Ask three Flutter engineers about state management and you’ll get five opinions. I’ve shipped products with Provider, Riverpod, GetX, and custom solutions. Here’s what has actually worked when deadlines were real and the team was tiny.
Why I obsess over state early
Once your widget tree starts talking to APIs, sockets, and storage, a sloppy state layer turns every release into a gamble. Clean state boundaries keep features shippable and bug hunts short.
My quick take on the usual suspects
- Provider: Perfect for prototypes and small apps. Easy to teach, but you’ll eventually crave more structure.
- GetX: My go-to when I’m the founding engineer. Bindings, reactive controllers, and navigation in one box. Great for speed—as long as you enforce folder discipline.
- Riverpod: My pick when the team is larger, test coverage is non-negotiable, or the roadmap includes web/desktop targets.
Rules I follow no matter the tool
- Keep business logic out of widgets. Controllers/services own the decisions, UI reflects them.
- Use immutable models so rebuilds are predictable.
- Add unit tests around the state layer before features go live—it saves days later.
AfCircle in practice
We ran the entire app on GetX: authentication flows, real-time chat, notifications, even some AI assistant state. Controllers lived in feature folders (/feed, /chat), bindings declared dependencies, and we documented conventions in DECISIONS.md. The trade-off? Enforcing structure manually—without discipline, GetX can become spaghetti.
How I advise founders today
Pick the tool that matches your team’s size and appetite for ceremony:
- Solo or tiny squads chasing time-to-market → GetX (with clear folder ownership).
- Growing teams who need tighter testing → Riverpod + StateNotifier.
- Simple marketing sites or throwaway prototypes → Provider is still fine.
Whatever you choose, keep code organised, write tests around state transitions, and plan a migration path if the team scales. State management isn’t a debate topic—it’s how you protect velocity.