How AWS Amplify and AWS AppSync helps in mobile application development
Every modern software mobile product is not just a few screens but a complex system of UI, business logic, and backend. Each part is time-consuming and most clients want to get the product as fast as possible. Here, at Appus Studio we are using modern tools to minimize product delivery time. Nowadays, a good practice is to use cloud tools to speedup backend development. There are three main players in this market: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. In this article, we will talk about Amazon’s services which help develop and scale mobile applications, AWS Amplify and AWS AppSync.
What is AWS Amplify?
AWS Amplify is a set of tools and services that can be used together or on their own, to help front-end web and mobile developers build scalable full-stack applications, powered by AWS. With Amplify, you can configure app backends and connect your app in minutes, deploy static web apps in a few clicks, and easily manage app content outside the AWS console. AWS Amplify allows developers to focus on code and its efficiency rather than on backend configuration, maintenance, and performance. Amplify supports popular web frameworks and mobile platforms including Android, iOS, React Native, Ionic, Flutter.
Benefits of using Amplify
- Configure backends fast (admin UI and CLI’s helps to set up scalable AWS backends with authentication, storage, data, and other common use cases)
- Seamlessly connect frontends (Android and iOS apps connects to new and existing AWS resources in just a few lines of code)
- Deploy in a few clicks (Use the Amplify console to host static websites and single page web apps)
- Easily manage content (Admin UI provides access to manage app users and app content)
Features & Tools
Develop
- Authentication
- API (GraphQL, REST)
- Storage
- Interactions
- PubSub
- DataStore
- Functions
- Analytics
- AI/ML Predictions
- Push Notifications
Deliver
- Managed Hosting
- CI/CD
- Branch Deploys
- Atomic Deployments
- Custom Domains
Manage
- Manage Users
- Manage Content
How it works
What is AWS AppSync?
AWS AppSync is a fully managed service that makes it easy to develop GraphQL APIs by handling the heavy lifting of securely connecting to data sources like AWS DynamoDB, Lambda, and more. Adding caches to improve performance, subscriptions to support real-time updates, and client-side data stores that keep off-line clients in sync are just as easy. Once deployed, AWS AppSync automatically scales your GraphQL API execution engine up and down to meet API request volumes.
Benefits
- Simple & secure data access (Get data from one or more data sources with a single network request using GraphQL. AWS AppSync makes it easy to secure your app data using multiple concurrent authentication modes and allows you to define security, caching, and fine-grained access control at the data definition level directly from your GraphQL schema.)
- Built-in real-time & offline capabilities (With managed GraphQL subscriptions, AWS AppSync can push real-time data updates over Websockets to millions of clients. For mobile and web applications, AppSync also provides local data access when devices go offline, and data synchronization with customizable conflict resolution, when they are back online.)
- No servers to manage (AWS AppSync offers fully managed GraphQL API setup, administration, and maintenance, with high-availability serverless infrastructure built-in. Create a GraphQL API in seconds via the AWS CLI, console, Amplify CLI, or CloudFormation.)
How it works
GraphQL APIs built with AWS AppSync give front-end developers the ability to query multiple databases, microservices, and APIs from a single GraphQL endpoint.
Advantages of Using AWS Amplify and
- Easier and faster to build mobile and web applications
- Don’t need to manage hosting and infrastructure
- Only pay for the services you use
- Modern UI-driven approach to building apps
- Improved app performance with built-in support for backend management
- Create a native app-like experience at reduced costs
- AWS Device Farm allows users to easily test mobile apps in real-time on various platforms, and browsers
