Mobile devices and websites have become a highly valued and efficient business tool in the past few years. For SMBs, enterprises, and even startups, having a website or app to create an online business presence is fundamental. With this primary necessity comes heaps of DIY website and mobile app development builders, which support the development and designing process all by ourselves.
No need to hire a dedicated website development company or professional developers; no need to pay them. On top of that, you will have control over the template, design, and other functionality. When using a builder platform or tool such as Appypie and Buildfire, the benefits seem so obvious. You can maintain control of different aspects of your project scope, build an app faster, and save money. What you don’t realize is that there are several negative aspects of these builder platforms as well, which at first aren’t so noticeable, but can break your app and online business. In this article, we’ll be discussing the benefits and loopholes of using development builders. Let’s start with the benefits of Mobile App Development Builders.
Benefits of Mobile App Development Builders:
- Cost-Effective: When pitching your sketch and idea to a mobile app development company, it’s known that your project can be high on budget. Several factors such as complexity of the design and development, location, and platforms affect the development cost and time. A development process goes through different phases and cycles. And each one of these phases has its emphasis on different aspects of the project and calls for a different approach, which may require a considerable amount of time and budget to be spent. A builder platform is a cost-effective approach that costs significantly less as opposed to hiring different specialists for different tasks, especially if you are on a tight budget.
- Total Control of Development Project: Another benefit of using an app development builder is that it gives you total control over your development project from different aspects. No matter if you are involved in iOS app development or Android app development, you are your own master in this game. You will have the ability to choose the template design, budget, timeline, and functionalities.
- Increased App Development Speed: When using a builder platform, you can work to develop and design, test, host, market, and launch your app project at your own pace. From planning and acceptance of your app project to its building and launch, the entire process might take longer and cost more money when working with an app development company. With a builder, however, you can make a functional app cheaper and faster (within a few hours to several days). In this manner, the final product will be ready to upload on Google Play Store or App Store (or both) in a week or two.
- Ready-made, Convenient Architecture: The mobile app builders offer a ready-made, clear structure, and user-friendly interface design with useful resources and necessary elements at your disposal. It eliminates the need for identifying the position and context of each UI element within a template or layout. A simple app development process with an app builder requires minimum or no programming and technical skills.
- Quick Updates: App builders make it easier for you to maintain and modify your app. Regular app maintenance and error fixes are must if you want your mobile app to be successful. Since the app builders come with a straightforward interface and a drag-and-drop editor, you can easily make quick updates and changes to your app.
Now that we’ve looked at the pros of their use, it’s time to understand what hurdles you may have to encounter when employing these tools.
Disadvantages of Mobile App Development Builders
- No-so Budget Friendly: At first glance, the app builder tools appear to be a cost-effective alternative to a dedicated mobile app development company. However, in the long run, using a builder might have an adverse effect and turn out to be expensive. These tools usually offer very limited features and only allow them to develop a simple app for their basic or standard plans. To build and maintain a fully-functional, quality, and complex app, you may need to get additional capabilities and functionality by purchasing higher and expensive plans. In addition to a plan, you will need to shell taxes and fees which could cost you a couple of thousand dollars every year.
- Basic Template Design: Generally, most app builders provide you with only simple sample design templates when you start building an app. Most of the time, you won’t be able to change the design or layout, so you must pick your style meticulously.
- Limited Functionality and Customization: The app builder platforms are pre-defined and deployed, and thus offer limited styles, functionalities, and customization options. That means you can utilize the existing resources and themes only to develop your mobile app as you can’t use a template of your own. Chances are, you won’t be able to modify the app and update it in proportion to the latest market and design trends unless the new capabilities and options are offered by the builder itself. Most platforms limit the functionalities and possibility to make changes in code with subscription plans.
- Tied to a Platform: One of the biggest drawbacks of using an app creator is that your app might intrinsically get tied to a propriety platform or become difficult to transfer to another platform in the future. That’s because every app builder has its unilateral program, structure, and script to create and run apps. To port and migrate the platform, you may need to develop, host, test, and launch it from scratch. Not to mention, these tools often fail to shortinsupporting different types of mobile screens and devices.
- Unsupported By App Stores: According to App Store guidelines, any mobile app developed with an app generation service or commercialized template will be banned. Most apps created with an app builder lack uniqueness and originality. And if the system finds your app to be conspicuously similar or clone of another app during the review process, it will get rejected by Apple instantly.
- Increased Dependency on the Builder: Another downside of builder services is that you will be greatly reliant on it to manage and operate your app. The platform can kick you off and prevent you from accessing your app product and its content at any time. During the platform downtime or server overload, your services and experiences of your customers will be affected significantly.
- Difficulties with Extensions& Components: There’s no denying that a mobile app development builder makes it extremely simple to use features and tools that are already provided by the platform. But it doesn’t have the capabilities to add components and third-party services which don’t exist in the app builders.
While an app builder offers multiple benefits and is great to build an app faster without hiring professionals or outsourcing your project to a mobile app development company, it’s always not the best bet. If your purpose is to expand and grow your app so it’s advantageous for you over the long haul, you should hire a dedicated, professional app development services for your development project.