Summary of "When NOT To Use Filament: Three Cases"

Product Reviewed:

Filament (a Laravel admin panel and data management tool)

Main Features of Filament:

Primarily designed for CRUD-based admin panels.
Core UI components revolve around tables and forms.
Supports customization through Livewire and Blade.
Offers widgets and dashboard elements.
Filament 4 introduced performance improvements, especially for large tables (2-3x faster).
Allows some theming and CSS overrides, with hooks to insert custom HTML/CSS.
Built on Livewire, which handles backend interactions and reactive UI updates.

Pros:

Great for rapid development of data management/admin panel applications.
Improved performance in version 4, particularly for large tables.
Flexible enough to add custom pages and elements with Livewire and Blade.
Good ecosystem with tutorials, themes, and community support.
Suitable for projects mostly centered around tables and forms.

Cons / Limitations (Three Cases When NOT to Use Filament):

1. User-Facing Applications Beyond CRUD:

Filament is not ideal for applications that are more interactive or user-facing rather than admin panels.
Complex UI components like calendars, drag-and-drop, or highly custom interactive elements are difficult to implement.
Examples like social media schedulers or project management tools with custom pages do not fit well.
Possible but requires a lot of manual work, which defeats the purpose of using Filament.

2. Complex, Highly Dynamic Forms:

Forms with many interdependent dynamic elements can be challenging.
Livewire’s backend-driven reactivity causes multiple server requests, which can lead to visible UI glitches.
Debugging reactive issues is harder compared to using frontend frameworks like React or Vue, where you have more control.
Although Filament 4 and upcoming Livewire 4 have improvements (partial rendering, reduced requests), it still requires manual optimization.
Overall, performance and debugging complexity can be a concern for very dynamic forms.

3. Custom Visual Design and Layout:

Filament’s UI structure is opinionated and somewhat rigid.
Customizing the layout extensively (e.g., completely different navigation, radically different page structure) is difficult.
Themes mostly change colors, fonts, and spacing but keep the same underlying structure.
Achieving a unique or highly customized design requires significant CSS overrides and manual work.
Extensive customization can lead to overriding many default styles and using custom Blade files, which reduces the benefits of using Filament.

User Experience Notes:

Filament works best when sticking close to its intended use case: admin panels with tables and forms.
For more complex or custom UI needs, the developer must be proficient with the full TALL stack (Tailwind, Alpine, Livewire, Laravel).
Debugging reactive forms can be challenging due to Livewire’s server round-trips.
The community and ecosystem provide helpful resources and tutorials.

Comparisons:

Compared to React or Vue.js apps, Filament (Livewire-based) offers less control over frontend reactivity and debugging.
React/Vue are better suited for highly dynamic user-facing applications with complex client-side logic.
Filament is more specialized for CRUD admin panels than fully custom frontend apps.

Overall Verdict / Recommendation:

Filament is an excellent tool for rapidly building CRUD-based admin panels and data management applications within the Laravel ecosystem. It shines in projects that primarily involve tables and forms with some customization. However, it may not be the best choice for:

User-facing applications with complex interactive UIs.
Forms with many dynamic, interdependent elements requiring fine-grained reactivity.
Projects requiring highly customized visual design and layouts beyond what Filament’s structure allows.

In these cases, using frontend frameworks like React or Vue, or building custom JavaScript solutions, might be more appropriate. Filament remains a strong choice for its intended use case, especially with the improvements in version 4.

Different Speaker / Contributor Views:

The main speaker is a big fan of Filament but candidly discusses its limitations.
References to external developers’ experiences (e.g., Say Vaziri) confirm the difficulty of heavy customization.
The speaker encourages community discussion and acknowledges that opinions may vary.
Emphasizes that these points are not criticisms but considerations for choosing the right tool for the project.

Summary:

Use Filament for CRUD admin panels with mostly tables and forms. Avoid it for complex user-facing apps, highly dynamic forms, or projects needing very custom UI designs.