One of the big stories of 2014 was the rise of, what Gartner calls, Citizen Developers. These are employees who have a technical background, but aren’t professional programmers; such as IT architects, and business analysts. App development platforms have begun to provide tools that allow these non-programmers to have a larger role in building apps.
While many platforms talk about citizen developers being able to use their system, they are not all on the same level. While some have a robust platform allowing citizen developers to build full-featured, integrated apps, others require still require coding to complete the app.
The Best Citizen Developer Platforms
The best citizen developer platforms should allow citizen developers to build, deploy, and manage an app, not limited in functionality. At the same time, it should also allow for programmers to be involved in coding whatever they wish to code into the app. appsFreedom is such a platform.
While we are terribly biased in thinking we’re the best platform for both citizen developers and programmers, we believe our clients should compare and contrast appsFreedom with competitor platforms to find the absolute best match for their business needs. In this article, we’ll introduce you to the top 3 platforms that are building for citizen developers.
We recommend you give each of them a look before choosing which platform to go with.
Mendix
Mendix, like appsFreddom, is a model-driven platform. This means citizen developers can model the processes and logic in the platform, and the code will be generated on the backend. One of the benefits of using model-driven platforms is the cleanliness of the code, which is generated free of bloat and human-based errors.
They’ve been innovating for a while, building from web applications to apps that can run on any mobile device. Their time-to-value factor allows companies to deploy their apps in a matter of weeks, where other platforms can take months to build the same apps. The fact that this can be accomplished with citizen developers means even more value for the companies who use Mendix, freeing up the programmer resources for other tasks.
Mendix has a scaled pricing structure, with their base offering, a single app, starting at $1,650 a month. Their pro package, with a 5-app bundle, starts at $2450. For enterprises, their pricing is customized based on the unique needs of each organization.
Salesforce1
With the power of the worlds’ top cloud-based CRM technology behind it, Salesforce1 is a platform that allows both citizen developers and programmers to build apps that integrate with the Salesforce CRM systems. But other enterprise systems, like SAP and Oracle, require customers to buy integration connectors from other vendors.
Using Salesforce1, with lightning connect, allows companies to build apps that integrate external systems with their Salesforce.com system. Companies can build integrations to legacy systems as well, but for some companies, this won’t be very easy. Salesforce1 only supports one type of connection protocol, called ODATA. It relies on other integration vendors to provide connectors from legacy systems to ODATA, that Salesforce1 can then consume.
The core of Salesforce1 is the cloud database, with plenty of flexibility and scalability. Its integrations are powered by many interfaces such as, Heroku Connect, and a vast array of APIs. Salesforce1 is a great tool to mobilize Salesforce data. However, it’s not the best choice if you’re looking to integrate data from multiple systems into a mobile app.
Salesforce pricing starts at $25 per user, per month for the base, single app package. For companies requiring unlimited apps, the price increases to $150 per user, per month. These packages have limited API calls for each user, so there is a scalability ceiling as to how much data each user can access, change, or retrieve in a 24-hour period. If you’re going to build a heavy-usage app that requires major integrations, the pricing is customized for each company.
TrackVia
While not as large as Mendix or Salesforce1, TrackVia is a platform focused on providing a simple solution for citizen developers to build apps in only a few weeks. This platform allows citizen developers to build apps easily, for simpler apps it can be as simple as uploading a spreadsheet, and an app is generated in minutes with input forms, dashboards, interactive views, tables, and more. They also allow citizen developers to build apps from scratch using a step-by-step guide to walk them through building their custom app.
For larger enterprises, or for companies who require complex apps, or significant integrations, TrackVia won’t be the best choice. But for citizen developers who need to quickly develop a transaction-based, database app, it’s interface and documentation make it a breeze to build and deploy.
The pricing for TrackVia starts at $199 per month with 10 users included. If more users are required the price will rise. Likewise, their enterprise system starts at $399 per month and also includes 10 users. For companies that want to use TrackVia as a platform, developing many apps and having many users, the pricing is customizable, unique for each organization based on the needs and requirements they present.
Finding the Best Citizen Developer Platform
There are several smaller mobile app tools who don’t market themselves as citizen developer platforms. However, many of them, such as Snappil and Canvas, can fall into this category. For companies desiring to leverage their citizen developer resources to build apps, finding the platform that meets all requirements while improving productivity is a critical decision that should be made only after careful consideration of all options.
While we’re biased toward our own platform, which you can test drive here, we realize not everyone will be a perfect fit to use appsFreedom. Our platform is model-driven and built for citizen developers, allowing companies to deploy apps, literally, in days. Our system can integrate easily with complex backend systems like SAP and other legacy, on-premise systems without the burden of custom coding or 3rd party systems.
Ultimately, we recommend testing out each platform. Consider not only your immediate need, such as mobilizing timesheets, workflows, sales, or procurement operations. And don’t only consider your need to integrate with existing enterprise applications, such as SAP. Make sure to consider future flexibility and scalability.
Some platforms lock you in with proprietary software, meaning if you ever outgrow the platform, you’ll lose everything you’ve built when you’re forced to migrate to a larger platform. Factors like this should be considered when choosing where and how to build your apps. Being future-proof increases the ROI for the apps, and allows IT to focus on meeting business needs, and not administrating multiple platforms and migrations.