Flet (https://flet.dev) might be easier for backend devs as it doesn't assume any web experience at all. You use controls (aka widgets) with events (not request/response) and can build not only web, but desktop and mobile apps - all with a single codebase. Disclaimer: I'm Flet developer.
It looks like Flet is for client-side code. It lets you write Flutter apps with Python instead of Dart.
> Simple Architecture - No more complex architecture with JavaScript frontend, REST API backend, database, cache, etc. With Flet you just write a monolith stateful app in Python only and get multi-user, realtime Single-Page Application (SPA). -- https://flet.dev
If I'm writing Python that runs on the mobile device, it must talk to a server to read & write data. Doesn't this still require an API backend, database, cache, etc?
For web you can package Flet app to client-side (with pyodide, all Python logic runs in the browser, see an example here: https://gallery.flet.dev/todo/) and run as a server-side app (or server-driven) with Python logic running on the server (example: https://flet-controls-gallery.fly.dev/layout - notice faster loading compared to client-side one).
> If I'm writing Python that runs on the mobile device, it must talk to a server to read & write data. Doesn't this still require an API backend, database, cache, etc?
That's correct. Any backend service which provides Python API can be used when running Flet app on a mobile: FastAPI, Firebase, Supabase, Pocketbase, etc, but you use Python to call that which is awesome especially for beginner and non-web developers.
I discovered Flet via HN a few months ago, and it has been really fun to play with (although it's a bit tricky to figure out the right path to make updates happen to nested controls).
Thanks for your work on it, and (shameless nudge!) I'm really looking forward to iOS camera access, and easy iOS deployment!
Unfortunately Flutter (which seems to be the backend for Flet), is IIRC rendered in a HTML5 canvas, which yields bad accessibility and is overall a pretty bad way to build web apps.
It's kind of unbalanced, as web tech, on the other hand, is pretty good at building desktop apps.
SEO - maybe, but IFAIK accessibility in Flutter web app shouldn't be an issue (I just saw this comment from someone on Flutter team: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24922849). They've been recently doing a great job in terms of performance (compiling app to WebAssembly) and size. I agree that Flutter web is not good for building websites, but for web apps, especially those "internal" apps used by a small group of users, it's a pretty decent solution.
