Builder.ai (discontinued) vs. Mendix

TLDR: 28 months into a 6 month project. They stopped developing it without a working MVP, fired all the developers, and do not respond to my requests that involve figuring out what’s happening and when I will be getting a refund.First, please feel free to reach out before removing this review. Builder.ai has taken down our bad reviews in the past saying they couldn’t verify them. I’ll be happy to point you in the direction of the people I’ve worked with including Jason.Second, when I say this is a fraud from the top down, I’m not exaggerating. Please take a look at the news articles that have come out within the last two years regarding their CEO, CFO, and official auditor.If you are still reading, that means you’re still considering it, so let me tell you about my experience.I started this process by meeting with the sales team at the Silicon Slopes Conference in late 2022. I told them about what I wanted to build and they said that would be very easy and doable. We spent the rest of 2022 meeting with developers who reconfirmed how simple this would be and that even with a relaxed timeframe, we could expect a product in about six months. January 2, 2023, I signed the contract.We had a number of problems from the very beginning, including them giving me the wrong documents to sign and mixing my product up with another. We kept meeting, moving forward, struggled constantly with getting the money flow correct. Weeks turned into months and eventually all of the deadlines were past due with no communication on when they would get updated. Near the end of 2023, we escalated and very clearly said that if they cannot develop this, it’s OK to just say as much and give us our money back. They repeated that they could, added additional developers to the team, and said they would be pushing forward with an MVP shortly.When they released the MVP, the flow of money still didn’t work. Whenever I would bring that up or that I wanted to do end to end testing, they would say that they will be able to do that when it’s ready for full release. Again, months passed of this and I stayed patient. I have to say my patience has been the biggest mistake of this entire process.In November 2024, 23 months in on a six month project, they marked it complete. It wasn’t. The money was still wrong, features I had previously approved had vanished, and when I asked why features I paid for weren’t on there, they said they had questions but decided not to ask them and just mark it complete instead. I was furious, but once again I was trying to make it work. I worked with my project manager, and we spent December creating an entire list of every acceptance criteria. I required photo or video evidence for each piece that it was complete or I wasn’t going to mark it done. I also told them they had until the end of March.As we moved through January and February 2025, they started slipping in comments about how they didn’t think we would make the deadline. I continued escalating, people tried to work with me on it, and I decided to once again, find my patience. It did me no good.On March 26, my project manager told me that they were no longer working on developing my project. They had fired everyone who would’ve been part of developing it and had no plans on what to do going forward. They were supposed to tell me the week before when it happened and he expected that I should get an email about it that week. When I tried reaching out to the legal team that same week about canceling any sort of ongoing contract and getting my money back, they told me they were going to refer me to another group. It is April 18, 2025 and still I have received no communication. My patience now means that I have signed myself up for a painful legal battle. I’m leaving this review to let others know that if they already have a contract, chances are no development work has happened for the last month and they need to demand answers. This is also here for people considering this company. Do not fall for it.

I think it's well suited if you have data available and you want to create customized solutions for different types of users. Mendix is very good at doing that. It allows you to do it very easily. So those are good use cases.

Incentivized

• Using Mendix you can build an application in a week compared to building the same application in Java in 1 month.
• You can simultaneously build applications for all kinds of devices (Desktop, Mobile and tablets).
• All in one tool, in Mendix Modeler you can manage databases, webservices, Mendix code , Java code, etc.

• Earlier versions lacked in UI/Ux. This is still improving.
• Since everyone and anyone can create custom add ons (widgets), Mendix could improve their quality checks (but not as rigid as eg Apple).
• Upgradeability used to be somewhat of an issue. Version 7 looks to be handling this better than previous versions.

See previous review

Drawing from my hands-on experience with Mendix, I can confidently state that the platform aptly fulfills our needs for web application development. Mendix stands out by providing a marketplace replete with pre-built templates and widgets. This feature empowers users to leverage readily available components, hastening the development process and contributing to an enhanced overall usability of the platform.

Incentivized

I think their support system is really professional. They answer question quickly and accurately. They have a ticket system that allows to track the current status of a request. The only point for imporvement is a way for me to postpone an answer. Tickets get closed automatically after some time. I feel that the user should have the option to change to an on hold status, allowing for more time to respond to a ticket.

Incentivized

Because most of our apps work closely with our main system (ERP) and other tools, we went with Mendix. It's good at easily connecting with lots of different systems, which is exactly what we need. Another thing we like about it is that it can handle growth well, and its pricing is straightforward and easy to understand.

Incentivized

• Without Mendix we could not have been where we are now. A development platform as Mendix can make the difference in a constantly changing environment.
• Upgrading to newer versions of Mendix is a breeze when you stay within a main version (e.g. M6.x to Mx6.x+1) and even between versions (Mx5 to Mx6) most of the time it is no problem at all and there are only minor changes needed to upgrade.
• Learning Mendix is simple. Just start playing with it and see for yourself how easy it is and feel the joy of developing applications.