I am wondering if slow in app were caused by using internal collections.
How about using external collections (only use users’ internal collection), do apps like that experience slow performance ?
For the past few weeks, I have searched some other app builders, because Adalo is my first encounter actually, lucky me, but my social capital has been spent in this product, that make most of other products unattractive.
That is why I hope external collections might solve this problem while we wait for real improvements.
I have asked this question before - as did other people. but it was never responded to.
Rather ignored and “closed” as if resolved. Perhaps someone can say something - would be nice to know.
A client has almost everything as an external collection (existing web app) and we are even afraid to dare use Adalo for a new client relationship without knowing
If that day arrived that knowing external collection is the way to go for production, I hope that best practice soon follow.
Most no-code people are spending their resource to other non-technical matters which is what the hype is all about.
Confirming ourselves to choose the right no-code tools is already hard enough, more time looking around than looking inside.
Best practice using external collection does not need to be polished perfectly, it can be as simple as equivalent as if we are using internal collections.
Perhaps technical partner of that external collection provider can be invited to show how it can be done effectively, which translates that they will get more revenue streams for just showing off.
If you want to use relationships betwen data, won’t work on external database.
External database for the moment are for static data that are not link to other collection.
@James_App_Maker are apps slow even with external collections? As mentioned earlier, a client has almost everything as an external collection (an existing web app on AWS) and we are considering Adalo for mobile.
Would the performance problem still exist with external collections and databases?
In my experience of using Adalo + external database (Airtable), actions such as clicking a button, performing an action like updating a record, or pressing the home button, etc do not slow down. Do keep in mind that the app is still slow, mostly because of other factors like servers are too far away from my location (South East Asia), or tech behind the app is slow, but none of the slow-ness is related to the external database. This has been my experience so far.
That said, even with external database, the mobile app we created on Adalo was still slow enough that our customers complained and we eventually stopped working on the project last August. They’ll only come back if the speed is back up, and that seems to be dependent on Adalo’s upcoming performance upgrades - regional AWS servers, offloading calculations on the server instead of the user’s device, and others - which I hope will come in a month or so. We’ll know for certain on 31st March.
@David really appreciate the update and all the changes the team is doing. We hope you’ll have some good news on the topics your team mentioned in this last article (An Update on Performance | Adalo Blog), namely:
Migrating logic from users’ devices to Adalo servers
Migrating to AWS and regional servers
Speed up list loading times
The changes your team had recently done impact customers who have decided to publish apps to the app stores. For us though, when our customers found that performance was extremely slow in mobile web apps in the Middle East and South East Asia regions (Singapore, Dubai, Bangladesh), they dumped us immediately. FYI we use external collections (Airtable) for our data.
We also wanted to publish our apps to the app store, but when our customers completely stopped using the apps due to slow speed and loading times, we didn’t see the point of publishing to stores. To avoid headaches in publishing, we even decided that instead of publishing to app stores, we’ll use mobile based and desktop based web-apps. But due to the slow speed, we haven’t even been able to do those.
We pushed back several operational plans since last year to Apr 2021, based on the Q1 2021 timeline your team mentioned on we can expect performance improvements to go live. I keep fearing that if we push them even further it may spell disaster for us, especially after all the financial hits we all had to take during COVID-19
While I understand that the team focused on solving some urgent problems about app publishing (and I’m glad these were solved with great results), we are still really looking forward to hearing some updates on speed improvements this month, namely the three mentioned above.
We’re hoping these will make enough of a difference for us to relaunch the app successfully this time in Asian regions:
Migrating logic from users’ devices to Adalo servers
Migrating to AWS and regional servers
Speed up list loading times
A glimmer of hope still remains for the townhall meeting. We’re counting on the Adalo team more than ever now
@HANI, To answer your question directly and as honestly as possible “are apps slow even with external collections?” Yes, they are slow, but overall the published app are slow.
Adalo is amazing, and it’s young, so there is a lot to improve on.
I have been waiting for this update on performance for months, as I was so excited by the potential of Adalo, and I still am very excited by it, but I can NOT use Adalo for commercial apps at this time (meaning people who pay me for use or Dev).
They are just too slow and paying clients do not tolerate that, and they will leave and it will hurt your business rep…
Your client already has the database and web app on AWS, so all the structure already exists, for now, I would simply build the mobile apps in another platform. READ BELOW:
I had a client I was showing Adalo to for their Web App, who’s back end is on Backendless, (very similar to Xano) and they wanted mobile apps, but at the time Adalo was not suitable due to performance, I could not demonstrate speed and reliability. So I went with AppGvyer for the mobile apps, which is a low code free platform (they just got bought out by SAP - but still over the free studio)
Once Adalo has made performance changes obviously my advise would be different and it is hands down the best no code platform I have used.
Thank you for the Update David, sounds like the team have been very busy indeed.
I 100% believe that Adalo will take the world by storm IF you can get the performance/speed sorted. At this time it’s not possible to have commercial arrangements with my clients to create Adalo Apps, I had a few clients, which I got to sign up for paid plans (I keep them separate as there is no Agency plan, that I’m aware of ) and I build for them, but we ended up moving to another provider due to speed with practically no data in the apps.
BUT, I do look forward to the future potential, it is exciting. although, keeping people informed about progress is critical for them to have faith in a platform that they will be committing to for development of their Apps, Business etc.
Thanks for the update! I’m really happy the foundation of Adalo is being made stronger. In my personal experience it is always when the environment en foundation is right the development suddenly goes so much quicker!
After researching about backend as a service, what Adalo have done with internal collections is a proof that front-end and back-end can co-exist in as synchronous as possible.
This is the turning point, to fully expand as baas for its own front-end or just a front-end with a taste of mini baas.
This front-end and back-end combo is a very high value proposition, that other app builders have difficulty to catch up.
But, baas means scalable, unafraid of spending crazy amount of madness to catch up to what other baas provider have done.
I really hope that front-end first are more attractive to no-code people than back-end first, so opportunity is here to grab, but please continue to be baas too.
I completely share your view, Yongki. Imagine Adalo would implement features like database view (such as SQL view, to run a complex query across more tables), or background tasks (to cleanup the database, for example), this would be a game changer. In an utopic world, a simple email marketing would be great too At least basics, such as what Squarespace or Podia have…
To do that, it takes huge amount of efforts that are probably even bigger than creating Adalo itself. I remember that to build startup we need to change almost the entire shape every time we hit limits, so to continue “as is”, certainly is not a recipe for successful startup.
To ease my mind, remembering that no-code is already helping and enabling something unthinkable before and that is the most gifted prize that we have to be grateful.
Absolutely! In my project, functions such as backend tasks and transactional emails I can easily implement outside. Adalo is helping A LOT with an amazing frontend. However, I don’t think that’s where they will stop.
Hi guys just want share my experience with Adalo since 22th Feb last month.
Did my research on no code and low code with other platforms in early February. I finally arrived at Adalo. Signed up pro plan and met up with Victor online and took up Erik’s course.
Past 3 days, I was able to launch my app in app store as well as play store and my experience was painful. After spending hours reading the guide from adalo resources guide. I managed to figure out how to get the ios and android build done. The screenshots was obsolete in the resource guide provided by Adalo and I was literally crying while following step by step.
While I was able to launch the app in both ios and android platforms, I was over the moon but it came to my surprise, the app load very slowly. I was genuinely disgusted by the app speed >.<. For a moment I was in heaven, another moment I reached the very bottom on earth.
Im using Internal collections and it was a simple listing with minimal information. I have also ensure the images are not too big to prevent lengthy loading speed faced by users.
I’m based in the Southeast Asia region - Singapore and the app takes 2 to 4 secs to load the information. I fear the worst when more users start to download and use, whether they can load the app fast enough.
At the moment, Adalo doesn’t give me the assurance it can be used for users with thousands of records with concurrent session but I’m really praying it can be done within next few weeks and months.
The product is really amazing up to this point. All I can say is both founders and the pioneer team have been awesome and brilliant. Adalo is the future and I hope the founders have very good exit strategies in coming years when they make their millions, bring Adalo to IPO and let it be a 100 year old company with legacy.
For the community, all I can say is keep using Adalo. I believe the performance issues will be solved in near future. At this moment, let’s all suck our thumbs and pray for our app to load fast.
) and I build for them, but we ended up moving to another provider due to speed with practically no data in the apps.
At least basics, such as what Squarespace or Podia have…