Saying goodbye to CocoaPods: Swift Package Manager is soon the default in Flutter!
Article Summary
Jenn Magder from Google's Flutter team just announced the end of an era: CocoaPods is out, Swift Package Manager is in. If you're building Flutter apps for iOS, this changes everything about your dependency management.
Flutter 3.44 makes Swift Package Manager the default for iOS and macOS apps, replacing CocoaPods which enters maintenance mode before its registry goes read-only in December 2026. The Flutter team is pushing hard for adoption, with only 61% of top iOS plugins migrated so far.
Key Takeaways
- Flutter 3.44 auto-migrates projects to SwiftPM, no more Ruby or CocoaPods setup
- CocoaPods registry becomes permanently read-only December 2, 2026
- Plugin authors without SwiftPM support now receive lower pub.dev scores
- Temporary opt-out available via pubspec.yaml if migration breaks builds
Flutter is forcing the iOS ecosystem to modernize by making Swift Package Manager the default and penalizing plugins that haven't migrated yet.
About This Article
CocoaPods is moving into maintenance mode, and its registry will become read-only on December 2, 2026. After that date, Flutter developers won't be able to access new dependency versions or pods.
Flutter's CLI automatically updates Xcode projects to use Apple's Swift Package Manager during builds. For plugins that don't support it yet, there's a temporary CocoaPods fallback, plus a pubspec.yaml flag you can set to opt out if needed.
Plugin developers will see lower pub.dev scores if they don't add SwiftPM support. This creates pressure to migrate, since 39% of the top 100 iOS plugins still haven't switched to the new dependency manager.