Appcelerator (discontinued) vs. Zeplin

I do not think I can recommend Appcelerator at this point due to the issues with Appcelerator studio, lack of good debugging support, lack of thorough documentation and forums and the additional cost overhead of licenses. The pros are just that it allows for cross-platform development. However, Cordova does a much better job of it and excels at places where Appcelerator currently struggles

Incentivized

I still have some issues, especially with color integration between the style guide and also project. When we update the colors, it's not automatically sync to every project. Aside from that, zeplin solves my problem for hand-off design from design to developer. I set zeplin is source of truth design file

Incentivized

• Adds structure to your code through Alloy framework.
• Easy to integrate with iOS SDK and to build and run iOS apps.

Incentivized

• Provides dimensions across iOS, Android and Web which saves developers from a lot of guess and check when implementing designs
• Allows for easy download of digital design assets for developers to easily organize and implement
• Great user experience in terms of the product itself and a great value for your money
• Automatically generates CSS for web designs which is AMAZING!

Incentivized

• It is very hard to debug your code. Breakpoints never worked for us even with the latest Appcelerator Studio and we had to rely on log statements to debug.
• There is a need to purchase licenses from Appcelerator to run the code on a device or for creating iOS distribution builds. This is an additional cost when you have already paid for Apple developer program for precisely these things.
• If things are broken due to lack to support between Appcelerator and a new iOS version, you pretty much have to rely on a new version release from Appcelerator for the issue to be fixed.
• It is difficult to create enterprise distribution builds where the distribution certificate is owned by your organization's team and you only have a development certificate for the same.
• The forums on developer.appcelerator.com are seldom helpful. It is hard to find solutions for issues even on other forums like stack overflow.
• Documentation needs to be improved.

Incentivized

• It would be better if it has a dedicated web application
• It's not the easiest tool to learn and start working with
• It would be awesome if it had more features turning it into an all-around tool for mockups and prototypes

Incentivized

Great tool

Incentivized

Zeplin's component management and style guide help us to be consistent across whole product and it so easy to use for non-technical person. It is now easy to collaboration for designes between different teams like stackholders, product owner, UI/UX, developers and testers. Now there is only one point of reference is Zeplin so it is so easy to get details without asking designer or developer again and again.

Incentivized

Zeplin has classic support with a chat from the website. It's working fine, and we're also getting the support needed when needed. However, Zeplin is very good at closing the incidents and moving on. It was a while ago we had a case with their support so that it might have improved since then.

Incentivized

Appcelerator makes you write a structured code whereas Cordova just packages your code and you are free to structure it. Appcelerator bridges your javascript code with native code and that would make it run faster than javascript code in Cordova apps. However, with recent mobile browsers, you would hardly notice any performance deterioration with Cordova apps. Appcelerator struggles with issues related to its IDE, debugging, documentation and forums and additional costs. Cordova makes it much more simpler to develop cross-platform apps with better developer support, debugging support, documentation and forums minus the additional costs.

Incentivized

Out of all of the products that I have used to support design-to-development handoffs, Zeplin is my favorite. It’s pretty lightweight and easy to use (once you get the hang of it). Zeplin also has a smooth interface and is, generally, clearer to use than other tools, such as InVision. Plus, all of the plug-ins that you can use with Zeplin have supported the design-development relationship and workflows in which I’ve been involved in more efficient, clear, and effective ways than I’ve seen with any other product.

Incentivized

• We were able to build and deploy a mobile app with Appcelerator. However, the platform still has issues and does not cover our needs as much as some of its competitor like cordova does.

Incentivized

• We're using the free plan, so it fits in our needs, although we're limited to create only one project at a time
• Sketch has some plugins that offers exactly what Zeplin does, for free
• The integration with design apps (Sketch, Photoshop, XD) and collaboration (Slack and Trello) helps our team to better communicate and be notified on every update

Incentivized