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App Builder

Score7 out of 10

5 Reviews and Ratings

What is App Builder?

App Builder - Design and Build Real Apps Fast

The brand-new App Builder aims to provide design and development teams with a solution to help them deliver apps quickly and efficiently, without losing focus on UX.

Users can start an app from scratch or choose from a library of pre-built app templates or responsive screen layouts and then customize with a toolbox of 60+ UI controls to kick-start the next digital product design. If a design already exists in Sketch or Adobe XD, the user can import designs from the design system into a real, component-based app.

Everything designed results in production-ready HTML, TypeScript & CSS for Angular and Razor and SCSS for Blazor (with React and Web Components coming soon). Users can see it in real-time as you create, or download a complete zip file of the app.

Media

Use pre-built themes and typography (Material, Bootstrap & Fluent) or customize to match your own app theme and corporate branding on a per-control, per-screen, or per-app basis.
With a rich layout system and complete toolbox of components, create screens and full apps in minutes instead of hours!
Import Sketch and Adobe XD Designs! With one click, take your static designs and get interactive, responsive apps with real UI components and styling. Import designs from the design system into a real, component-based app. Figma import coming soon!

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Top Performing Features

  • Drag-and-drop Interfaces

    Drag-and-drop interface for building applications

    Category average: 8.7

  • Visual Modeling

    Visual modeling tooling allows business users to design processes visually.

    Category average: 7.6

  • Reusability

    An internal repository where assets, modules, and even entire applications can be reused

    Category average: 8.6

Areas for Improvement

  • Platform Scalability

    Apps developed by low-code platform must be scalable and capable of supporting large numbers of users

    Category average: 8.5

App Builder a great tool for developers without web development skills

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have experience in SAP ABAP, winform and Xamarin (android, ios) development but almost nothing in web development so App Builder its a great tool to design and generate the code of the web application in Blazor so we only has to write the code behind, special routines and api to interface data.

Pros

  • Desing
  • Generate code
  • Several platforms

Cons

  • Data interface (web services)
  • Documentation

Most Important Features

  • Design by drag and drop
  • Code generation

Return on Investment

  • its positive the short learning curve on web development
  • its expensive, maybe should sell by month subscription

Other Software Used

Microsoft Visual Studio, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server

Positive experience but I look forward for improvements

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I've used App Builder in order to test it and consider if it fits our company goals. Overall, my experience was positive but I believe there is still room for improvement. I did not recommend an investment but I strongly suggested my company keep an eye on its future developments.

Pros

  • WYSIWYG editor
  • Code generation with Angular
  • Theme and styles

Cons

  • Can't edit the code inside AppBuilder
  • Can't import existing code into AppBuilder
  • Can't generate forms from (say) JSON schema or other model definitions

Most Important Features

  • WYSIWYG editor
  • Code generation

Indigo.Design Is a Game Changer for Effective Designer-to-Developer Workflows

Pros

  • Layout
  • Theme and Styles
  • Code Generation

Cons

  • The plugin for Visual Studio Code had a bug/defect - no support for Nx Workspace
  • Assumed support for angular.json files only - hardcoded into the tool

Most Important Features

  • design assets turnover to developers
  • consistent styles and themes
  • code generation

Return on Investment

  • + Allowed for fast design and mock ups
  • + Allowed for efficient asset delivery to development team
  • + allows for revisions and updates; with code generation

Other Software Used

Microsoft Visual Studio Code, Cypress.io, Lucidchart

The best to prototype applications and share ideas with clients

Pros

  • Good design very similar to final result.
  • Interaction with clients.
  • Notes and comments on project.

Cons

  • Code generation to flutter.
  • Grids with "row layout" as in infragistics wingrid.

Most Important Features

  • Fast design.
  • Web interaction with clients.
  • Different versions of the same form (good to show interactions).

Return on Investment

  • I can't evaluate this.

Alternatives Considered

Balsamiq

Other Software Used

Android Studio, Visual Studio IDE, Microsoft SQL Server

Great potential product but needs more features for Blazor.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Potentially, great product for cutting Blazor UI development time down to hours instead of days or weeks.

The app also allows for rapid prototyping which eliminates the need for code rewrites.

My guess is that in the next 6-9 months the Blazor product will be stable enough and contain the necessary features to implement this in a production environment.

Pros

  • Rapid prototyping.
  • Massive time savings.
  • Eliminates tedious UI code development.

Cons

  • Not a viable product yet until the Blazor implementation is entirely completed.
  • More components/controls needed in the toolbox.

Most Important Features

  • Time savings.
  • Low code.
  • Quick prototyping.

Alternatives Considered

PowerApps

Other Software Used

Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio IDE, Microsoft Power BI, Microsoft Power Automate