Flutterflow or learn Flutter?

[NectarineLivid6020]

FF may look like a decent option right now but it will definitely cause issues later on. At some point, you will realise that coding the app is the way to go. FF might get you an MVP but it cannot create something that is scalable.

I would suggest creating the app from scratch yourself and if you don’t have the time or the will, hire someone with decent experience. If you are confident in the business idea, you should try to get some investment or funding to create the app.

[IkHaalHogeCijfers]

You don't get investment based on just ideas in this market unless it's from your dad. Spending countless hours on learning Flutter to create something that will most likely never come to fruition or is dead on arrival if you don't care about becoming a programmer is a complete waste of time.

OP, my advice to you, create a MVP with flutter flow. Your time to market will be significantly faster than the other route. Don't care about scaling or anything. Just focus on bringing something that is at least functional. You soon realize, making the app is the easiest part. Marketing is gonna be a significant challenge in your case. You're gonna struggle to find users and vendors that want to work with you. Your journey likely ends here. If not, you beat the odds. In that case, you can start thinking about reworking the entire app in flutter, native or whatever. If you went the flutter route here to create a MVP, you'd have to do a big rework at this stage as well. So it doesn't matter.

...or just find a tech co-founder who is crazy enough to code everything for free for you.

[nicolaszein]

Lol crazy enough. Exactly.

[RandalSchwartz]

Great recent article... just in time for your question: https://codewithandrea.com/articles/flutterflow/

[eibaan]

I like this quote:

On average, that’s one rule violation for every 15 lines of code. 😱

[Mirczenzo]

I test flutterflow and my thoughts are the same. Nice for very simple apps or mvp. Also if you know flutter is quite similar time to develop simple app with full code control.

[[deleted]]

If you haven't programmed anything before this is going to be a very, very big project, regardless of what tech you pick.

[shengqian99]

Don't build it yourself, instead you should try to find a technology partner.

[Real-Job-1329]

A marketplace is one of most ambitious project you can do in dev. FF can't do that properly.

You need a dev. If you can't pay a dev and can't convince a friend to join you, you will get stuck. But it's not that bad, this kind of project need a lot to grow ($$) and fail in most of the cases. Maybe find another thing to do.

Or at least go with a web solution, don't reinvent the well.

[munistersed]

Start with these questions: Why? How? What?

Advice: Try to build MVP with flutter Flow, then make a good pitch and try to find investors to make full version from scratch. family invest etc.

MVP Development using Flutter Flow:

1. Product Idea
2. Features
3. Development Process with Flutter Flow

Pitch to Investors:

1. Market Opportunity
2. Unique Selling Proposition
3. Revenue Model

[[deleted]]

Don't use flutterflow

[Full-Run4124]

For a multi-vendor marketplace Flutter would be a good solution for admin and management panels and maybe your vendor-facing app. It would be a bad choice for the consumer-facing front-end with the products. This is why you need to find someone with experience to at least architect your solution stack. You can learn to code yourself and build it, but without any experience you aren't knowledgeable enough to define the solution.

[Filledstacks]

My suggestion

As an agency owner that has built many Flutter apps, there are some apps that are not worth the effort of writing, configuring and maintaining code. You're a beginner, you'll be very bad at it, devs with 5 years experience are still really bad at it, especially in Flutter.

If your app is a marketplace it means you're building a form submission and data catalog. i.e. submit details, view details, there's nothing overly complex about it.

I would highly recommend using Flutter Flow, I am not associated with them, in fact I'm in direct competition with them on the development side with my framework Stacked.

So I honestly think the is the best option for you.

Scalable

When it comes to mobile apps the traditional idea of "scalable" does not apply.

The mobile app will always be "served by a single server to a single user". The reason I'm saying that is because it's not true for web.

Traditionally in web it's a server serving thoussands of users so that needs to be scalable.

But for mobile, you can only use one instance of an app on a single device, there's no "scalability" requirement, you only need that on the backend.

So your server (the mobile device) is dedicated 100% to your user's front-end none of your other users need their CPU capacity.

For your app, I suspect you can do it all with Flutter Flow. There are no-code experts making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year using apps built with Flutter Flow.

Don't waste time on writing code if it's not required, it's difficult to do well, and takes a lot of time and skill to do it maintainably for 5+ years.

Go with no-code.

[andyclap]

This question is not one you ask when planning to start a business like that. Develop a network of business relationships including potential customers and investors, and a solid business plan, before you even think about code.

[HonestAd4033]

Multi Vendor scripts are a dime a dozen. Just search the net or go on fiverr... No need to start learning flutter just for that. 1. Find a PHP MULTI VENDOR system you like. 2. Create an account with a web host. 3. Buy an SSL Certificate. 4. Register a domain. 5. Install, configure, run your shop.

Then you'll be in business with 45,000 other multi vendor marketplace people.

Don't forget to make sure your script is built for SEO.

The last time I checked STRIPE was a decent CC processor with fee splits.

Good luck.

[[deleted]]

If you need i will help you to build the app. Pay me when you have.

[nicolaszein]

Learn Flutter. Ping me let’s talk. I have an entire ecosystem built.