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11 "Must Haves" when Choosing a Mobile App Platform

Digital marketing consultant doing business on internet and social networks Low-code platforms can deliver mobile applications substantially faster, but how do you know if the platform you choose will meet your requirements and get the job done? Firstly you need to recognize that not all low-code platforms are created equal. In fact, once you start really drilling down into the various platforms, you will find that they take fundamentally different approaches. Most are very good at building simple applications but many of them let you down when you need to integrate custom business rules or require the advanced functionality, that is needed if you want to have ALL the power necessary to build ANY business application. When you think about it, low-code platforms done "right" means that professional developers can build enterprise level apps faster without any power/control tradeoffs. At the same time, departmental/citizen developers should be able to get either all or most of an app built themselves. If coding is required for the remaining aspects of the project, these departmental developers can turn to professional developers to complete the remaining specialized part(s) of the app with code. This code would not interfere with the code that Alpha Anywhere automatically writes because it would be injected into the client and server side through Alpha's very rich array of events and will be triggered by Alpha Anywhere when the appropriate event takes place. There are two benefits to this approach for departmental/citizen developers: 1) Most of the app (and in some cases all,) is built without consuming scarce professional developer time - This means that a particular department would have to wait less time for their app to built. 2) Departmental/citizen developers can be empowered to build mobile and web apps. This helps reduce the application backlog  and also allows the domain knowledge and understanding of the real requirements of the app (which departmental developers have) to be incorporated into the app. The team at Alpha Software has been working with and listening to companies for years. The culmination of this research is a core set of criteria to consider when choosing a low-code application development platform. In his latest post, CEO of Alpha Software Richard Rabins shares the top criteria most important to companies when considering platforms for building enterprise-grade web and mobile apps.
To avoid limitations that could prevent you from building any enterprise class business app, make sure you understand how various products stack up in critical areas such as: Is the transition from non-code mode to code-mode all within the same development environment? Is the move from non-code to coding mode a smooth transition or is it a jarring experience where you get thrown into separate hardcore programming environment such as Eclipse of Visual Studio? How is the coding is done, and is the platform based on standards? Also, when you connect to various databases, are you are able to get direct access to the database so you can take full advantage of its inherent power such as stored procedures?

View our tutorial: How to Build a Mobile App

A complete list of the top criteria to consider when choosing a low-code mobile and web development platform.

Want to attempt mobile app development on your own? Try our mobile app builder.

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About Author

Sarah Mitchell
Sarah Mitchell

Technical Writer and Documentation Expert at Alpha Software


The Alpha platform is the only unified mobile and web app development and deployment environment with distinct “no-code” and “low-code” components. Using the Alpha TransForm no-code product, business users and developers can take full advantage of all the capabilities of the smartphone to turn any form into a mobile app in minutes, and power users can add advanced app functionality with Alpha TransForm's built-in programming language. IT developers can use the Alpha Anywhere low-code environment to develop complex web or mobile business apps from scratch, integrate data with existing systems of record and workflows (including data collected via Alpha TransForm), and add additional security or authentication requirements to protect corporate data.

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