My personal impression of Wappler after 2 years

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Wappler is a low-code / no-code platform where are offering visual builders for both design and code so the user doesn’t have to code on their own and focus more on functionality than on coding.

With Vue and React you have to code quite a lot so that doesn’t really fit in Wappler’s vision and users.

Wappler’s own frontend framework App Connect is just as fast but much easier to use because of the direct data bindings and visual flow editors available.

Also the Wappler community here is what drives and make Wappler a success. The community might be smaller than the ones from Vue and react but much more efficient, friendly, helpful and open minded.

At the the choice is yours and what fits your use case.

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Vue, React, and App Connect are all similar JavaScript frameworks. I think Wappler is better off promoting their framework instead of building on top of another. They could possibly make it easier for developers to use/improve it outside of the Wappler app by creating detailed documentation and hosting it publicly on GitHub and npm.

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Over the course of two years of using Wappler, on the one hand, I feel that I have not mastered even 30% of its capabilities, on the other hand, I have already made a couple of commercial projects on it for my customers.

The fact that you can create, albeit not ideal, but working products, alone, without deep programming knowledge, is an excellent achievement of the Wappler team and the community.

But I would like there to be at least brief descriptions of the purpose and main parameters of each component, not necessarily in as much detail as those that are in the documentation.

And it would be great to have a full-fledged code editor inside, since in development you still come to the conclusion that it is easier to do some things with direct code.

And maybe the Wappler team should think about creating paid practical courses or a school for developing development skills with Wappler, I think there would be a demand for this and an additional marketing channel.

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What do you mean? There is a code editor already there.

Yep, that would be an excellent addition.

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I meant to be able to write full-fledged code in a convenient way, for example, when you need complex code with some calculations and mathematical processing.
Now inside Wappler this is almost impossible and it’s easier to write a separate script on your external server and return the result back.
The same work with arrays in Wappler still looks very primitive and limited. That is, if it is still possible to do this on the front end, even if it is not very convenient, then on the back end I don’t know how.
RUN JS certainly allows you to do something small, but it’s inconvenient.

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I think that would go against what Wappler is aiming itself at which is a fast, low-code development tool.

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I don’t see a contradiction in this, when we know a little, then low-code is the right method, but when we need to do something more complex, it would be convenient to have tools within one system

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I’m not sure I agree. I think if you want to move onto more full coding then you switch to a different program. I see that as a different marketplace. You can edit any of the files Wappler creates for you so you’re not tied into the Wappler software if you want to get your hands dirty and edit the code directly.

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I needed some complex code which was way beyond what Server Actions can do and I just wrote a custom formatter… it involved googling bits of PHP syntax for a few hours but was super simple to write and integrate into Wappler…

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I just read the entire thread: Thank you very much for your honest, personal report.

I am one of these poor fellows trying for years getting Wappler flying, but didnt get there. Also not after working through some basic coding courses.

I can very well remember when I got the table working where you can filter for cars and add names to a database and display it in a table (learning examples in one of the courses available). That was my highlight on Wappler, sorry to say, nothing more than that.

After paying for years a pro licence (also to just support Wappler) I just cancelled this January my credit card credentials.

I plan to try Velo by Wix (former Wix Corvid to my understanding) to get dynamic applications in websites. Bubble was not convincing for me.

Anyone to recommend another tool I could try if Wappler is too hard for me / my skills?

Thanks

Thomas

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I appreciate that Wappler is not for everybody. However, I am sorry to see you go. I will not defend Wappler any further than to say, it is the best product that I have come across.

A well-known alternative could be WordPress, the advantage being that you can choose your own host and you are not tied to a company that ups its prices at will.

May good fortune be with you.

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Sorry to here that my friend…

But I will just stay on one phrase of yours:

Maybe you didn’t give wappler enough room to give you back things…
Everything seems SO easy when you see demos…
But we just have to take a step back and see what we want and HOW WAPPLER CAN GIVE IT TO US
Because wappler can give it for sure - the one way or the other. And this is because of the community help.
I have searched some of the most experienced users in here and they all have drop a LOOOT of topics looking for an answer and help…

Wappler is a closed gift box…
Need some help in order to fully open it and with some more help it can give us valuable gifts!

Based on my experience, wappler is a low code software, so in order to go for something more you have to ask it from wappler. There are amazing tools and assets in there.
We just have to find the way to use them.

Saying again what @ben said

you remember to ask yourelf again about it, when using other software and try to do “something more than that”, meaning more complicated things

I wish you health and success on whatever you do my friend!

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Dear all - thank you very much for your replies. I definitely confirm wappler has an outstanding community and will check out https://www.youtube.com/@NetNinja mentioned in this thread.

And to @ben wordress hint. Thank you. I do have many sites running under wordpress and built solutions with custom post type (CPTs) working, which bring some app-like features, but it remains a limited flickwerk IMO.

With best wishes,

Thomas

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Hi, Thomas !

Sorry to hear that Wappler didn’t work out for you too. I know it’s not a fun situation. I think it’s good that you have reached out and shared your thoughts.

I also think that it would be very valuable for everyone if you elaborate a little bit about your experience and decision.
What things exactly you didn’t like in Wappler? In your opinion, what Wappler Team should do to fix that?

You also wrote about learning regular coding. How has this affected your point of view? Have you considered moving to JS/PHP-coding with frameworks instead of nocode/lowcode tools?

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I can name a few interesting nocode tools I have an eye on. But I haven’t used them in real work, so I can’t say from experience.
But I don’t know if it is really appropriate to talk about them here publicly on Wappler’s forum. If it’s not ok, I hope I will get a hint from the Team and will delete the post.

So, one interesting solution is Noodl. It fullstack, user friendly and is on its course to become OpenSource.

Another good app here is Plasmic. It has a really powerful frontend editor, maybe the best one out there. And surprisingly it is OpenSource too.
Notice that Plasmic doesn’t cover the backend.

You also should keep an eye on the WebStudio. It is a young product from Webflow ex-developer but it is already promising. One of the reasons — it is also OpenSource from the start.

Among non-OpenSource solutions, one of the interesting ones is WeWeb. It is not just webpage-bulider, but also has workflows and actions.

And one more: Vue Designer. It is a visual IDE for Vue apps based on Pinegrow editor. And Vue is one of the popular front-end JS-frameworks now, contesting the React and Angular.
During my work with Wappler I have always edited code by hand and currently I am learning Vue.js. So maybe eventually I land on the Vue Designer.

I am sure there are many other promising nocode/lowcode tools. I just don’t monitor this area right now, so I just mention ones I know about and follow a little.

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Sorry to say this, but everything you can do here in regards to the front end you can do with react and Vue.

as @nicknesustroev has pointed out with some, plasmic, noodl, vue designer, having used all they are great, I liked Plasmic, but if your app takes off their page view and pricing will get you in the long run.

vue designer, their support is great, I did not know Vue, and within a week, using it and there discord. i had a full working vue app that was using quasar framework, so I could install on desktop as its own app etc. it was great.

I'm testing out noodl atm, it has been easy to learn, I'm not a huge node builder fan but it is getting easier and with there AI bot, it almost builds the app for you in terms of any custom code anyway.

In terms of the backend if you want it easier you can use canonic.dev or n8n. And connect each item together to make life a little easier, but it is pretty much the same as Wapplers new back-end builder. which I love.

i just wish that Wappler could be used in the future if you scaled, you are stuffed. as you ain't going to find anyone with appconnect experience. etc so getting any "Developer" in to do code is not going to happen, the only person you will hire is via this forum.

if I use the other app's I'm fine. the market pull for react/vue people is huge

I enjoyed the two weeks I had with wrappler, I would have gone with it for a year, if it had more generic frameworks etc. and as the original comment, pretty much agree with a lot of them

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