Flutter Web Broke My Heart

A brutally honest take on why Flutter web left me questioning my life choices

---

And that's how I learned that sometimes the most expensive words in software development are "how hard could it be?"

The Breaking Point: A Government Website Horror Story

What finally pushed me over the edge to write this rant? I recently discovered that one of our government's campaign registration websites was built with Flutter web. Yes, you read that right. A government website that citizens need to access for democratic participation was built with Flutter web.

As a full-stack developer, I nearly threw my laptop across the room.

Here's my expectation for a government website that allows citizens to register for campaigns:

• Accessible to users with disabilities
• Fast on any device, from smartphones to ancient desktops
• Responsive and mobile-friendly
• Easy to navigate with a simple, intuitive UI for users of all ages
• Secure, because it's handling sensitive personal information
• Compatible with every browser under the sun
• Able to handle high traffic over 100,000 concurrent users without breaking a sweat

And someone decided, "You know what this needs? A 2MB JavaScript bundle that renders everything on a canvas!"

Mobile first? but also desktop with mobile UI?

The loading time was so painful I had time to make coffee while waiting for the form to appear. The irony of using a mobile-first framework for a website that government employees probably access from ancient desktop computers was not lost on me.

This is exactly the kind of project that should use boring, reliable HTML forms with a sprinkle of JavaScript. Instead, we got a digital obstacle course that probably prevented more people from participating in democracy than it enabled.

If this doesn't perfectly illustrate why Flutter web is often the wrong choice, I don't know what does.

The Great Performance Betrayal

Let's start with the elephant in the room: performance. Flutter web apps feel like they're running through molasses compared to their native counterparts. That buttery smooth 60fps animation you perfected on mobile? Congratulations, it's now a slideshow that would make PowerPoint 2003 proud.

The culprit? Flutter web renders everything on a canvas or uses DOM elements, neither of which were designed for the complex rendering pipeline that Flutter demands. Your users are getting a JavaScript-heavy experience that makes their laptop fans spin up like they're mining cryptocurrency.

I've watched seasoned developers stare at Chrome DevTools, helplessly watching their beautifully crafted ListView struggle to maintain 30fps while scrolling through a modest list of items. It's soul-crushing.

SEO: The Forgotten Child

Remember when you thought your Flutter web app would be discoverable? Think again. Search engines and Flutter web have a relationship that's more complicated than a soap opera.

Sure, Google claims to crawl JavaScript-heavy sites, but Flutter web's rendering approach means your carefully crafted content might as well be invisible to search bots. I've seen developers spend weeks implementing server-side rendering workarounds that would make a PHP developer from 2005 laugh.

The irony? You chose Flutter for its simplicity, but now you're maintaining separate landing pages in HTML just so Google can understand what your app does.

Bundle Size Blues

"Why is my simple Flutter web app 2MB?" - A question that haunts developer forums like a ghost seeking closure.

Flutter web bundles are massive. Even a basic "Hello World" app weighs more than most complete websites. Your users on slower connections are sitting there, watching a loading spinner, while your app downloads more JavaScript than some people use in a month.

I've seen developers implement elaborate loading strategies, code splitting, and caching mechanisms just to get their Flutter web app to load in under 10 seconds. At that point, you're not building a web app anymore; you're performing digital archaeology.

The Accessibility Afterthought

Web accessibility isn't just a nice-to-have—it's a legal requirement in many jurisdictions. Flutter web's relationship with accessibility is... let's call it "evolving."

Screen readers struggle with Flutter web apps because they're essentially looking at a canvas or a DOM structure that doesn't follow web standards. Want proper focus management? Semantic HTML? Keyboard navigation that doesn't feel like it was designed by someone who's never heard of the Tab key?

You'll be writing more workarounds than actual features. I've watched developers spend entire sprints trying to make a simple form accessible, something that would take 30 minutes in vanilla HTML.

Development Experience: A Mixed Bag of Frustration

Flutter's development experience on mobile is phenomenal. On web? It's like your favorite restaurant decided to serve their signature dish on a paper plate with plastic cutlery.

Hot reload works... sometimes. Debugging is an exercise in patience that would make a monk jealous. Browser developer tools don't understand your Flutter widget tree, so you're essentially debugging a black box wrapped in JavaScript.

And don't get me started on browser differences. That perfect layout on Chrome? It's broken on Safari. That smooth animation on Firefox? It stutters on Edge. You're not just fighting Flutter's quirks anymore; you're fighting the entire web ecosystem.

The Reality Check

Here's the thing: Flutter web isn't inherently bad. It's a impressive technical achievement that lets you run Dart code in a browser. The problem is that it's trying to solve a problem that might not need solving.

The web already has amazing tools for building web applications. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (or TypeScript) have evolved into a mature, performant, and accessible platform. When you choose Flutter web, you're essentially saying "I don't trust 30 years of web evolution" and rebuilding everything from scratch.

When Flutter Web Makes Sense (Spoiler: It's Rare)

Flutter web isn't completely useless. It shines in specific scenarios:

• Internal tools where performance and SEO don't matter
• MVP prototypes where you need to show something quickly
• Existing Flutter apps that need a basic web presence for feature parity
• Complex visualizations where canvas rendering is actually beneficial

But for most web applications? You're probably better off with Next.js, SvelteKit, or even vanilla JavaScript.

The Verdict

Flutter web feels like a solution in search of a problem. It takes the best parts of Flutter—its elegant widget system and rapid development cycle—and filters them through the constraints of web browsers that were never designed for this approach.

As developers, we sometimes fall into the trap of wanting to use our favorite hammer for every nail. But sometimes, the nail is actually a screw, and you need a screwdriver.

Flutter web isn't bad because it's poorly made—it's bad because it's trying to be something the web doesn't need it to be. The web is already amazing at being the web. Flutter is amazing at being Flutter. When you try to make Flutter be the web, you end up with something that's not quite either.

So the next time someone suggests "just deploying to web" with Flutter, maybe take a step back and ask: "Are we solving the right problem, or are we just making our lives more complicated?"

Trust me, your users (and your sanity) will thank you.

---

Choose the right hammer for the right nail <3