ADR 0001 Flutter

ADR-0001: Build with Flutter

Source of truth: this wiki page.

• Status: Accepted
• Date: 2026-09-19

Context

Fluenough targets Android first, distributed through GitHub Releases and potentially F-Droid. iOS is a possible future target.

The app's platform surface is unusually small: a UI, a local SQLite database, and one text-to-speech call. It has no camera, no background services, no complex native integration.

Decision

Build with Flutter (Dart), targeting Android now with the iOS port left open.

Consequences

The code ports cheaply. For an app this shape, well over 90% of the code is shared between platforms. Flutter's weakness is apps needing deep native surface area; this is close to a best case for it.

The distribution does not port cheaply, and that is the real cost. Android allows direct APK distribution from GitHub and F-Droid listing. iOS has no equivalent: shipping to iPhones requires an Apple Developer account at $99 per year, App Store review or TestFlight, and macOS to build and sign. Flutter makes the port cheap; Apple's gate is what costs. This was accepted knowingly.

TTS is where the platforms diverge most, which is unfortunate given it is a core feature — iOS system voices cover meaningfully fewer languages than Android's. See ADR-0002.

Dart is an additional language to maintain fluency in, and the baseline APK is larger than a native equivalent.

Alternatives considered

• Kotlin + Jetpack Compose, Android-only. Best Android tooling and the simplest path for GitHub/F-Droid distribution. Rejected because reaching iOS later would mean a rewrite.
• Compose Multiplatform. Keeps everything in Kotlin and reaches iOS, with the same Apple economics. Rejected as less mature and less documented for iOS than Flutter today.

See also: Contributing · ADR-Index · Home