February 14, 2020

It’s Time for AppMakers to Become WaveMakers

The life of an application is as long as the platform that supports it. Starting April 15, 2020, new application creation on Google AppMaker will be disabled and on January 19, 2021, the App Maker editor and user apps are shut down. As administrators, end-users, and developers using Google AppMaker search for alternatives, Google put this out in their blog post as choices for migration of applications.

If you are using App Maker to automate business processes: Use AppSheet, a new addition to the application development portfolio that has capabilities similar to App Maker. Stored in Cloud SQL and App Sheet, App Maker data supports Cloud SQL databases, allowing you to build an application on the existing database linked to your App Maker app.
If you are using App Maker to develop apps: Use App Engine to build and deploy applications on a fully managed platform. With data stored in Cloud SQL, App Maker allows you to build an App Engine application on the existing Cloud SQL database linked to your App Maker app.
If you are using App Maker for data collection: Use Google Forms, which has many new features that were not available when App Maker launched.
If you are using AppMaker for basic form and simple business process automation: Use Google AppSheet and FormMaker as no code products suit you well. They are good for simple data collection, form generation, and data persistence.

For full-fledged app development, Google is recommending customers to move to AppEngine which is Google’s PaaS platform to build applications in a traditional fashion. This alternative is unlike using a visual app development and delivery mechanism that provides greater productivity and faster time to market. However, the burden will now fall upon development teams to learn, integrate and manage application development and deployment. There are several challenges with introducing new technologies, re-learning takes time and it costs. Finding technical resources such as full-stack developers who will understand end-to-end application development is another challenge that enterprises will have to address. However, if you have a choice of integrating a platform that is user-friendly, requires minimal coding, and ensures upskilling of development teams, migration will be easier.

WaveMaker is positioned uniquely to provide a very good path for application development teams looking to migrate their applications to an open standards-based, scalable low-code platform. With WaveMaker, application development teams are assured of 3x faster productivity, a developer-friendly environment with a fully customized modern code stack, availability of complete app source code, and most importantly no vendor lock-in. Best of all, WaveMaker provides all the enterprise capabilities around web-scale scalability, enterprise security, and CI/CD mechanisms required for continuous and reliable delivery of your applications on any cloud of your choice.

Moreover, WaveMaker has inbuilt support for easy integration with external database SQL sources, RESTful integration, role-based app security controls, widget components library, and the ability to extend them and final deployment options on containers, Kubernetes, or VMs.

To better understand how WaveMaker is easier and better to use, here’s a comparison with Google App Maker:

Features	WaveMaker	Google App Maker
“No Vendor Lock-in"	Applications developed are based on proven open-source technologies and the platform libraries are available under open source license making maintenance of applications easier..	Uses proprietary technologies making the generated code (including platform libraries) difficult to maintain without deep knowledge of how the platform works.
Integrations	Supports API and web services integration. Creates and imports databases. Provides a range of out-of-the-box integrations to instantly add powerful functionality to your apps. You can also create custom integrations, called Prefabs, and reuse them across apps.	Integrates with Google Analytics and other applications in the G Suite bundle. As multiple tools are used for integration, database integration sometimes requires writing custom Java code.
IDE Interoperability	Offers two-way IDE interoperability and an open-source runtime library, making application customization free from lock-in.	Its cloud-based IDE does not allow exporting project code to external IDEs and re-import it to the platform.
Customization	The platform appeals equally to citizen developers and professional developers or enterprise development teams. Supports the creation of complex, real-world enterprise applications. Supports ‘2-pass development’ that allows business users first to create applications and then enables technical teams to customize, if required.	Supports simpler use cases and focuses on citizen developers. Lack of customization and flexibility required by various stakeholders.
Deployment	1-click preview and deployment Packaging for Android and iOS app stores. Supports the flexibility of exporting WAR files of your applications, allowing deployment of applications independently.	Provides deployment to a public cloud, private cloud, and on-premise environment. Lacks the flexibility to deploy applications independently.