I think as everyone has mentioned here without exception adalo is a great platform for mvp, it makes it very difficult to move to anything more than that -
The speed is problematic (especially when there are more users), the system is very closed and requires endless creativity and the pricing model is quite strange.
From a business point of view, this causes a low LTV, because each of us will eventually give in and move to another platform, this may also be what causes the instability in the company.
In the bottom line, adalo must focus on the product, and turn it from a cute toy into something that you can build a real business through- Because no one will invest time, energy and money in adalo if it is clear to him that sooner or later he will be forced to leave the interface and work for competitors.
Welcome to Adalo, It’s always good to have fresh air, new ideas and people like you who want to take Adalo to the next level.
Personally, I have been developing apps for many years and I fell in love with Adalo because of the speed that allows us to develop apps, but there are many things that need to be improved that hinder us when developing apps for clients.
Team control: It’s crazy to add a dev to your app team and have control over your entire account, that dev can clone, delete, steal your database and more… it would be great to be able to add a person to the development team but that they can only see that app and not your entire account, that they don’t have access to clone, delete, download database, connect the API unless Adalo allows us to generate a password for each action that the dev needs to add otherwise they can’t execute the action.
Components: I bought many components from adalo but many were for client apps that with the new change in adalo’s charge for apps, I opened their account and cloned their app there, the problem is that adalo does not allow me to send the components, the component is mine and I decide what to do with it, they cannot limit us to the component being exclusive to the account, you pay the fee on spotify, you download the music and you can do whatever you want with it, this should be the same, that one can share their components with their second development accounts.
Scalability and performance: There are many delays in functions as simple as going back, opening the menu, etc… these things should not be happening at this point, it is urgent to improve this, it takes a long time to load lists and many times they do not load, you have to refresh the screen or go back (it charges you an action for this) and log in again… that generates a bad user experience and adalo charges us 2 additional actions… Big mistake this!
Clone apps with a shared database: imagine I have an app that has 4 apps sharing the database (user, admin, scanner, provider), I cloned them to my client’s account but it clones like 4 different apps and doesn’t let me tell Adalo, hey! these 4 apps must share the same database… we have to reconfigure and develop everything again… crazy! it would be great if they could fix this, it generates double work and a lot of loss of time and money.
Apps in South America: We are paying the price of Adalo but the service in South America is terrible, everything is very slow, apps crash, there are delays in loading actions… there are two solutions: Either they improve the servers and add something in South America so that it works better or they lower the prices for apps used in South America since the Adalo service is not being used to its full potential.
Download the database: It would be nice to be able to run actions on the front end that allow us to download the database as a csv file
I have more points to send but I think that with these we can start, since many families eat and live thanks to the work we do when developing apps, many futures are at stake, if Adalo does not improve many families will be harmed…
I am willing to contribute my grain of sand to this beautiful community called Adalo!
@dgarnett THANK YOU for this frank and honest feedback.
I’ve had >150 customer calls booked on my calendar, of which I’ve completed about 30 by now. I’ve also received >300 emails from extremely passionate members of this community. App actions is a recurring point for many, and I completely see your view. I’ll be visiting this soon.
The good news is that we are going to be extremely active here on many of the points you have brought up and I hope to demonstrate that we are all about action (not app actions) and ultimately be compelling enough to win your business back.
We have big plans! But first, we need to address performance, bugs and customer support.
Hey @nadavma2, look on acquisitions I guess I’m old fashioned and honour my signature on non-disclosure agreements, but the main point is this: Adalo is in new hands and you are going to see an injection of new energy and investment.
I understand the uncertainty that comes with an acquisition, but I have no intention of doing anything other than investing into the success of our makers, and doing what needs to be done to make their apps successful.
I’ve ~150 calls booked with customers of Adalo (I sent out a personal email to ~800,000 people with my personal email and my calendly link). This isn’t some Adalo employee that is on the call. It’s me. It has been instrumental so far in shaping what steps we are going to take to help makers be successful beyond lifting performance and customer support. If you’d like to chat more, I’d be delighted to. Find a time at Calendly - James Crennan
It might be tricky finding a time for a couple of weeks though!
@nadavma2 I appreciate your view, but I can say that the conversations I’ve had so far with ~30 customers of Adalo lead me to disagree.
What I DO appreciate is that there are things in place now, such as app actions and speed, that lead some people to considering other platforms (if reluctantly). I take this very seriously, and all I can say is watch this space!
First of all, I thank and appreciate your investment and personal response, it’s amazing.
My point is that beyond the technical everyday matters (speed, pricing, etc.)
There is a strategic question here - in the whole no code community it is known that adalo is a mvp tool, it is very complex to manipulate something bigger than that.
A lot of us have trouble seeing how we can grow into a real business with adalo, it’s just not built for that today.
This is an excellent system, give us the opportunity to go to big business with it
Agreed on the strategic question. I’ll have more to say–but first we have to do what we said we would do and fix performance. Then we’ll start doing some bold things.
For instance–I’m not wedded to you having to be slaved to the Adalo system, nor to app actions.
exactly! , that’s exactly the point.
The thinking until today at adalo was to “imprison” us in the platform with the idea that this would be the easiest way for everyone to use it (and build apps, like the original vision)
But the inevitable step is to give us more options, and if adalo manages to give us more options and still maintain the simplicity that made us all fall in love with it, adalo will undoubtedly rise to greatness and become number 1 in the no code field,
Apple made this transition perfectly, maintaining simplicity with exceptional performance - that’s why they’re Apple.
Great to have you on board @james.crennan! It was time for Adalo to get some new management! Ive always loved the platform and I just booked my meeting with you! It’ll be early October. Looking forward to speaking with you!
It’s been a long time since I have felt this level of energy in Adalo especially from the community. Reading over the forum and following my chat with James, I can truly feel a change coming, which gives me the same level of excitement I had in 2020… let’s keep up the level of enthusiasm on both sides and it will drive updates and changes required to make the best NoCode product available!!
Thank goodness for a new CEO that actually wants to drive the company up in value! I am so excited that there will be more improvements and new changes to the experience. Adalo is about to blow up even more!
Hi Hugh, I share your disappointment.
I would even be willing to pay a handful of euros a month to have a basic account with advanced features active, though without the ability to publish on the stores.
