CupertinoMenuAnchor and modern Flutter menus

Menus are where Flutter apps most often feel “webby.” RawMenuAnchor is the shared primitive; Cupertino and Material both build on it.

Cupertino

CupertinoMenuAnchor (community-led, notably davidhicks980) gives iOS apps a menu that behaves like UIKit: dismiss physics, nesting, and focus that match platform expectations.

Material

MenuAnchor gains optional Material 3 animations (animated: true) and SubmenuButton.hoverOpenDelay for desktop hover behavior.

Decision table

Target	Prefer
iOS-first product	CupertinoMenuAnchor
Desktop dense UI	MenuAnchor + hoverOpenDelay
Cross-platform brand	Adaptive wrapper choosing by platform

Pitfalls

• Callback close order changed on RawMenuAnchor — read the breaking-change note before upgrading.
• Do not rebuild the entire menu tree on every pointer event; keep anchors stable.

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Originally published on FlutterCook. Read the latest version there — that copy is the one kept up to date.