It all starts when you decide your business needs a mobile app, so your clients can reach you from their phones. The choice you face is simple: either you contact a mobile app company and articulate your request (and collaborate hand-in-hand till the app is ready and long after), or you are brave enough to start on your own. The truth is you’re never alone with a good developing platform.
What’s a Developing Platform?
If you need to develop an app, you probably want to do it as quickly as possible, at all the stages. Quicker design. Quicker function implementation. Quicker testing. Quicker deployment. It can be accelerated by so-called developing platforms. They provide various tools that make app-making incomparably easier. Most of their services (except for very basic plans) are paid, but they pay as well, saving thousands of work hours.
How a Good Platform Helps Develop
Old school coders sometimes boasted their only tool was Notepad, and all their code was handwritten. But now when lone developers are an exception and teams rule, the requirements have changed. A good platform should provide the following:
- Automation of everything that can be automated. This saves time and effort. This is called low-code or even no-code.
- A shared workspace, so coders, designers, writers, translators, testers, and other specialists can collaborate easily.
- Visual interfaces, enabling designers to use drag’n’drop and other visual moves instead of manual design programming.
- Third-party services support. You may want to connect external cloud services, maps, currency rate sources, newsfeeds, or whatever into your app.
- Deployment plans. As your app gets functional, you can deploy and use it with the developing platform’s resources. Platforms help to make packages for app stores (Google Play, App Store, Amazon, and others),
- Future-proof: the system should be ready to accept future challenges.
Of course, you may add your own requirements for your platform. It can be, for example, the number of worksheets, so you pay just for the number of employees that actually work.
The Most Popular Platforms
As for 2021, the Top 10 developing platforms probably looks like this:
- Visual LANSA. A cloud-based, scalable, and a quite affordable platform that has all the tools for simple tasks.
- GeneXus. Arguably the most flexible platform that supports various databases, clouds, and app types.
- Zoho Creator. Business-centered apps are quite easy to create with this platform.
- Creatio. Its pro is about visual modeling, with unique AI for that, and business processes automation.
- Appian. Great if all you need is to automate your business processes and integrate them with a certain cloud service.
- KiSSFLOW – BPM & Workflow Software. It also specializes in business apps, with almost 50 preinstalled tools and processes as visualized as possible.
- Mendix. Perfect for independent working as it offers both cloud-based and offline tools.
- OutSystems. Expensive plans for large enterprises offer great performance so they will pay.
- Salesforce Lightning. This platform is a great choice for making a business app to control your sales or promotions.
- Microsoft PowerApps. It has all the ease of WordArt, combined with the power of Microsoft cloud services and app stores.
Yourself or with a Platform?
If you want to control your app making yourself, choosing the right platform is crucial. It still requires a clear vision of what you want, but much less digging into how to make it.
If you like this article, share it on Facebook, Twitter, or wherever. We’d also like to read your comments if you have something to add. You can even advertise your own platform or an app made with one of these, why not?
