Will AppGyver support my app idea?

#1

I would like to build an app with the following requirements and am wondering if my requirements are supported and/or what high-level trade-offs or architectural considerations will need to be made to be successful on the platform.

  • App users will register, sign-in, add and track their individual collection of widgets
  • Widget have custom metadata, including custom images uploaded by a user
  • Users can browse others users’ widgets
  • Users can make and respond to widget trade requests
  • Users can rate transactions

It’s not too unlike craigslist or OfferUp except it’s not as broad in terms of the kinds of widgets being traded or sold.

Secondarily, I would prefer to use a 3rd-party as my primary source-of-truth database (like AWS RDS or my own SQL db), but I’m open to using AppGyver’s data platform so long as I can easily migrate my data whenever it becomes needed.

Is this kind of widget trading app feasible with AppGyver? Are there any challenges, limitations or considerations that I might need to keep in mind specific to how AppGyver works when designing the app?

Thank you!

#2

As long as your backend supports all the necessary requests via REST APIs, there’s nothing to stop you – this sounds like a very good match for Composer’s capabilities.

#3

What do you mean by my own backend? I know what a backend is, but why must I have my own? Are you saying that I can’t build the data brokering / messaging within the app?

Am I understanding that AppGyver only provides a way to build a UI ontop of an existing API?

#4

At the moment, the app builder is very much focused on frontend, so instead of coding a React web and a React Native project by hand, you can use Composer. You can get started with the AppGyver Auth for authentication and AppGyver Cloud Storage for data, but for a production-grade app, you’d want to use your own backend through the REST API integrations you can set up in Composer.

We are working on a full Backend-as-a-Service offering that will seamlessly integrate with Composer, but that’s still some months away.

#5

Ah, that’s a real bummer. I’d argue that the AppGyver marketing is misleading. It says right on the homepage: “You will never go back to coding.” - that isn’t true since AppGyver is designed to work with a backend that presumably many people, myself included, will need to code.

Anyway, you answered my question and I appreciate that. Have a good one. I’ll keep an eye out for that new service.

#6

Yeah, fair enough feedback, I can see the confusion – it is very clear to us that once we can offer a comprehensive backend-as-a-service functionality, the out-of-the-box use cases become much wider, so we hope to get there sooner than later!

We have worked to make the REST integrations as straightforward as possible (and the configurator doesn’t require coding), so if you’re using e.g. Airtable or some other no-code backend platform for your APIs, then the whole fullstack development experience IS something where you don’t have to go back to coding. :slight_smile: But your comment still stands!

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#7

At @iheartbio, while many backends require some coding there are some few ones that require no coding at all.
Take a look at Bubble (personally will recommend this) and Backendless.

#8

You can use AirTable to store the data and it’s pretty easy to pull data from AirTable -without needing to code- into AppGyver. I made exactly something like you are describing (browse and trade widgets with matching of categories and varieties of widgets), but switched to another platform for certain reasons. But it’s certainly possible to implement with AppGyver. I launched an alpha this weekend. Message me and we can discuss.

#9

Sorry for taking such a long time to reply. I appreciate the responses. @Harri_Sarsa, I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for that backend service. Sounds really interesting and as a software engineer, I’m curious to hear how it’ll be architected.

@SeanHoots Thanks. I’ll check those out!

@Nihal_Parkar I’d love to test your app and hear what you’ve learned that might help me save some time. I’ll shoot you a pm now.