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
Zeplin
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Zeplin, from the company of the same name, is a platform supporting collaboration in application development by engineers and designers by providing an API with popular collaboration, development and prototyping tools and creating a space where productions can be shared and reviewed.
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 still have some issues, especially with color integration between the style guide and also project. When we update the colors, it's not automatically sync to every project. Aside from that, zeplin solves my problem for hand-off design from design to developer. I set zeplin is source of truth design file
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.
Ease in automatically building design style guides, saving time that might be spent on building style guides in another tool (such as InDesign).
Users can use Mac, PC, or web versions of this app to collaborate on a single project, enabling us to work with a wider pool of contractors.
Accelerates the design-to-development workflow, as it’s very easy to import Sketch or Photoshop files through plug-ins, and HTML/CSS codes are automatically created based on designs.
Provides cross-platform specifications for web, iOS, and Android, which can save developers time in figuring out specifications beyond the “main platform" on their own.
Zeplin is not a fully functional prototyping software system, but having the ability to add notes to help explain what actions are expected allows me to rate it high.
Zeplin has classic support with a chat from the website. It's working fine, and we're also getting the support needed when needed. However, Zeplin is very good at closing the incidents and moving on. It was a while ago we had a case with their support so that it might have improved since then.
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.
Zeplin is great to inspect and share user interfaces, specifications and assets, perfect for developers. Tools like InVision and Marvel are much better to create prototypes for both developers, coworkers and even stakeholders, but they don't have this kind of feature (inspection) as Zeplin does. So each of them can be used for different purposes, offering different approaches to share and interact with layouts for apps and websites.
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.
Development time has reduced as the design updates are communicated in real time to developers and they don't have to write the boilerplate code as it's already generated.
Employee engagement has improved as every stakeholder is aware about the design changes from the beginning and can give their inputs.
Designers save a lot of time as they don't to explicitly communicate when the update or publish their designs and also it just takes a couple of clicks to publish their designs. Also, lot of rework is saved as every stakeholder is involved right from the beginning.
