The Alpha platform is a unified mobile and web app development and deployment environment with distinct "no-code" and "low-code" components. The vendor says that using the Alpha TransForm no-code environment, business users and developers can take full advantage of all the capabilities of the smartphone to turn any form into a mobile app in minutes, and power users can add advanced app functionality with Alpha TransForm's built-in programming language. IT developers can use the…
$35
NativeScript
Score 4.8 out of 10
N/A
NativeScript is an open source framework that allows
you to create native iOS and Android apps, with one codebase, using the web
skills you already have (JavaScript and CSS) and the libraries you already
love.
N/A
Pricing
Alpha Anywhere
NativeScript
Editions & Modules
Alpha TransForm (no-code component)
35/month
Alpha Anywhere Business
$1,499/year
Alpha Anywhere
$1,499/year
Alpha Anywhere Business Pro
$2,499/year
Alpha Anywhere Enterprise
Call Us +1 781.850.4600
Volume Discounts
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Alpha Anywhere
NativeScript
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
Optional
No setup fee
Additional Details
Questions?
Call us: +1 781.229.4500
The NativeScript framework and CLI are completely free and open source. NativeScript Sidekick is a free download to improve developer productivity with optional paid tiers for power users.
The speed of development from concept, through development and delivery of the end product is so impressive [with Alpha Anywhere]. There is an impressive array of genies and helper functions meaning that you can focus on what matters, the end user experience. It is not a "No code" solution but it is a very impressive "low code" solution which allows detailed access under the hood to tweak the applications to your own needs and the needs of your clients.
I gotta be honest, after a PoC period, we choose to rewrite the whole application in a different cross-platform app. Our developers had to invest a lot of time and effort to debug a lot of plugin-related issues, which we needed to utilize the android mobile phone capabilities. QR reader, special visualizations, and fine-tuning were really hard and often resulted in writing native Android code instead of using the shared Angular code. In the end, we think that writing a standalone Android app and an Angular app would have been a better alternative, as the shared code base was so unreliable that it did not save us any time.
Our company had been creating small business applications since the 1980's, when we used DBase IV (don't laugh... that's what was available). Then, we got more "sophisticated" with Microsoft Access. Clearly, we would always be limited with what we can do with those two programs. By accident, during an Internet search, we saw and ad for Alpha Anywhere (back then, it was called Alpha V). After working with the 30 free trial for just two weeks, we retired Access, for good. The best part was Alpha's flexibility in its use of "back end" data tables. That allowed us to use existing Access tables as we redesigned the front-end program (Alpha ships with its own DBF system, but we prefer SQL-Based tables). You can choose, SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, Access, Paradox (actually, too many to name) for your tables. You can even create links to Excel spreadsheets or QuickBooks Tables. It's outstanding!
Alpha allows developers to create very large and very complex programs. However, it's also a great choice for RAD (Rapid Application Development) for those who need to be up and running quickly or for less experienced programmers. Actually, the interface truly allows for "codeless" development of your application (more on that later). That means you can design a fully functional application, without typing a single line of code. They have some examples on their website.
My favorite part of Alpha is that it is constantly adding features and functions that allow us to do more with our applications. In fact, one of my biggest problems is that I need more time to learn and practice the added features as fast as they are introduced
Prior to Alpha Anywhere, we never considered creating/developing "mobile" applications (for tablets, smartphones, etc.). Alpha created a unique "panel" system that makes those application work great... and allows for the design of very sophisticated Apps.
True native app. The app uses native components and that is quite noticeable in the overall performance of the app. NativeScript is also awesome in the way we can access the native APIs, so we are never really constrained by the framework. If we need, we can just dive into the native APIs without leaving our environment and language (JS).
Cross-platform. Builds for Android and iOS. It deals with the platforms differences very well.
Support for Vue.js. Even though it is just a community effort, the NativeScript-Vue plugin is the best alternative to build native Apps with Vue.js. That was a major factor to go with NativeScript.
The hybrid is ok but native is better for performance and the right use case I want to go for is the performance without dealing with too many development tools.
The community support is excellent. They have a slack community as well as a discourse forum forum.nativescript.org Both of these offer community driven support. The forum is more for a threaded discussion. The slack community is more for a quick talk.
Alpha Anywhere is a full-stack IDE. It’s no code and low code, but you can also custom code if you need to. About 10% of our application is no code. 80% is low code and 10% is custom code.
Ionic Ionic is an excellent Angular-based framework for mobile, and it does give a lot of access to the native device api's. However, the technology is based on Cordova, which means the apps being built are just webviews, with html, css and JS all running on the UI thread, and potentially creating very slow experiences for users. NativeScript is a truly native solution, and so provides a faster user experience. ReactNative We evaluate ReactNative, and found it much the same as NativeScript. The main difference is that your JS is all written with React, while NativeScript lets you choose between normal JS, Angular, and Vue. For our team, Angular was the most appropriate choice.
Allows for a great return on investment since you can quickly become very productive and complete more projects and applications in a shorter period of time with hand coding and the normal programming headaches of PHP, C#, Angular, etc.
You can afford to take on more and smaller projects since they will require far less time to complete than more traditional development environments.
Alpha Anywhere is continuously updated coming out with new features and capabilities on essentially a daily basis. Continuous improvement and frequent updates allows you to always stay ahead of the curve and competitors.
Alpha Anywhere allows you to offer lower cost solutions that will be completed in less time and that will be much easier to support and maintain.
The poor quality of NativeScript documentation has the potential to weigh heavily on development timelines, budgets, and QA resources in a NEGATIVE manner.
The poor interoperability of NativeScript plugins can significantly increase development time.
The need to seek out professional instruction to learn how to use NativeScript effectively may become a burden on your budget.
The number of breaking changes between versions of NativeScript, may cause your development efforts to lag further behind the most recent releases of NativeScript and your other chosen environments than you are accustomed to.
NativeScript still does not support the latest major version of Angular. Any significant changes to the other environment components of your systems may hold you back even further while NativeScript plays catch-up.
