Let's discuss the elephant in the room - GetX. Despite being the most popular Flutter package year after year, there is a growing sentiment among some senior developers on forums like Reddit and Discord that they hate the creator. Even Google has removed GetX from its list of favorite packages.

However, many beginners find the package simple to learn, and it allows them to manage state, dependencies, and routes with ease. While some argue that it's not scalable for large applications, there are many production apps built with it.

The hate for GetX has even reached the point where a recruiter on Reddit said he uses it as an interview weeding tool. One major complaint from these senior developers is that it is an anti-pattern, doing things completely differently from how Flutter does it. For example, it doesn't rely on "context" and uses its own types (Rx).

There is a phenomenon called the "woozle effect," where frequent citation of previous publications lacking evidence misleads individuals, groups, and the public into believing non-facts. Could the hate for GetX be a woozle effect? Despite the conflicting views, it's essential to know what real developers think about GetX, rather than just jumping on the bandwagon.

Getx is bae . Nothing beats it's performance productivity and easy learning curve

Bloc is a close second

PrinceofSarcasm:
Getx is bae . Nothing beats it's performance productivity and easy learning curve

Bloc is a close second

Great !

As a senior junior developer I insist you use only the tools I like.

PrinceofSarcasm:
Getx is bae . Nothing beats it's performance productivity and easy learning curve

Bloc is a close second

Riverpod beats Getx in performance. I don't know about the learning curve.

davien:
As a senior junior developer I insist you use only the tools I like.

TheStrongest:
Riverpod beats Getx in performance. I don't know about the learning curve.

Can you share any metrics you have access to if any to enlighten us further?

In addition, whilst it is common to compare GetX with other state management tools, we should remember that GetX does more than state management.

It is a router, a dependency injection tool in addition to being a state manager.

So if you install say riverpod, you might need to still install go_router to manage your routes.

Provider is still my bae for state management but GetX is still the number one for navigation for me.

Why would someone pick flutter over React native?

Deicide:
Why would someone pick flutter over React native?

if they love sanity

qtguru:


if they love sanity

Sanity? Even to setup flutter self Na war

Deicide:
Sanity? Even to setup flutter self Na war

Flutter setup was straight forward and if there are bugs it's easy to spot. RN is buggy, I spent 7 months building an enterprise product for a company, the most frustrating 7 months of my life. RN breaks a lot I have no idea why

Deicide:
Why would someone pick flutter over React native?

For people coming from JavaScript land where everything is like Oshodi under bridge, flutter can be complex.

If you have solid a background in more structured languages, then it should be a breeze.

Installing flutter is complicated if you have little understanding of how a computer works behind the gui. You might have been used to just clicking next to install.

I will choose flutter many times over RN.

Learning flutter would even make you a better Typescript programmer

The downsides of dart is the need for extra code generation for basics like json which some other languages have baked in already. I dont like code generators and i try to avoid them when possible because they are simply stop gaps that would hopefully be resolved in future iterations.

Flutter also does not handle basics like routing and state management well without too much boilerplate which is why we have solutions like riverpod and getx in the first instance.

All these could stem from the fact that flutter is less opinionated (just like react) than modern libraries like svelte which uses a simple $: to handle reactivity and sveltekit with its simple directory routing.

truthCoder:

Installing flutter is complicated if you have little understanding of how a computer works behind the gui. You might have been used to just clicking next to install.

I will choose flutter many times over RN.

qtguru:


Flutter setup was straight forward and if there are bugs it's easy to spot. RN is buggy, I spent 7 months building an enterprise product for a company, the most frustrating 7 months of my life. RN breaks a lot I have no idea why

What I meant by the installation is a headache was that it took hours for me to set it up. And most of those time was just downloading some large files. And then sometimes internet issue and it has to start over again. Anyways this was like 2 years ago. Let me give it a try again.

Deicide:


What I meant by the installation is a headache was that it took hours for me to set it up. And most of those time was just downloading some large files. And then sometimes internet issue and it has to start over again. Anyways this was like 2 years ago. Let me give it a try again.

interesting took me a day and this is on Linux, the main headache I can say is probably editing the ANDROID_SDK environment variable and setting up JDK, but compared to RN, Flutter for me has been smooth despite having no experience with the platform beforehand.

qtguru:


interesting took me a day and this is on Linux, the main headache I can say is probably editing the ANDROID_SDK environment variable and setting up JDK, but compared to RN, Flutter for me has been smooth despite having no experience with the platform beforehand.

If you set environment variables on Linux most of the time you have to log out and log back in again cause it's associated to the user another way is to just source the .profile or depending on where you set the environment variables.

Deicide:


What I meant by the installation is a headache was that it took hours for me to set it up. And most of those time was just downloading some large files. And then sometimes internet issue and it has to start over again. Anyways this was like 2 years ago. Let me give it a try again.

Flutter is truly heavy

But when compared with xcode, flutter is very small. Xcode is over 12GB in size and you need it when using flutter on Mac. Don’t forget to add Android Studio. Budget 22gb of installation files for a full mac installation. Windows or Linux will be less but a cross dev would need mac one day.

I run two flutter installations. One on my MacBook Pro and one on my linux. Installing flutter is real work.

truthCoder:


Flutter is truly heavy

But when compared with xcode, flutter is very small. Xcode is over 12GB in size and you need it when using flutter on Mac. Don’t forget to add Android Studio. Budget 22gb of installation files for a full mac installation. Windows or Linux will be less but a cross dev would need mac one day.

I run two flutter installations. One on my MacBook Pro and one on my linux. Installing flutter is real work.

Lol, almost 40GB to setup, for this Nigeria

Deicide:
Lol, almost 40GB to setup, for this Nigeria

LOL. No. Only macbook is heavy.

Linux was lighter. Can’t remember the consumption again but it was less than 10gb i think.

The annoying thing is the long background downloads on first flutter run.

truthCoder:


LOL. No. Only macbook is heavy.

Linux was lighter. Can’t remember the consumption again but it was less than 10gb i think.

The annoying thing is the long background downloads on first flutter run.

My own problem was it starting again from the beginning if anything goes wrong. Anyways another question is why go through all this when you could just build with Java or kotlin, is it cause flutter can make app for both Android and IOS? Is that the only advantage?

Deicide:
My own problem was it starting again from the beginning if anything goes wrong. Anyways another question is why go through all this when you could just build with Java or kotlin, is it cause flutter can make app for both Android and IOS? Is that the only advantage?

One code, all apps.

Plus the immense support from Google.

truthCoder:


One code, all apps.

Plus the immense support from Google.

Wow Google support flutter now?

Deicide:
Wow Google support flutter now?

Google owns Flutter na...

Flutter setup on my windows took less than. 1 hour for me.

TheStrongest:
Flutter setup on my windows took less than. 1 hour for me.

On windows, you dont have XCode and cant run iOS simulators. You cant build for mac os too. Just android.

When you need to configure/test the iOS portion of your app, you would need to look for someone with a mac who has xcode or use a Paas.

Thats the difference.

truthCoder:


On windows, you dont have XCode and cant run iOS simulators. You cant build for mac os too. Just android.

When you need to configure/test the iOS portion of your app, you would need to look for someone with a mac who has xcode or use a Paas.

Thats the difference.

I know.. I'm just stating how long it took me to install on windows to encourage the person that complained about the installation time

TheStrongest:
I know.. I'm just stating how long it took me to install on windows to encourage the person that complained about the installation time

Ok. 👍

I tried to setup flutter again, well this time it was successful but it still took time. My setup is on Linux and I use neovim as the IDE + flutter tools as a plugin to manage everything like running emulators and stuff and The Lsp server is dartls for code completion and some other cool stuff like extracting components and wrapping components etc.

Deicide:
Why would someone pick flutter over React native?

The comment I've been looking for.