How Server Driven UI (SDUI) Changed the Way I Think About Mobile Development

Hi! I’m Jordan Nnabugwu, a Software Engineer III at Very Good Ventures.

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Let me paint a picture: You’ve got a few paywall designs you want to test. Normally, this means building custom A/B test logic, waiting for app store approvals, maybe even pausing dev work while marketing catches up. What’s the solution?

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Recently, I’ve been working with something that feels like a cheat code for mobile development: Server Driven UI (SDUI). And I’m here to tell you, it’s a game-changer.

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From Hardware to High-Velocity Mobile

Before joining Very Good Ventures, I spent time as a hardware engineer at Intel and Galtronics. Then I transitioned into software, working at places like Whisker and contributing to Open Food Facts. Whether it was IoT devices or mobile apps, I kept running into the same friction: UI updates were slow, and reacting to real-time user needs felt impossible. That’s what got me excited about SDUI.

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This year, I had the pleasure of attending Fluttercon USA 2025 for the first time—and even more exciting, I got to take the stage for a lightning talk on Server-Driven UI in Flutter.

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In my session, I explored how a server-driven architecture can decouple content from logic, giving teams the flexibility to release faster and adapt in real time.

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The Old Way Slows You Down

Let’s talk real talk: Traditional mobile development has serious bottlenecks.

You’re at the mercy of the App Store: Every tweak, even a button label, requires a new build, a new submission, and a wait.
Marketing campaigns are stuck in the past: Want to launch a promo tomorrow? Sorry, you should’ve planned that two weeks ago.
Personalization? Good luck: Unless you baked in every variation upfront, you’re not adapting to real-time behavior.

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And in an environment where user expectations are sky high, that just doesn’t cut it.

Enter SDUI: The Server Drives, Your App Renders

Server Driven UI flips the script. Instead of shipping all your UI in the app itself, you let your server define what the UI should be—layouts, text, components—and your app renders it on the fly.

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The result? UI changes become instant.

Want to launch a new banner? Go for it.
Need to personalize content based on user behavior? Easy.
Want to A/B test three layouts? You can do that without even updating the app.

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SDUI removes the friction—and it’s kind of addictive.

This Isn’t a New Concept: it’s a Smarter Take on the Old Web

If this sounds familiar, it should. Web development has done this forever. In the early 2000s, every web page came fully rendered from the server. Then we went all-in on client-side frameworks. Now, we’re seeing the pendulum swing back.

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Why? Because today’s tools have eliminated the technical barriers, and SDUI is just smarter.

Real-World Inspiration: NuBank

One company that totally nails this approach is NuBank. They serve over 100 million users with a rapidly growing team. And they use SDUI to scale fast.