flutter build web compiles your Widgetbook into a static web app.
That build is the catalog your team opens in a browser.
Where it lives is up to you: serve it yourself, or let Widgetbook Cloud host it.
flutter build web writes a static site to build/web/.
Serve that directory from any static host: Netlify, Vercel, S3, GitHub Pages, or your own nginx.
You own the build step, the hosting, and the CI wiring that publishes a fresh build when your main branch moves.
Self-hosting covers the web app and nothing else.
flutter test still writes snapshots to build/.widgetbook.
Nothing on the self-hosted side compares them between commits, so catching visual regressions stays your problem.
Widgetbook Cloud hosts the same flutter build web output, one build per commit, on a stable URL.
It takes the snapshots with it.
On every pull request it diffs each Scenario against the base branch.
The differences become a review that reviewers approve or request changes on, with the result posted back as a commit status.
| Self-hosted | Widgetbook Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Browse the catalog | Build and host it yourself | Hosted build per commit |
| Share a story | Deep link plus preview | Same, on a stable URL |
| Catch visual regressions | Golden tests you write per widget | Every Scenario diffed, nothing to write |
| Where baselines live | Committed to your repository, growing with it | In Cloud, nothing added to your repository |
| Reading a visual change in review | A diff of binary files | Before, after, and the difference as images |
| Approach to platform rendering differences | Absorbed by a percentage tolerance you tune | Not an issue on Widgetbook Cloud |
| Updating a baseline | Rerun with --update-goldens and commit the images | The base branch build is the baseline |
| Review UI changes | Check out the branch and run the app | Reviews with approval and commit status |
Golden tests are the usual self-hosted answer to visual regressions, and the cost is in living with them rather than writing them.
A tolerance wide enough to absorb a font rasterisation difference is also wide enough to let a real regression through.
Cloud works from the snapshots flutter test already produced, so there is nothing to commit and no threshold to tune.
What are Visual Tests? goes through the trade-off in full.
- Why Widgetbook Cloud? for what Cloud adds on top of open-source Widgetbook.
- Upload a build for pushing your first build by hand, then moving it to CI.