Blackbird API Development vs. Visual Studio App Center (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Blackbird API Development
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Ambassador offers a suite of products designed to deliver API developer experiences that fuel innovation. Blackbird API Development Platform enables developers to spec, mock, write boilerplate code, and debug APIs faster.
$10
per month (for a single user and 5 concurrent instances)
Visual Studio App Center (discontinued)
Score 6.9 out of 10
N/A
Visual Studio App Center was a solution used to build, test, release, and monitor mobile and desktop apps, as well as to continuously monitor real-time performance. The product was discontinued in March 2025, and is no longer available.
$40
per month per build concurrency
Pricing
Blackbird API DevelopmentVisual Studio App Center (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Builds
$40
per month per build concurrency
Standard Test Plan
$99
per month per build concurrency
Enterprise Test Plan
$499
per month per build concurrency
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Blackbird API DevelopmentVisual Studio App Center (discontinued)
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
User Ratings
Blackbird API DevelopmentVisual Studio App Center (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Blackbird API DevelopmentVisual Studio App Center (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
Ambassador is really well suited for scenarios were you need to give power and freedom to your developers so they can take advantage of the self-service approach. One of the few scenarios I can not recommend using Ambassador is in the case you are planning to not using Kubernetes as it is a solution designed to work specifically on that platform
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Discontinued Products
Honestly, it's an all around solution that needs some enhancements. Need to build an app, check! Need to test that app, check! Need to debug that app, check! Visual Studio App Center is a well rounded platform for multiple types of builds and services.
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Pros
Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
  • Simple syntax
  • Easy to understand
  • Easy to install
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Discontinued Products
  • It supplies the right native integration for test cases both IOS and Android
  • Constant device updates means you are working with the right builds to support product use cases
  • Excels in automated test cases that are easy to implement, monitor, and digest results
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Cons
Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
  • Documentation is not updated
  • Implementing external authentication doesn't always work as described in the documentation
  • The Administration console is limited
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Discontinued Products
  • Webview support was lacking
  • User management seems a bit disconnected from the standard Microsoft ecosystem. Almost feels like you are managing local users and sharing access more than an enterprise solution
  • Price could be better
  • Buggy on some of the latest versions of windows
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Usability
Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
It's great! it's amazingly simple to use and the best part is the self-service approach. I also like how easy it is to add a new route to a endpoint with the mappings definition.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
Overall the support has been great and quick to answer the requests I've submitted in the past. I was originally using the community/open source version and I can't say it was the best experience I had, it wasn't terrible but it wasn't great. I believe the biggest issue was that they refer to the documentation a lot but the documentation isn't updated regularly so I feel it's lagging behind the most recent versions.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
They both offer about the same in terms of end goal and purpose of use and scenarios. However, Ambassador does way better in terms of simplifying the syntax and makes offer a little bit more of control by adding the concepts of hosts, mappings while staying away from a hard to read single file configuration.
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Discontinued Products
The biggest benefit is in integrations and plug-ins, as well as the fact that it's not open source. I know open source is popular, but we have all been on the downside of open source and waiting for things to be voted up or a contribution to fix an issue. This alone makes VSAC a nice solution! Plus, it comes with a complete IDE integration of services, documentation, and is light weight
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Return on Investment
Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
  • Reduced downtime by redirecting traffic between DC.
  • Reduced engineering time, don't have to dedicate 1 person to manage it.
  • Increased training costs in the short term.
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Discontinued Products
  • Cut down on time to delivery enhancements and overall builds to users
  • Helps test new proposed releases with ease
  • Cuts down on local build issues as it does do a good job with local development environments as well
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ScreenShots