Constructing Prototypes: Adalo vs Glide vs Canonic
Cut time, effort, and the expertise required to build apps & prototypes.
With the no/low-code space exploding, platforms are more powerful than ever. Let’s cover some of these platforms, and highlight their strengths and differences.
We’ll be covering Adalo, Glide, and Canonic in this article.
Adalo
Adalo is an intuitive platform to build full fletched applications on both web and mobile devices. It almost feels like using a design and prototyping tool but to build actual production applications.
When starting, different templates and samples make it easy to get started.
The entire application is defined using a component-driven design system. Each screen is composed of different components linked to its data sources. Interactions can be controlled as well to trigger transitions to other screens, send notifications, etc.
Data sources and business logic
Adalo has basic support for configuring data sources. You can either create your tables and their schemas on Adalo, or link to other data sources by making custom API calls using their request builder. However, there’s no support yet to add custom business logic or code to create custom APIs.
Integrating with other services
Adalo primarily integrates with other services through an API builder. (Paid only feature). It uses a Postman-like interface to create custom API requests. However, it’s tricky when you’re not sure of the exact API parameters.
Pricing
Adalo has a freemium subscription-based pricing model. You can subscribe to different plans based on the size and nature of the application. With the free plan, you can create applications but they’re limited by the number of records in the database as well as Adalo branding. The paid plans have significantly higher limits.
Glide
Glide is similar to Adalo in a lot of ways. The platform enables its users to build full fletched applications along with the frontend using a component-driven design system.
However, it has a different approach towards how these frontend components tie into the data sources. Instead of relying on the traditional table and schema-based databases, Glide opts for a more spreadsheet-like experience.
Glide has different app types that act as starter templates. The platform also offers a few pro apps that are for paid plans. This makes it easy to get started.
Data sources and business logic
Glide uses an Airtable like UI to power the data for its UI components and screens. The spreadsheets can contain different types of data including links, images, computed functions, and relations to other sheets or tables.
The spreadsheets can also be linked to your Google Sheets account allowing you to link existing sheets as data sources.
Integrating with other services
Glide mostly integrates with Google Sheets. It also integrates with Zapier to trigger actions and workflows. It doesn’t expose APIs or lets you add or integrate with 3rd party services from within the app.
Pricing
Similar to Adalo, Glide has a freemium subscription-based model. The free plan has a few limitations including the number of records, storage, and a number of Zapier workflows allowed. The higher-tier paid plans allow for team collaboration as well.
Canonic
If Adalo and Glide are the frontends for your backend, then Canonic is the backend to your frontend. Unlike the other two, Canonic is a backend-first platform aimed at front-end developers. It allows them to build their backend services and APIs with a no-code interface.
These APIs deployed on Canonic can then be integrated into any frontend application with minimal effort.
Canonic has tutorials and sample projects that can help you get started with a variety of different use cases ranging from internal tools and tertiary APIs to complex automation workflows.
Data sources and business logic
Canonic uses a mindmap-like interface to define everything from table schemas to complex workflows and triggers. The tables can contain different field types including computed fields and authentication support.
Every table comes with a predefined set of CRUD APIs. You can also define custom APIs complete with custom business logic as code with the built-in code editor.
You can also define various triggers that can run when data changes or on a schedule (corn).
Integrating with other services
Canonic integrates with dozens of different services and integrations such as Google Sheets, Github, AWS, Slack, Mailgun, and more. There are a variety of ways these integrations can be used within Canonic.
Add them as data sources
Stitch data together from various services together to create a unified API that returns data from multiple sources. Super powerful when creating dashboards.
Use them in workflows
Whenever your APIs are triggered, you can optionally chain multiple actions that interact with different services to create powerful workflows. For example, sending a message on Slack asking for approval when a particular item is created through the API.
Trigger workflows when data in your integration changes
You can monitor various integrations and trigger workflows and perform actions whenever the data changes. For example: Sending out a Slack message whenever a P1 ticket is created on Asana.
Pricing
Very similar to Adalo and Glide. Freemium subscription-based model. The free plan is primarily limited by the number of requests you’re allowed to make every day. The Team plan allows for collaborators with role-based access.
Closing Notes
It’s an exciting time to be building products! Not only is it easy to dive into no-code platforms, but each platform also has its own strengths that make them incredibly powerful.
Whether you’re just getting started with development, or you’re a code ninja, low-code platforms such as Canonic can greatly enhance and optimize your workflows so that you can spend a better chunk of your time on the better stuff!
Happy building! 🚀
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