Building Apps: DIY Builders Or Custom Development?

Everybody loves mobile apps and every business wants to have one, sometimes even without a specific purpose. Some people want their own apps for business, some for leisure. On one hand, there are software development companies (or freelancers), which offer their professional thus expensive services. On the other hand, there are such tempting things as do-it-yourself app makers, which offer creating and publishing apps quickly, and what's even more important, for free, almost free... Or not so free.


What is a DIY application?

What's the general image of a DIY application? What can it actually give you? The simplest ones are a kind of templates that you configure. Android? iOS? Windows Phone? No problem, here you go, there are both native and cross-platform options at your service. App makers take the process under control from the start up to submission to application stores.

Here are some basic things offered; all of these functional options vary from maker to maker:
- placement and updates of various content;
- social media and RSS integration;
- push-notifications;
- click-to-call and feedback forms;
- geolocation;
- features peculiar for businesses (e.g. menus for cafe and restaurant apps);
- analytics and so on.

Some DIY apps take 20 minutes to create, some take much more time. Some are completely free and valueless (as a rule, they offer premium benefits for a fee). Some specialized app building services allow to create business apps for scheduling, handling payments and invoicing, messaging and marketing. Whatever the model is, app makers have to find a way to monetize their efforts: setup fees, hosting fees, one-time fees, monthly or yearly subscriptions etc. The amounts range from, say, twenty dollars per month to much, much more.


What's bad about DIY apps?

Let's outline two bad things about them:

- Maybe the biggest issue with DIY apps is that in many cases you have to allow in-app advertising as a cost for being free of charge. That's used to monetize the apps that are businesses in themselves - there's a free version which can be upgraded by the user's payment thus by removal of ads. But if there is a branded app that presents products and services of a company, an ad inside kills it instantly. People hate ads on companies' websites if they just surf through them. When it comes to mobile app usage, which is far more result-oriented, ads distract and frustrate users.

- The second problem is that app makers do not provide the quality required for serious products. But really, who would entrust a serious product to such a builder? The full cycle of development, including thorough quality assurance by a development company, cannot be provided by cheaper builders. Therefore this problem depends on what you need.


Conclusions

You get what you pay for, that's the truth. It's impossible to fit all of these app builders into one template, since their services and costs differ drastically - from free drag-and-drop app builders (such as Infinite Monkeys) to more serious and specialized builders, which have more or less considerable fees. What's good about DIY makers - they present app building as an accessible way of creating mobile presence, no matter for whom - local brands, retailers, communities etc. There are numerous businesses that went for it and created such software for their needs.

But on the other hand, such apps are often more of an excuse than a quality product. It's not the solution for making a serious software product. Just like translation tools cannot replace a qualified translator, app builders cannot replace professional companies. Both of these won't change in the observable future. And if you really need an app that much simple, which doesn't go for more than the features from the list above, you may find and check such builders to see if one of them offers the balance that fits in your budget and expectations.

See more:
✪ Software Development: In-House Or Outsourcing?
✪ Client Or End User: Whose Opinion Is More Important?
✪ Where To Find A Good Software Development Company