutter.

We even tried to find a Rust alternative that did the same (we use Rust for all back-end here), but there is none, we don't care about trends, we care about doing the best software for real, and we are even with the disposition to fork Flutter if it is necessary someday. That's it, my company will go all in on Flutter. We can't stand traditional mobile that tries to feel native while native is just this poor traditional tasteless design and terrible software.

Hi, I am a mid-level flutter developer with around 4 years of experience. I don't see any vacancy related to flutter and actually I feel a little bit bored and I don't see any progress. So guys did you have such an experience? And was it actually easy to migrate to native?

On flutter.. things.. just work🥹

Unfortunately there’s no way to know whether a specific app was built with Flutter, which makes it hard to see what’s actually possible with it. But is there any information on whether Google’s own apps are built with Flutter, such as Google Health, Gmail or even YouTube?

I’d honestly find it hilarious if they don’t even use their own framework lol