The best no code mobile app builders in 2024

building your own app as someone who can't really code is more doable than ever before yes there are a lot of coders that will tell you that these no code tools are not that great and that you cannot build anything meaningful with them I'm here to tell you that they are wrong you can do a lot in these no code tools and these tools keep getting better and better I did the same video last year and these tools have improved greatly heck even last year I didn't mention AI once I wasn't even thinking bought it with these tools I've also seen way more people building meaningful apps with these tools in the past year the proof is there that you can build meaningful apps without knowing how to code in this year's video I explored some more tools that I've heard more and more about and feel like I nerded out way more than last year because I had to there's so much more to these no code app Builders this year now I'm going to be solely focused on no code mobile app builders that can extend a desktop however their primary functions is mobile if you're looking to build an app that's desktop focused some of these tools in this video might apply but I'd also look at we web bubble and softer they are dotop focused and pretty wonderful there are links in the description to those tools let's jump into the first mobile no code app builder the first mobile no code app builder I want to talk about is Glide now I don't want to talk a ton about Glide because I actually think they're shifting away from mobile apps they've been actually as you can kind of tell even just on their website now really focusing on business software so internal software and actually I think looking as you can see here more of a desktop feel now one of the things they are one that's actually you can see like mobile and then the web and everything else and these apps um for Glide are actually ones that they cannot go to the App Store so these are web apps as you'll hear from people so they're not going to be you you can't you're not going to download the code and then put it into the App Store these will be solely focus they'll be solely on the web so essentially they're kind of like a really nicer website in a lot of ways um with a little more functionality now not it's not all necessarily A Bad Thing the nice thing about Glide is that this is actually the I think the easiest of all the tools if you want to build like a very simple mobile app and if especially if maybe you're you know maybe you're buil you're in a business right now is you know you're trying to create your own software and maybe the problem you're solving or actually the solution that you have currently is all built in maybe an air table or Google Sheets Glides are really wonderful option because you can think of air table or or Google Sheets as your back end and then Glide as your front end to it all so if I go into the app builder of Glide you can see this is relatively simple and it's really easy I think to understand so your navigation is here so the navigation and here PIR pairing along here and then what Glide has been I think really doing really nicely is actually building like s these sample screens and making it really easy to do so that way it's more template based now with that right that means you can't customize a ton and for some people that's really wonderful especially for maybe internal tools where like Hey we're not building anything that's you know we're not Reinventing the wheel you're just kind of re you're doing your own custom version of things because that makes sense but also it's not like super duper custom that's where glide's really great if I was building a startup and maybe it was like a simpler idea maybe it's like a task app whatever it might be I might start with glide just to kind of get like a feel for it but at the same time you might not even really get that feel for it at this point because they're really focused on internal business tools so I think glide's really wonderful I think it's easy to understand I think it's one of the easiest tools to get started with this is something I think you could spend just maybe a few hours and like get it and go um especially if your data is really organized in a Google sheet or an air table base glide's a really powerful tool but again I think they're focusing more on the desktop of things rather than the mobile you can see it starts here in Mobile but then if you go click here it's a web version not very good showing of it but that's where I think you know this it's customizable for mobile and web um but I also think these apps are being more focused for desktop which is not necessarily A Bad Thing and just not the fit for this video the second mobile no code app I want to talk about is adalo now adalo I feel like is the square space of this space of the mobile no code app builder so if you're someone that maybe likes the Squarespace where it's kind of template based but also like customizable enough ad doll is a really great option now ad doll has been really getting into this mobile space I think even heavily you can see even mobile app I think last year they kind of were doing this like mobile or desktop we can do a little bit of everything and as you can see they are you can do you know mobile devices and the web so you can do both with them but they are so they are focusing on mobile which is awesome now one of the things that is new this year comparatively to last year is you can actually now go into the app stores and submit your apps from the adalo into you know the Apple App Store and Google Play Store which is fantastic so this is one that if you want to maybe you're building a more internal business tool if you want to you know maybe it's more robustness than a Glide I think a doll is really wonderful if you're also building a startup that isn't the most complex thing in the world a dollo might be the place to start now one of the things with a dollo though is that you cannot export the code so if that is something that you want to do later on you currently cannot do that with a dollar and it doesn't look like you can do that a ton or like there it's not doesn't even look like it's on the road map um I could be wrong about that but it doesn't look like that's even going to be coming on for exporting code and for some others that might not that might be important but it might not be that important at all um so it's really up to you and how you want to approach that um for me if I was building a really simpler tool um maybe but it's little more robust than Glide I don't think that that wouldn't bother me that much for exporting the code now to get a feel of what adalo is like here's kind of a basic app you can see here this is one of their template apps now I really like how adalo is formatted this is like from a designer standpoint right if you're used to you know the storyboarding and things like that this is a dollar right you can see all the different screens for the app you can see the signups and like how it all flows you can see the arrows and what button goes to what personally that makes the most sense to me like that's is why I like adal's kind of formatting really nicely um I think the way you can design in AC actionable items here in adalo is one of the easiest ways comparatively the tools especially we'll talk about in a bit but again it it is slightly limited but it's not as limited as Glide I would say um now one of the cool Parts about a do 2 is you can connect it to other databases so if you want to connect it to right air table Google Sheets or really any other things I know Zano is one of them that people more and more tools are getting connected with you can do all of that within a doo as well so let's say again like if you have a really pretty Google Sheets or air table base that's really organized well but you want to kind of take it to the next level in terms of formatting and things like that aalo is a great option to kind to plug into that as well so I would look into this so I kind of see this as a we are basic but like not that basic of an app um and maybe you're taking like hey I want to build an MVP but Glide can't just do that just yet I think a doll is a really good it's a really great starting point if you've never built an app before um you still need to understand a little bit of like frontend concept things like that but if you have like a designer background I actually think aalo is actually pretty simple to pick up um and they have plugins and all these different things and Publishing the app stores now which is pretty sweet um you also can see the analytics so there's a lot of reasons why aalo is really great um you can see like this you know standardizing your branding things like that too um I think adal is really wonderful um I think they keep getting better and better um but is it the most robust of all the tools no but if I was building an MVP that's like not that complicated like this one right I think is like a first class like if you're teaching classes if you're building something like that I think a doll is a really wonderful tool especially if you look through their templates um then you can actually see like you know is there a template that you can just adjust and then have your own app now adalo does have more and more templates coming to it but one of the other things that they're really starting to build out I feel like is there App Academy and there's now over 70 of these courses here within which is pretty sweet and I believe they're all free so if you go into here you can see like building an Instagram course or like an app publishing like all the different details for all of them um I think that's really helpful so if you again if you've never built an app I think a do is probably the first one I would maybe start with to play around with and just get an MVP going those kind of things if you're not sure if you're like hey I want this like skill in my toolkit in terms of like building apps for you know out of no code tools I think I'd probably start with a do because I think it's the easiest to pick up and like to get an MVP off the ground if you're like hey I want to build apps for like you know as a freelancer I want to really build a super robust thing and potentially like export it into code and start coding at some point or hire someone to code it at some point I would not start with a do for that but if it's just a very simple MVP and you want kind of like you know stick your toe in the water a little bit with these no code apps I think a doll is a really great starting point the third mobile no code app builder I want to talk about is draftbit now draft bit is one that is a newer to me personally but is a tool that I think I'm getting more and more excited about and that's for two main reasons one is that I think this is the tool that is the most similar to webflow now I'm someone who actually been building my personal websites through webflow and I think that that system makes relative sense to me and I think drait actually has a lot of the similar Dynamics now I don't think it's as polished as web flow is in terms of like the usability and the user experience but I think they're on their way the second reasons why I'm really excited about draft bit is actually they're building these mobile apps and the code behind it is react native and that they're coding it as you're designing and actually you can preview things I think relatively quicker than you can in the different apps that we're that we we're talking about in this video so here we are on their website and the onboarding process I think for draftbit is actually like I think the best of all of them now that onboarding process isn't shown here as you're like clicking through and things like that but you can see they they do have templates I think this has been building up as we go now one of the cool parts that I think is really really cool that they're doing and that's not showing on this homepage is that if you hit get started and sign up and all that stuff they actually have a video of their founder actually going through all of the the tool and actually showing you like the very Basics and that video was incredibly helpful and then right below that they actually had a cly link so you can actually sign up to meet with their team and then them to answer any questions or just walk through the platform with you that to me is a super awesome feature if you're especially if you're want to like hey I want to be an expert in draft bit or understand how to build apps in this tool or even just like understand how to build these mobile not code apps in general um if you really want to learn something I think you have you should do it with people and I think their ability that you know hey just like you can sign up for a time to meet with people even if you haven't paid for anything yet that's pretty sweet will that that will they keep that as you know things go I I don't know I doubt they will um but I think in this current stage with draft it is I think that's a really awesome thing to really you know get into and if you're someone that actually wants to maybe potentially export your app so maybe you're going to build your MVP with draft bit and then export it as maybe you gotten traction and things like that if you're doing this as a startup this is a really good option especially that it's building in react native now you'll hear different things about like how clean the cat is all those kind of things I'm not the best expert for that but at least it gives you the code for the most part with that I also heard that you only get the some components but I also don't think that's true anymore just based on how um just even looking in the tool so if I go into the tool actually here you can see right this has like if you if you've used webflow this has a lot of similar Dynamics and this is has like you you can align things justify things I wish more tools would kind of have this style of things um and you can see the break points so you can see like how things break in here now my screen's too small here to kind of show the differences but then you can kind of build with those different break points in mind now they even have a big screen which is pretty sweet wo doesn't even have that so that's pretty cool um now this Builder though isn't it's really I think it's really good but I think it's pretty limited it's not the most polished thing I've ever seen in my life like for example you can't drag and drop these things like you wouldn't things um you have to kind of build Within These components and these different pages and things like that um so you're building a lot in here and then kind of going from here to here and um so it's a lot of like so obviously you can see things but it's not like I think building is a little bit slower than it could be um so hopefully I'm guessing drag and drop is on their way I'm guessing that's a bigger thing um so you can see like the different phones and stuff it's cool um so it it's again it's I think it's really powerful um and it's coding and things like that as you go and then if you go into here you can export the code here now I don't have a paid plan so I can't export it but in theory if I was was paying for all of it right I could pay for I can add even my own custom code all those kind of things um if I was paying for this service right now but I'm not building an app necessarily in draft bit right now now draft bit I think is somewhat is for those that maybe have built maybe more powerful websites like in webflow or ghost or things like that if you've never even built a website I don't think I'd recommend it out of the gate um I would probably start with maybe a dollar or a Glide to start out and then you know kind of move up or even just build your own website first and then build an app like this um draft bit's got a lot of complexity to it but do I think it's like the most like hardest thing to go learn no I think they're doing a really nice job um and their content and things like that are getting better and better as we go to they are publishing more and more on YouTube um where you're probably watching this video so if you're looking to kind of even get a touch of what they're you know maybe what they're looking for the tutorials are like go on to their YouTube page and you kind of see like how you can learn things as you go um this is a I think a relatively still early tool in all of it so this is I think going to develop fast and I think also hopefully the community then grows with it from what I can tell the community is still pretty early in developing for this one but those that are in this community I think are really passionate about it from what I can read um so that's awesome in terms of having just people to bounce out ideas off or just kind of help you build um as you're building your own app in draft bit is that if that's what you decide the fourth mobile not code app builder I want to talk about is flutter flow flutter flow is the most robust of all of these tools we're going to talk about in this video video it is got a lot of bells and whistles and you can do almost anything I think at this point with flutter fill I'm sure there's limitations but there's very few from what I can tell flutter flow is the most robust of them and I think the most polished but with that right I think it has the steepest of the learning curves if you're okay with the Steep learning curve or you're like hey I want to really learn how to build these apps in flutter flow because I maybe you want to build multiple apps or freelancer or you really just want that skill in your toolkit awesome I think it's a really powerful tool you can do custom codee they have a an AI tool that it didn't work well for me but that doesn't mean it's not great or can't work well um I think it's a really powerful tool now even with the screenshot right it kind of looks similar to draft bit and I think draft bit and flutter flow have a lot of similarities the one big difference is the polishness I would say but also in the coding languages that they're using so draft bit is using react native which is what a lot of the apps you're using today are using um even just with the back end of code but then flutter flow is using a language called flutter um shocker um they're using that which is a Google based language and that you'll hear different mix things of whether or not like how reliable that code will be in the future I think it'll be okay but I think that's something just to know maybe like this the slight differences between react native and flutter um I don't think if you're just building an MVP like I don't think that's like a make or break thing I think actually like the polishness and like do you actually like using the tool is the bigger thing at this point but in terms of longevity like is that something to be thinking about for sure um in terms of like even just for exporting the code at some point maybe you want to build your MVP and then export the code at some point I'd be like making sure you like if you're going to hand it off especially to someone or maybe you yourself like you know want to code up at some point like understand the different languages that they're both using so draft bit is using react native and then flutter float is using flutter the other big difference between between flutter flow and draft bit I would say is just like the robustness and also just the community and the the resources that they have draft bit doesn't doesn't have the same size community and I don't think the same resources that flf flow has flter flow's Community has really grown this past year in terms of like people you can just even like message and just find you go on Reddit threads all those kind of different things that you'll find flutter flow people I think way more often than you will find drait people um that's not necessarily a bad thing or good or bad thing it just if you're looking to be in a community with people building apps you'll have a better shot with building with people in flutter flow now let's go into the tool itself so if I go into flutter flow here you can see here's kind of the basic tool and like again it looks similar to like a web flow and draft bit but like this part of it is is a little bit different to it um in terms of you know creating variables you can see the different you know responsiveness or layouts things like that um so that has some similar ilarities here's the big difference though between draft bit and flutter flow is right you can you know drag and drop things um you need to understand how to structure things within the screens here in flutter flow but once you get that I think the drag and drop makes way more sense the other thing with flutter flow to be thinking about is the databases so if I go into this databases here you can see this is connected to Firebase now you can use Firebase which is the Google databases but you also can use superbase which is another database tool that's not Google related um that's a different video for which one to use and things like that but the databases are actually I think more important than people realize because this is what's storing your data so you can think of Firebase things like that as your backend or like your air table Google Sheets equivalent kind of in a way um they're acting as your back end and then right flutter flow your draft bits are on the top now those add extra cost as you go as well so be think like make sure you understand like what those are storing and like what the cost will be as you go um they're mostly free to get started and build your MVP it takes a while before you actually start getting having to pay for things but it's something to keep in mind as you're building now flutter has really gotten really cool in like API calls and just like connecting to different things and their apps and um schemas and like this keeps getting more and more robust um they also their design tool is actually gotten really cool so if you go into design and theme settings similar to how web flow has like their variables and things like that this has actually gotten really similar which is pretty sweet their Design Systems and widgets and there's a lot in like you know text and things like that which is awesome so that helps standardize things especially if you're starting to work with a team I will say I think from a if you're building with a team of people maybe even just like two of you I think actually the collaborativeness here in flter is probably the best of all of them it's not to say you can't build an app with someone in the other tools um you definitely can but I think you can even like comment and things like that and here in flutter flow um which I don't think is the same in the other tools so again I think that in terms of robustness and what you can do with it I think flf flow is the best in terms of that but it has the steepest learning curve but also has a lot of the resources that comes with it if you were to kind of batch the tools that we've talked about I would put a doo and glide kind of in one kind of bucket and then I would put draft bit and flutter flow in the other bucket so we've kind of gone from in terms of like Advanced and what robustness we've gone from Glide which I think is the simplest to aalo which is I think a step up from that and then draft bit and flutter flow are kind of like the most robustness in terms of what you want to do and you can export the code with both flutter flow and draft bit so if you want to add custom code or even just export the app and then start coding you can do that in these tools and that really shows even just like with how robust you can build these apps the last mobile no code app builder I want to talk about is one that is not even out yet and that is bubble now I mentioned at the very beginning of this video that bubble is a really great app builder for desktop apps and they are currently in beta with a builder for Native mobile apps now if you like the idea of bubble or maybe you built desktop apps with bubble I think this is g to be a really great option now there's a few different things to be keeping in mind with bubble currently just that probably will carry over into their mobile apps so I think you'll be able to put them into the app store which is pretty exciting um right from Bubble kind of like similar with a doo and flut fil and draft bit but one of the limitations with bubble currently is that you can't export the code from Bubble so if you're looking again to maybe export that code bubble's not going to be able to do that but I will say that bubble is actually I think one of the most robust of the mobile of the app builders in general so I think that mobile is going to be really robust as well especially that they're giving it time to be in beta and things like that I also think that their University of maybe resources just learning bubble actually one of the best um partly because they've actually built with GRE John who's someone that I've worked with a little bit you can see Gregory here on this YouTube video and Gregory from what I can tell on their YouTube channels built out just like almost hundreds of videos at this point on their on their YouTube page that are completely free so if you want to learn bubble I actually think this is the best resource in terms of learning tools um in terms of especially these app builders in general from desktop or mobile Gregory is one of the best teachers for these tools and I think it's awesome that they partner with them to do like a whole university kind of similar to how webflow has it um Gregory is a really wonderful teacher so you can go right here to their their bubble YouTube page and learn a ton about what they're doing now we'll have to see what this all looks like in terms of what you know building a mobile app on Bubble will be like but if this is something maybe you want to start with desktop and maybe you can transition it to mobile that is something to keep in mind as well if you found this video helpful I would love it if you can give it a like and if you're looking for more resources for building a bootstrap startup check out the newsletter down in the description below

Channel: Matthew Gira

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Id: BpK7w100fC8

Length: 23min 10sec (1390 seconds)

Published: Tue May 14 2024