FlutterFlow presented itself to the world with the audacious promise of revolutionizing app development by offering a robust and agile visual platform. However, for a growing segment of its community, this promise has turned into a source of continuous frustration, marked by profound technical limitations, an apparent disregard for essential user needs, and strategic decisions that seem to divert focus from what truly matters. The tool, which could be a game-changer, risks stagnation, undermined by structural problems that urgently demand solutions.
The Chronic Problem: The Real Impossibility of Code Editing and the Canvas Paradox
One of the most critical points, which highlights a possible lack of technical ambition, is the near-complete absence of a real file editing system. While competing platforms like Codux, Plasmic, and Relume are rapidly advancing to allow users to alter any part of the project structure – from configuration files to advanced modules – FlutterFlow remains stuck in a "closed box" model. The recent addition of the ability to change parts like main.dart feels more like a poorly planned patch than a genuine advancement. The user continues to lack granular access to the most important files: specific route configurations, advanced dependency manipulation, complex state management, or fine-tuning of standard Flutter widgets. This limitation creates a constant feeling of powerlessness: the developer is always one step away from solving the problem but is blocked by the platform itself. What should be a robust visual development environment, with full support for generating, editing, versioning, and evolving code, is still a limited interface, good for low-complexity projects or quick prototypes. When it comes to real products that demand performance, maintenance, and scalability, FlutterFlow simply doesn't deliver.
This rigidity is painfully reflected in the Canvas, which should be the platform's great differentiator. Sold as an editor where you could drag components and see the application's behavior in real-time, this promise falls flat with Custom Widgets. When a developer creates a custom component – an increasingly common need – what appears on the Canvas is a generic and empty placeholder. There is no real preview, no visual integration. The most "marketed" feature becomes useless. This is the central paradox: a visual editor that cannot visually show what the user creates. If, to see how a Custom Widget behaves, it is mandatory to run the app or export the code to an IDE, what is the purpose of the Canvas? The experience turns into a collage of empty boxes, nullifying the original proposal and directly impacting the adoption of advanced features, as many give up on creating complex components when they forego integrated visualization. Meanwhile, competing editors already offer real-time rendering and preview of custom components. The question remains: what is the use of a visual editor that does not allow visualization?
Mismatch with the Evolutions of Flutter and the Web Ecosystem
The problem worsens when Flutter itself advances and FlutterFlow lags behind. A classic example is the support for native modals, with their characteristic stacked animations, especially on iOS. Flutter has started to integrate this support more robustly, but the inability to edit routes or directly manipulate the Navigator or Scaffold configuration in FlutterFlow makes it almost impossible to take advantage of these new possibilities. The user is restricted to the basic GoRouter and is forced to create Custom Widgets and Actions to manually implement trivial behaviors in a pure Flutter project. And, again, the Canvas offers no realistic visualization, turning the process into a vicious cycle of trial and error: write, assemble, run, test, adjust, repeat.
Regarding the Web version, although the structural problems of Flutter Web cannot be entirely credited to FlutterFlow, there is a missed opportunity. With the recent evolutions of Flutter Web, such as the improvement of hot reload, it would be the ideal time for FlutterFlow to update its Canvas and transform it into a true real-time hot reload environment. This would be revolutionary, allowing immediate visualization of changes in Custom Widgets and layouts. However, the platform's history, focused on superficial increments, does not suggest that this profound structural change will happen. Without a native and functional visual hot reload, FlutterFlow will remain limited to prototypes or projects that tolerate a slow workflow.
Design System and Assets Management: Manual, Unproductive, and Fragile
The way FlutterFlow restricts the management of the Design System is another point of great dissatisfaction. Although it allows adding multiple colors, the process is extremely manual and repetitive: fill in color by color, define values for dark mode, one by one. In 2025, why is there no way to import/export all colors via JSON? Tools like Coolors make it easy to create palettes, but their integration with FlutterFlow is an operational torture. The structure suggested by the platform (Primary, Secondary, Tertiary) is inflexible and outdated for modern design flows. The same applies to fonts, with a limited architecture that does not support complex typographic systems.
If the management of the Design System is problematic, that of Assets is, in the words of users, a "foretold catastrophe," and icons are even worse. While in pure Flutter you add an icon package (material_icons, font_awesome_flutter) with one line in pubspec.yaml, in FlutterFlow the process is an ordeal: search for the source, manually convert to supported formats, import as Custom Fonts, and hope it works – and often it doesn't. For the Assets themselves (images, videos), the asset() function remains limited to accepting only a static value selected manually, without visual mechanisms to associate it with dynamic variables. The result is the choice between static local assets or the complexity of managing everything via the backend. The absence of folders, categories, and advanced filters makes FlutterFlow hostile to projects with many resources. All this, which is standard and simple in pure Flutter, becomes manual, fragile, and unproductive in FlutterFlow.
The Abandonment of the Community's Real Needs and Unfulfilled Promises
One of the most worrying aspects is the growing disconnect with the community. The closure of the public feature voting section was a clear sign: the platform started to unilaterally decide its next steps, ceasing to prioritize what users most request. Old and fundamental requests, such as an organization system for Custom Actions, Functions, and Widgets in folders or namespaces – a demand repeated exhaustively for years and which would solve the difficulty of keeping large projects organized – remain ignored. The irony is that this is not a complex feature but the minimum expected of a modern IDE.
The episode of the Rich Text Editor, officially announced in April 2024 (https://community.flutterflow.io/c/whats-new-in-flutterflow/post/what-s-new-in-flutterflow-april-18-2024-xiQAr0TKHHL8oCO) as a solution to a historical weak point, is another symbol of this detachment. A year has passed, and nothing: no update, no communication. The subject disappeared, like so many others silently shelved. The list of unmet requests is extensive: performance improvements, native CI/CD integration, dynamic theme support. The result is a clear perception that FlutterFlow no longer listens to its users, basing its decisions more on internal strategies than on the real needs of those who build on the platform. This phenomenon weakens the community, generates abandoned projects, and reinforces the perception that FlutterFlow is just an entry-level tool, not a serious solution for competitive products.
DreamFlow: A Diversion of Focus at a Critical Moment?
In this scenario of accumulated pending issues, DreamFlow emerges. Even with separate teams and branding, the burning question is: was it really necessary to launch this tool now? While the main FlutterFlow cries out for solutions to bugs, unfulfilled promises, and basic features, the team ventures into a new platform with a purpose that sounds more like a diversion of focus. The impression is that the team is dazzled by the VibeCoding and Design-to-Code wave, creating DreamFlow hastily, while the main tool stagnates. The community that trusted FlutterFlow continues to wait for decent asset management, a functional Canvas, deep code editing, a flexible design system, and a real preview of Custom Widgets. Now, a good part of the creative energy seems channeled into DreamFlow, which will probably follow the same path: initial hype with basic functions that "promise much but probably never arrive."
The most ironic thing is that FlutterFlow doesn't just have "gold" in its hands; it has "diamonds." It is one of the most revolutionary tools of the last decade and could position itself as the definitive visual development platform. Many AI code generation tools are still fragile and inconsistent. FlutterFlow could use its consolidated base to evolve, offer a more complete code editor, integrate assisted code generation, and allow designers and developers to work together without absurd limitations. But instead, it limits code editing, maintains a fragile structure, and loses the market share where designers want to be developers and developers seek efficiency. By jumping headfirst into VibeCoding with DreamFlow, when it could lead with FlutterFlow, it risks not dominating any front.
If You Want to Ride the AI Hype, Focus on the Essential
Ignoring the AI hype would be a strategic mistake. But if FlutterFlow wants to enter this game, it should focus on what really matters. Integrating MCP (Model Completions Protocol) or similar to assist in creating Custom Actions, suggest intelligent logic, or complete code blocks contextually would add immediate value. Another great opportunity would be to invest in an AI capable of generating visually consistent pages with good design practices, a space that no one has yet dominated. However, FlutterFlow's design history is not the best. Its own interface, with palettes that do not convey clarity, poorly defined visual hierarchies, and UI components with confusing interaction, looks more like a patchwork of inconsistent choices than an approximation of Figma's excellence. If AI is to be used, let it be as an assistant that improves the flow and brings the platform closer to Figma's level, not as a marketing feature that adds more noise.
An Urgent Call to Action
FlutterFlow is at a crossroads. To remain relevant and fulfill its potential, it urgently needs to rethink its architecture, offer more openness, real integration capacity, and a visual experience that is, in fact, consistent with a modern tool. It needs to reconnect with its community, prioritize essential functionalities, and treat its structural problems with the seriousness they deserve. Otherwise, it risks consolidating itself as a shallow tool, incapable of meeting the needs of those who build professional and scalable applications, falling behind in an ecosystem that does not wait.