GetX vs GetIt: Which One Should You Use for Dependency Injection in Flutter?

🧠 GetX vs GetIt in Flutter: What's the Difference & When Should You Use Which?

Flutter offers multiple tools for managing dependencies, but two names come up often — GetIt and GetX. They sound similar, but they serve very different purposes.
So, which one should you use?

🧾 Quick Definitions

🔹 What is GetIt?

GetIt is a pure dependency injection (DI) service locator.

It allows you to register and retrieve instances (like AuthService, APIs, etc.) anywhere in your app.

getIt.registerSingleton<AuthService>(AuthService());
final auth = getIt<AuthService>();

✅ Clean, scalable, and used in layered architectures.

🔹 What is GetX?

GetX is a full app development framework for Flutter that includes:

• Dependency injection
• State management
• Routing
• Snackbars, Dialogs, Storage & more

Get.put(AuthService()); // DI
final auth = Get.find<AuthService>();

✅ Great for quick setups and reactive UIs.

🧠 Core Differences

Feature	GetIt	GetX
Purpose	DI / Service Locator only	Full Framework (DI + State + UI)
State Management	❌ Not included	✅ Built-in
Routing	❌ Use Flutter Navigator	✅ Built-in routing system
Code Philosophy	Decoupled, Clean Architecture	Reactive, All-in-One
Project Size	Mid to large	Small to mid
Learning Curve	Low	Moderate (if using all features)
Control & Flexibility	High	Medium

🔁 Code Comparison

✅ With GetIt:

// Register
getIt.registerSingleton<ApiService>(ApiService());

// Retrieve
final api = getIt<ApiService>();

⚡ With GetX:

// Register
Get.put(ApiService());

// Retrieve
final api = Get.find<ApiService>();

Both look similar, but GetX does a lot more behind the scenes.

💬 So When Should You Use What?

✅Use GetIt when:

• You want clean architecture.
• You prefer manual control.
• You're using other state management tools like BLoC, Riverpod, or Provider.
• You want testable, scalable services across your app.

⚡ Use GetX when:

• You want everything in one package.
• You need fast development.
• You’re building an MVP, hackathon project, or a small-medium app.
• You love reactive UI updates out of the box.

🚀 My Personal Take

In my startup project, I used GetIt for dependency injection because:

• We needed flexible architecture for multiple modules
• Our state was handled separately (via BLoC)
• It made writing unit tests and managing services simpler

But for another smaller side project, GetX was perfect — I didn’t want to set up state, routing, and snackbars from scratch.