Hey friend,
A few weeks ago, I announced that I'd start a new video series, where I review popular open-source Flutter apps to see how they are built and whether they follow good software development practices.
Today, I published the first video in this series, where I review the Cashew app, a finance budgeting app with over 100,000 downloads and fantastic reviews.
Inside, I...
- Reveal the shocking scale - 103,000 lines of code with zero tests
- Uncover massive widget classes - including one file with 5,000+ lines
- Show legacy project challenges - why downgrading Flutter sometimes works better
- Expose dangerous patterns - global state and forced widget rebuilds everywhere
- Demonstrate technical debt impact - how it can halt development entirely
- Provide actionable solutions - proper state management and refactoring strategies
- Share solo developer lessons - balancing speed with maintainable code
This isn't about bashing the author of the app (who achieved remarkable solo success), but learning from real production code to avoid the same pitfalls in your apps.
Watch the full video to learn more:
A companion AI summary is also published on my website:
What's next?
I'm planning to review more apps in this series, but only if you find this content valuable!
So, if you have a minute, please vote below to let me know what you think of this new format and whether you'd like to see more of these reviews.
Thanks for watching, and happy coding!
Andrea