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21 Comments

Appgyver vs Wappler

I’ve used and am familiar with Bubble but concerned about long-term issues such as performance and lock in. Looking to dive in and learn either Appgyver or Wappler. One major difference is Appgyver is free until you hit $10m ARR but price isn’t a major issue for me. I’d like to dive in an focus one learning one platform or the other. Any suggestions, insights, or experiences with each platform? I’d like to be able to build apps that can scale from MVP to production. I also don’t want to keep jumping around from platform to platform. Actually have been watching a really cool tutorial on using Appgyver as the no-code front-end platform and Xano as the no-code back-end. Appreciate any guidance. Thx.

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    We've been using Wappler full time for about 2 yrs now - we're a small software development company.
    It is quite flexible and now extensible (with v3.4.1) as well.
    You can create Cordova Apps with Framework 7 for mobile or regular web apps with Bootstrap in Wappler - fully dynamic by connecting your DB and/or third party REST APIs.
    It is very powerful but has a bit of a learning curve as well. Being from a tech background helps to adapt faster.
    Wappler markets itself as a 'low code' tool.
    AppGyver market themselves as 'no code' tool.
    Not sure about AppGyver but most no code tools have some sort of platform lock in.
    Waplper does not have any platform lock in - you may choose to develop (further on code level) or continue using web apps built on Wappler without their licensing as well.
    The only real limitation we've come across with Wappler is that to build a multi-tenant web app, we'd have to custom code a full middleware to manage the tenancy.

    It obviously depends a lot on your exact use case - but if you are building for web and want good amount of control, Wappler is likely to be the right choice.
    If you could share bit more about your expectations - we could help you decide if Wappler can be good fit in long term.

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      This is very useful. Thanks for taking the time to write this. Does Wappler allow you to use GraphQL backends?

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        Wappler does not support GraphQL currently.
        It supports: MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQL Server and REST APIs.
        Also, there is good integration with Docker - helps with easy development and deployment to cloud.

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          That helps. Thanks!

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              Ha ha. But the page link doesn't open now. 404

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                ah yes! that post is not available to public! just for Wappler Ambassadors - as it is very early stage discussions.

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                  Oh ok. :) Will definitely make Wappler more attractive if they could offer that.

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      Well, I have some familiarity with using Bubble (I designed www.feemetriks.com which is currently running on it but hired a 3rd party to build it). I have also built a site on Webflow (www.fiduciaryu.com) and feel like I have a pretty decent grasp of that platform. I have played around a little with Ruby on Rails, Python, etc. to try to teach myself to code but I’m a business guy, not a developer at all. I’ve designed another app I use for my business that I hired a 3rd party to develop in PHP. My strength is more around finding business problems, building prototypes in Excel with basic functionality and then hiring developers to build them into something usable. I’ve taken a great interest in visual design and no code tools (and played around with a bunch of them) because I’d like to be able to build my ideas myself without needing a developer. Most of the stuff I tend to come up with are not really complex but really deal with data analytics and rending that data for comparison/analysis purposes, like as part of a dashboard. Now that I have an MVP of FeeMetri(k)s I’m interested in porting it to either Appgyver or Wappler and see about taking it into greater production. I’d also like to potentially strip out a subset of the tool into a separate app. The main thing I am looking for is a platform that I can dive into, learn, and that I can scale with (in terms of production and performance of apps), that can support mobile and web, and can also support future ideas I have. Seems like there’s a pretty steep learning curve for each platform so trying to see which one would be best to commit to, so I don’t invest a bunch of time/effort and then find out I climbed the wrong mountain. Seems like that has happened with a lot of ex-Bubblers. Hope this helps.

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        Am reasonably confident that wappler is better for your use case. Esp coz you can confidentially scale a production app in wappler.
        To give you some perspective - web apps we built on wappler helpedcone of our fintech clients to scale 5x on loan disbursal volume in ~7months. Average 25000 loan applications processed per month.
        You own the code from day 0 with Wappler this is critical for any production app.

        Also, there is a dedicated 'bubble to wappler' channel on the wappler community - it's rife with stories where people topped out on bubble and moved to wappler. Maybe worth it for you to check out those experiences.
        Am @nshkrsh on wappler community. Hit me up if you're there!

        Good luck!

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          Thx! Do you think Wappler is “learnable” for someone without a technical or developer background?

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            1
            Am an accountant by education. By using webflow in past, had some idea about html and CSS. With help from my brother (knows how to code) and Wappler community I was able to learn and use Wappler. Yes, it's possible.

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            As you said you're a business guy and not a developer - I think you need to learn Wappler just enough to maintain your app in the long run - the main part of logic reside in the server actions which is fairly easy to learn. To develop the app from scratch with the database design and security model is a bit of a challange - you'd be better off using some help here. But if you have time in hand, most certainly go for it. It'd be fun! Ask the wappler community a long the way - we will help.

            And one of the Wappler Ambassadors has recently launched a really good getting started course: https://learning.uniqueideas.com/courses/wappler-3x-novice

            It's about 20hrs worth of time if you watch and do simultaneously. It'll help you understand even better if Wappler is good for you.

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              Thanks! Just started the course.

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    I'm in the same boat, so I'm interested in seeing what responses you get. I hadn't checked out Wappler before.. looks pretty sweet.

    Can you post the Appgyver/Xano tutorial link?

    On a related note, I keep waiting for https://www.bildr.com/ to open up..

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      Xano also has a youtube channel with a bunch of helpful tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWtf65mzXLr6FOLmf5zAI_w

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      First I've heard of Bildr. What can you tell me about them?

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        Thank you for these links. Xano looks very promising.

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    Bildr, budibase and clutch are ones to watch in this space too!

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    I'm not familiar with Wappler bu I shared my experience with AppGyver.

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