Boost Flutter App performance with API Response Caching
Article Summary
Your Flutter app is making the same API calls over and over. Every screen load, every refresh—wasting bandwidth, draining batteries, and frustrating users with unnecessary wait times.
Janak Mistry from Simform Engineering breaks down how to implement intelligent API response caching in Flutter using dio_cache_interceptor. This deep dive covers everything from HTTP Cache-Control headers to offline mode support with practical code examples.
Key Takeaways
- dio_cache_interceptor respects standard HTTP headers like ETag and max-age automatically
- Different cache policies per API: force refresh on pull-to-refresh, use cache elsewhere
- 304 Not Modified responses save bandwidth by validating without re-downloading full payloads
- Offline mode works by falling back to stale cache when network fails
- Choose storage backends: in-memory, file-based, Hive, or Isar depending on persistence needs
Critical Insight
Proper API caching cuts network calls, enables offline functionality, and dramatically improves perceived performance without changing your backend.
