Today, mobile applications are much more effective and powerful. Users that install them show real interest in the content they provide, and they can even display custom alerts in the status bar of the phone. If you have a website, a business, or even a band and want to ensure that users can access the brand anytime and anywhere, then Do-it-yourself (DIY) app builders let you craft your own apps with no technical skills required.
Below are some of the best mobile app development platform available for developers and businesses to create their own apps.
AppMachine
If you are thinking of creating a mobile application to display information from your website, institution or software, take a look at AppMachine. AppMachine is a software platform to design your own mobile applications. It’s easy, free and fast. Use the content of your website, social networking and RSS feeds and create a mobile application in minutes.
It is a platform that offers an excellent system design applications, ability to import content via RSS and select up to 30 different modules available within the system, and customizing the structure of the data shown in the application. The platform also offers advanced feature such as custom coding, Web services and an online store.
AppMachine starts at $29 per app per month and go up to $99 per app/month. It comes with a Previewer option, so you can view your app as you build it.
TheAppBuilder
Develop a smartphone application in minutes, without typing a single line of code. This is the formula that has made TheAppBuilder a dominant place in the DIY market. With end-to-end encryption, user authentication and authorization, TheAppBuilder platform enables you to build app for virtually all the platforms.
TheAppBuilder creates an application using the designer and model templates – for business, events, education, music, sports and others. The platform supports native iPhone, iPad and Android, with updates going live within 60 seconds of submitting a change. Pricing is available upon request.
Mobile Roadie
Mobile Roadie is one of the oldest online service available to build applications for iPhone, Android, iPad and Mobile Web. It is a quick and inexpensive way for anyone to create their own iPhone or Android app in about 20 minutes. A powerful content management system is behind the scenes and allows for instant updating of the app’s content. Core features include music, video (integrated with BC), events/tours, news, Twitter, and mailing list integration.
Mobile Roadie can help businesses create robust apps with new features such as location maps, in-app activity points, push notifications for relevant and individualized messages, chat, mobile marketing tools, rewards and news updates.
Mobile Roadie price starts at $125 per month and just $29/month for app hosting.
Appery.io
The genius of Appery.io platform is that everything can ride with just drag and drop design components. It offers building enterprise mobile apps fast using the only cloud-based platform with visual development tools and integrated backend services.
It combines the simplicity of visual development with the power of JavaScript to create cross-platform business applications quickly. Because this tool is 100 percent cloud-based, you can focus on creating great applications and also allowing share your mobile project with development teams, business users and customers in real time.
Price plan starts at free and go up to $180 per month for Premium service.
GameSalad Creator
If you want to build video game apps in an easy way, then GameSalad Creator is for you. This software allows you to create and publish game applications for different platforms such as iOS, Android, HTML5 and OS X. The interface is quite intuitive as it handles the drag and drop functionality, without any programming knowledge.
You can utilize GameSalad’s In-App Previewer to test your game logic and behavior sets. GameSalad’s web publishing system allow for fast and easy cross-platform game publishing to all supported targets, including iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle, Nook, Windows 8 and Mac desktop. You can also publish your games instantly to GameSalad Arcade – powered by HTML5 technologies.
Price starts at $299 for Professional service.
BiznessApps
An excellent platform for creating mobile applications for companies wishing to expand into the world of technology. BiznessApps tool offers a lot of features such as shopping cart, loyalty programs, dynamic content, third party integrations, push notifications, and more comprehensive analysis.
The content management system is easy to use allowing you to create an application in minutes and customize pre-built designs or your own. There are also previews in real time to control the evolution of the application. BiznessApps offers weekly seminars on how to build beautiful mobile applications using the platform and this helps you to make the process even easier.
The cost of building apps with this platform starts at $59/month.
Appy Pie
Appy Pie is one of the fastest growing cloud-based DIY mobile app creation tool to create an app for Windows, Android and iOS. One advantage of using this tool is that apps are automatically published to their respective app stores, including Appy Pie’s own app marketplace.
It has the options to send push notifications, monetize with ads, see live analytics, and track location with GPS. The platform provides a series of app management tools for better app analytics, real-time revisions and updates, custom coding, app monetization and better customer interactions.
Appy Pie offers three subscription plans starting at $7 a month for a single app.
AppMakr
AppMakr, like other DIY platform, offers creating applications for iOS, Android and HTML5 versions, without having to know programming. AppMakr allows to create as many applications as you want, and use a number of interesting features such as push notifications, picture galleries in high resolution, live updates, streaming music and video, chat rooms, Google Maps integration, shared calendar events, and more.
One unique feature of AppMakr is that it displays the app’s App Quality Index (AQI), a meter that indicates the likelihood that your app will be rejected during Apple’s review process.
There are four types of plans – a free version that integrates some ads in the app. Others are priced at $1, $9 and $79 monthly depending on the advantages offered by each.
Good Barber
Good Barber does a job like Barber where it cuts and styles your apps with detail. It does so sans producing a single line of code.
You can build your Android or iOS app choosing among more than 50 designs created by experts. You can customize them, push the right notifications to the right users with the targeting tool and add 28 connectors such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WordPress, SoundCloud, WMaker, Google Calendar, TypePad and WMaker.
The standard plan starts at 16€/month and full plan with full features start at 32€/month.
ShoutEm
ShoutEm is now billing itself as “the world’s simplest mobile app maker”, as its drag and drop interface allow you to add news, places, events, photos, media streaming and more simply by selecting each part in its app builder within five minutes.
The multiple monetization options in the platform creates a revenue stream from your app, providing an e-commerce experience, in-app subscriptions, deals and coupons, with support for all major ad networks included.
The pricing starts at $19.90 per month and unlimited plan with full features start at $119.90 per month.
A amazing DIY app for sports and social groups is Team App. In minutes a coach, player or mom can build a custom app for their youth soccer team, girl scout troop or college club ultimate frisbee team. I have connected to 12 Team App’s
for my three children and am so glad my local community has adopted Team App across our town.
Great app builders out there! There are a couple more options worth mentioning.
A completely free app maker is app inventor. The catch is it only makes android apps. There are books and tutorials available, and you can preview your app on your phone or an emulator on your computer. When your app is ready, you download the apk file, and upload it to Google play.
An alternative to game salad is construct 2. It can do it all. Their free version lets you program 100 events, enough for a flappy bird game. It comes with many game-specific drag-and-drop behaviours like turrets and cars. Their paid version costs around $100, one time. It has numerous tutorial files that run on your browser. This is the one I use.