DEV Community: Overpush

Show an "update ready" banner in your Flutter app (OTA updates)

Overpush — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 06:49:01 +0000

When you ship over-the-air (OTA) updates to a Flutter app, the update downloads in the background and runs at the next launch. By default users see nothing, which is usually what you want.

But sometimes you do want to tell them, for example: "New update downloaded. Restart the app to apply it."

OverPush doesn't draw any UI itself. It sends events, and your app shows them in its own design. Here's a small banner you can drop into any app.

The events

OverPush.events is a stream. The ones you'll care about:

OverPushPatchFound: a new update exists
OverPushDownloading: download progress (percent, progress)
OverPushPatchReady: downloaded, will run at next launch
OverPushFailed: something went wrong; nothing changed on the device

The banner

import 'dart:async';
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:overpush/overpush.dart';

class UpdateBanner extends StatefulWidget {
  const UpdateBanner({super.key});

  @override
  State<UpdateBanner> createState() => _UpdateBannerState();
}

class _UpdateBannerState extends State<UpdateBanner> {
  StreamSubscription<OverPushEvent>? _subscription;
  Timer? _hideTimer;
  String? _message;

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();
    _subscription = OverPush.events.listen(_onEvent);
  }

  void _onEvent(OverPushEvent event) {
    _hideTimer?.cancel();
    switch (event) {
      case OverPushPatchFound():
        _show('New update found…');
      case OverPushDownloading(:final percent):
        _show(percent == null ? 'Downloading update…' : 'Downloading update · $percent%');
      case OverPushPatchReady():
        _show('Update downloaded. Restart the app to apply it.');
        _hideTimer = Timer(const Duration(seconds: 6), () => _show(null));
      case OverPushFailed():
        _show(null); // nothing changed; stay quiet
      default:
        break;
    }
  }

  void _show(String? message) {
    if (mounted) setState(() => _message = message);
  }

  @override
  void dispose() {
    _subscription?.cancel();
    _hideTimer?.cancel();
    super.dispose();
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    final message = _message;
    return Positioned(
      left: 16,
      right: 16,
      bottom: MediaQuery.paddingOf(context).bottom + 24,
      child: IgnorePointer(
        child: AnimatedSwitcher(
          duration: const Duration(milliseconds: 250),
          child: message == null
              ? const SizedBox.shrink()
              : Material(
                  key: const ValueKey('update-banner'),
                  color: const Color(0xFF1F2430),
                  borderRadius: BorderRadius.circular(12),
                  elevation: 6,
                  child: Padding(
                    padding: const EdgeInsets.all(14),
                    child: Text(
                      message,
                      style: const TextStyle(color: Colors.white, fontWeight: FontWeight.w600),
                    ),
                  ),
                ),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

Put it above your app

MaterialApp(
  builder: (context, child) => Stack(
    children: [child!, const UpdateBanner()],
  ),
  home: const HomePage(),
);

That's it. It's your own widget, so restyle it however you like: a snackbar, a dialog with a "Restart now" button, or a small dot in the settings screen.

Try it

Getting started: https://docs.overpush.in/getting-started.html
Full banner with a progress bar: https://docs.overpush.in/update-ui.html
https://overpush.in (free for 5,000 patch installs a month)

Ship Flutter fixes safely: staged rollouts and one-command rollback

Overpush — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 06:48:12 +0000

Pushing a fix to production is scary. Pushing a fix to every user at once is scarier. If the fix has its own bug, you've just made things worse for everyone.

Web teams solved this years ago with canary releases and instant rollbacks. Mobile apps usually can't: once a build is in the store, it's out. With over-the-air (OTA) updates for Flutter, you can work the same way web teams do.

Here's the workflow I use with OverPush, a code push service for Flutter.

1. Start small: release to 10%

overpush patch android --rollout-percent 10
overpush patch ios --rollout-percent 10

Only 10% of devices get the update. The same devices stay in the 10% over time, so when you go to 50%, the first group keeps the update and new devices join.

2. Watch the numbers

The dashboard shows, for each patch:

how many devices downloaded it
how many are running it
how many failed, and why

Give it an hour or a day, depending on how many users you have.

3. Go wider

Patch numbers count up per release, so if this is patch 4:

overpush patches rollout 4 --percent 50
overpush patches rollout 4 --percent 100

Devices see the new percentage the next time they open the app.

4. Something's wrong? Pull it back

If the patch is bad and the original release code was fine:

overpush patches revoke 4 --reason "checkout total wrong"

On their next launch, devices delete the patch and run the release's own code again.

If patch 4 is bad but patch 3 was fine:

overpush patches rollback --to 3

This serves patch 3's code again, so devices that already took patch 4 move off it.

5. What if the patch crashes the app on startup?

You don't have to do anything. If an update stops the app from starting, the phone goes back to the store version on its own, even offline. Then revoke the patch so no other device tries it.

Cheat sheet

Situation	Command
Try a fix on a few users first	`--rollout-percent 5`
Fix looks good, go wider	`patches rollout N --percent 100`
Patch is bad, release code is fine	`patches revoke N`
Patch is bad, previous patch was fine	`patches rollback --to N`
Patch crashes on startup	Nothing: devices roll back by themselves

All of these also work from the dashboard: open the release, then ⋮ on the patch.

Try it

https://overpush.in (free for 5,000 patch installs a month)
Docs: https://docs.overpush.in/rollouts.html

How do you ship hotfixes today? Curious to hear what other Flutter teams do.

How to update a Flutter app without the App Store or Play Store review

Overpush — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 06:17:30 +0000

You shipped a Flutter release. A day later, users hit a bug: a crash on one screen, a wrong API URL, a broken checkout. The fix is one line of Dart.

The normal path is a new build, an upload, a store review that can take hours or days, and then waiting for users to actually install the update. For a production bug, that's too slow.

This post shows how to send that Dart fix straight to the app already installed on users' phones, on iOS and Android, with over-the-air (OTA) updates.

What is an OTA update for Flutter?

An OTA update (also called code push) sends changed Dart code to the installed app. The app checks for an update when it opens, downloads it in the background, and runs the new code at the next launch. The store build stays the same.

What you can change: any Dart code. Business logic, API calls, widgets, layouts, text, translations, even new screens and classes.

What still needs a store release: native code (Swift, Kotlin, Java, Objective-C), new plugins, images and fonts, and permissions.

Step by step

I'll use OverPush, a code push service for Flutter that I've been building. It has a free tier, so you can try this on a real app.

1. Install the CLI and connect your project

curl -fsSL https://overpush.in/install.sh | bash
overpush login
overpush init
flutter pub add overpush

That adds one small config file and one dependency line. No changes to main.dart, no native code.

2. Release to the store once

overpush release android
overpush release ios

Submit those builds to Google Play and the App Store the way you always do. Every later fix is checked against exactly what shipped.

3. Fix the bug and push the update

overpush patch android --rollout-percent 10
overpush patch ios --rollout-percent 10

10% of devices get it first. Watch installs and failures on the dashboard, then raise the rollout to 100%.

What if the fix itself is broken?

Every update is signed with your app's own key, and the app only accepts updates signed with it.
If an update stops the app from starting, the phone goes back to the store version on its own, even offline.
You can roll an update back for everyone with one command.

Is this allowed by Apple and Google?

Apple's guidelines allow an app to download code that changes its behaviour as long as it doesn't change the app's main purpose. Google Play applies its policy differently to different kinds of apps, so check the current policy for yours. On both stores the safe rule is the same: use OTA updates for fixes and improvements, not to turn your app into something reviewers didn't see.

Try it

Website: https://overpush.in
Getting started guide: https://docs.overpush.in/getting-started.html
Free for 5,000 patch installs a month

If you ship Flutter apps in production, I'd love to hear what would stop you from using code push, or what you'd need from it. Drop a comment!