Which low-code platform for mobile android app dev?
I'm looking for a super-simple low-code platform that will deploy native Android app code, that ideally integrates many/most cloud functions with it
-- email, web services, sms, notifications, serverless/lambda.
Ideally i could dev and submit an app to the Google Play store in a single day.
Should be for indie hackers, small agencies, etc. -- i.e. not corporate app platforms, like most of them seem to be.
Thanks for any ideas.
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maybe draftbit.com?
you're trying to do too many things in one day it seems!
in case you find something - please share. Or if you are building something that allows for all this - i'd be very interested!
ps i checked out draftbit.com - looks pretty cool.
i guess it uses expo.io under the hood, which means that draftbit is 'just' the UI builder for expo.io -- not sure if i'm thinking of this correctly.
i remember seeing expo.io a while ago - seems much more fully developed now.
...i checked out draftbit a bit more - seems like they're in 'open beta' now and approaching launching prod, in part b/c pricing is down.
i'm fixed on this podcast/audio player app, and their audio component is not where i would need it to be yet, but it's good that it exists.
yeah, i just don't like coding. :)
so it doesn't have to be done in 1-day -- but i'm thinking, if you had a relatively simple idea, and you're a programmer, and you're energetic, and you know this tool and your cloud provider, you should be able to knock out a prototype in a day.
so....my ideal is still Visual Basic-for-the-web/mobile, but nobody managed to re-create it yet.
anvil.works is onto the right idea, imo, but they don't do native mobile.
https://configure.it was a no code visual builder for building native mobile apps - but i guess they are out of business now! and they were rather very expensive.
as of now i do not know any low code/no code app builder for native mobile apps.
web apps can do notifications, access camera and lot of other stuff too and with PWA we have cross platform support as well.
maybe you can consider building a PWA instead of native app - which is double the work anyways!
Wappler.io be my go to choice for building a web app visually that allows for self hosting and you have code level access for further modifications that maybe required. Its got a steep learning curve tho! Totally worth it.
and my problem with tools like anvil and bubble, etc. are that they are locking you down with hosting - this is just a deal breaker for me - being left at the mercy of a platform to even run my apps! nu-uh! self host anyday - it doesn't need coding knowledge. am an accountant turned developer - so i know it is not that complex - you just need to put your head into it a bit.
i think the hosting lock-in is no longer a thing - and may have been effectively gone for at least a few months, if not more.
this link talks about how to run your Anvil-authored app on your own Anvil server:
https://anvil.works/docs/how-to/app-server
and i saw instructions for how to deploy your Anvil app to AWS Lightsail, Linode, etc.
this is interesting - thanks for sharing.
You should check out DronaHQ (https://www.dronahq.com/). It offers ready UI templates so you could start from there. If not, the UI builder is pretty easy-to-learn. It also provides frontend and backend, logic builder, with custom-made rules and validations. Easy to connect integrations (REST, SOAP, database). Also cloud-based storage and Sheets-like database.
You can check out the 14-day free trial to explore! (https://www.dronahq.com/signup/)
thanks, i haven't mustered the energy to look at this yet - well, just the website.
i've re-looked at some other things, including aws amplify, ionic, react, etc.
i wish that one of these companies would price at 1% or revenue or something like that -- creating a win/win situation for entrepreneurs, etc.
instead, most tools cost $50/mo or something just to try your app out. not the end of the world, but if you have 50 other projects not really making money...
People have sworn on using Thunkable. Could try that.
i remember seeing this back in the day, and just checked out again now.
it looks dead.
What are you looking to build? Or features required?
i have a thousand ideas, myriad prototypes, etc.
thought about an aws daily billing notifier -- like https://billgist.com/. an Audm/Pocket-like podcast player app. a simple quiz app. etc.
Sorry, can't help with the no-code stuff, but...
Do you put your ideas in a backlog to let them percolate?
I have a list of such projects and whenever I have a burning idea, I get it out of my head so that I can focus on whatever I'm working on now. Over time I have created a backlog of ideas I may want to work on in the future. If I still like the idea after a few days/weeks/months, I will buy a good domain for it. Then let it sit for longer still.
Eventually I will work on something new.
Here are the projects that I actually worked on..
The backlog is maybe 4x this.
my 'backlog' is a notepad backed by gdrive, and my gmail. :)
i was actually surprised at how bad most of my ideas seem to be when i go back and look at them. :)
i was wondering where my 3-cents-per-day AWS 'Cost Explorer' charge/cost was coming from -- presumably that is (or was?) billgist.
i think billgist is a great service.
i don't need it at the moment, as i've shut down most of my aws resources -- in part because AWS can get expensive pretty quickly. and the nickel-and-diming is brutal.
now i have to see if i can get rid of some of my Configs.
I am thinking about building something like that but aiming more into UI builder where UI/UX designer fully creates design, and developer just creates some business logic. Creation of a mobile app is usually very repetitive and boring. It would greatly boost building mobile apps. Generally there isn't many Low Code platforms and for mobile especially.
AppGyver might be an option
thanks
'free for life' for companies/indies under $10M ARR?
not hating, but skeptical.
They have been around for quite a while now, that has been their offering they have stuck with for a long time. And now that they have SAP's money behind them I doubt it would change.
i went thru the demo videos, looks cool/impressive.
...did a bit more investigating/prototyping. it doesn't have/allow for widgets -- the 'always on' components that you drag/drop onto your phone's home screen, for instance.
and that is because it doesn't have an extensible/plugin API (yet?) -- which i would not necessarily need, at least right away, but...
presuming they're (still?) working on it, but think they're recently acquired (Feb 2021) by SAP, so guess we'll have to see if it lives on, and how.
cool company/service name, tho.