Google AppMaker was a low-code development environment. App Maker is included with G Suite Business and Enterprise editions, as well as with G Suite for Education. It was discontinued in early 2021.
N/A
SAP Build
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
SAP Build is a business application development and automation solution with a comprehensive suite of low-code, pro-code, and generative AI tools. SAP Build is for developers, IT professionals, and business users/citizen developers who want to create and customize business applications.
$1.82
per month per user
Pricing
Google App Maker (discontinued)
SAP Build
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
SAP Build Process Automation - Standard User
$1.82
per month per user
SAP Build Process Automation - Advanced User
$15
per month per user
SAP Build Process Automation - Attended Automation
$534
per month
SAP Build Process Automation - Unattended Automation
App Maker is exceptionally strong when you need things to just get done, but your internal development team has a full queue. Or maybe you don't even have an internal development team! If you need a check-in system, an applicant tracking system, an office cleaning checklist with notifications and reports, etc. you can use App Maker to throw something together and make sure your team can use it. You can also collaborate on it, so teams can make this part of their process improvement goals.
SAP Build is a strong and reliable partner with a rich FAQ and consulting power. New features make sense and are easy to distribute within the team and to end users. The community is nice, and there are many discussions on product development, shared solutions, and productivity improvements. UI is also one of the strongest points.
Minimal coding experience required. Javascript is a must-have, but the documentation is excellent, and once you're past the learning curve, it's great!
Great WYSIWYG editor. It's easy to see the layout and still have deep control over what you're putting together.
Excellent integrations with G Suite. There are methods built-in that allow you to easily authenticate and work with the G Suite APIs.
Definitely not for beginners. App Maker certainly isn't usable by "everybody," but it's excellent for those who are willing to learn and get their hands dirty!
Experienced developers will have issues. The target user is someone who doesn't want to (or know how to) use something like App Engine or Kubernetes. People with more experience will certainly see limitations and find it difficult to use to the fullest extent.
Data sources can be iffy to manage. It used to be that App Maker would use a sheet or "Drive table" as a data source, but it now requires a GCP data source like CloudSQL.
Comparing to other RPA Tools, SAP Build automation lacks enough user guidance.
Licensing is a little bit confusing.
From a technical perspective, older versions of the automation part are not always stable, but the other services (workflow, business rules, apps, etc.) are much more stable.
The SAP Build Apps is definitely getting better, however it is still not as easy to use and complete as some other solutions. This makes it a bit harder to use for Functional Consultants for example. SAP Build Process automation on the other hand is so easy, that everybody can build processes in it.
App Maker is a very "do it yourself" platform. There is a huge amount of documentation and plenty of examples to begin learning, plus a vast community support through StackOverflow that can assist anywhere that you're stuck, but the great thing is that it's all up to you. If there are specific features that don't work, Google is always there to help troubleshoot.
There are, for example, great blog writings about automation cases and examples. The studio version is updated often. There are also useful OpenSAP online courses.
App Maker is really kind of new in its own space. We haven't seen the level of functionality, nor the deep integrations, with anything else. It can replace a lot of products, and we've seen it in place in many applications across our organization, so it's been able to reduce our spend on products that offer specific functionality and still need to be customized.
Bubble.io is more user-friendly in comparison with SAP AppGyver. The latter being practically a free tool provides enough functionality to achieve results though while Bubble.io doesn't let you export your projects without a paid subscription. Bubble.io has great initial tour and tutorial integrated into the platform that can be handy for any new beginner while SAP AppGyver can be a little overwhelming.
We have seen a reduction in time spent on manual processes by being able to automate functions in Google Sheets, take input with special functionality, and have App Maker do the work for us.
We have seen the internal development queue decrease, which allows us to focus on larger projects that couldn't be handled by App Maker.
We have seen ownership and process improvements increase in certain departments, as they are able to get to work themselves.
