I have been using Alpha Software products since 1993, from the days of DOS, through Windows version, web based applications and now mobile apps.
I have made a full time job using Alpha Anywhere and have two full time employees. We develop applications using Alpha for three main reasons: the company, the product, and the peer support.
As a company who has been around since the 1980s, Alpha has longevity, which is unusual in the software business. I have gotten to know the principals of the company, and how they are fully committed to making and supporting a product that is easy to use and technologically up to date. They are very responsive to feature requests, and keep pushing the envelope to make the product relevant.
The product is intuitive, and able to leverage HTML, CSS, javascript and other outside products. It is truly a Rapid Application Development tool and one that connects to various backends (MS SQL, MySQL, Azure, Posgress, etc.).
There are various groups and events that offer support, such as Alpha's weekly webinars, and IADN, a group of Alpha Developers that also offers a weekly webinar, as well as other sources of support, such as hundreds of videos, documentation and the Alpha Message board.
If you are unsure, try the free community development edition. You will not be disappointed.
I would rate Alpha Software a 10 out of 10 stars if you want to design a data-centric cloud-based application.
Foundation:
You can choose from a variety of databases. MS-SQL, MySQL NoSQL, MariaDB, Oracle, SQLite AWSDB, Access, etc. You can query tables, views, store-procedure, etc.
You can host your application on almost any hosting site including Alpha Cloud. You can use IIS or Apache Server.
Access AWS S3, Wasabi, Drop-Box
You can access a vast library of API’s and rest services.
Security is built in and easy to implement. Users and Groups and Encrypted columns.
Design:
No-Code: Build an application with no-code by simply clicking on the builders.
Low-Code: Build an application with low-code. Build your application with no-code first then add some HTML or JavaScript in the code areas.
Custom-code: You can hand code JavaScript and HTML if you desire. I rarely need to do this.
Window’s Browser on the desktop. It runs like a native exe.
Smart Phone browsers or compile to the OS exe and the app can be disconnected from the net and still run.
Languages:
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, xBasic, Python, Ajax callbacks, etc.
Builders:
There are many builders to build the components. Menus, Lists, forms, processes, reports.
There are builders for JavaScript, HTML, CSS, etc.
There are builders for Server-side and Client-side functions.
There are builders for writing SQL code.
Reports:
A robust report writer.
Export your reports to PDF, Word, Excel, Text, etc.
Other builders:
Email.
Texting.
Upload photos and/or files.
Maps (Geo Location tracking).
Charts.
I have built many applications small and large. I have also used other non-Alpha products. I like Alpha Software the best because I like how the IDE is designed plus Alpha is written by people that understand that data needs to be flexible and dynamic.
It's been a good choice for our software business. We switched from Microsoft development tools about 10 years ago and it has helped us to double the size of our business and build market-leading systems for the web and mobile. Support is good, very responsive, and they continue to innovate and extend the product.
Hosting options are varied and increasingly solid with IIS and AlphaCloud deployments giving solid 24x7 reliability and scalability.
Those are the significant positives to working with Alpha Anywhere.
Nothing is perfect and we find that upgrading to the latest public builds, to get the benefit of the new features they have included, is always a challenge and there is inevitably a period after upgrade when bugs in the development product itself are found and fixed. We will continue to hope that their quality control and build process will improve.
To coin a well used phrase, "Just do it". I extensively use the product to leverage applications for my clients, but the most telling and compelling reasons for using Alpha Anywhere are regularly offered up by individual developers, new and old, that I teach to use the program. They are mostly employed by companies already using or starting to use Alpha Anywhere. Often they start to laugh out loud when I demonstrate aa particular feature of the programme.
Taking advantage of the low code/no code paradigm you can rapidly develop feature rich applications and when you are ready you can open the hood and tweak as little or as much as you need. Utilising css, javascript, python, node as needed.
Database connectivity is beautifully handled to just about any backend system.
The whole product really helps a developer to focus on delivering what the customer wants in a timely fashion.
Find out what your peers are saying about Alpha Software, Microsoft, Salesforce and others in Rapid Application Development Software. Updated: April 2024.
What is rapid application development? Rapid application development (RAD) is an agile software development approach that was created to replace the “Waterfall” method.
Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.
I have been using Alpha Software products since 1993, from the days of DOS, through Windows version, web based applications and now mobile apps.
I have made a full time job using Alpha Anywhere and have two full time employees. We develop applications using Alpha for three main reasons: the company, the product, and the peer support.
As a company who has been around since the 1980s, Alpha has longevity, which is unusual in the software business. I have gotten to know the principals of the company, and how they are fully committed to making and supporting a product that is easy to use and technologically up to date. They are very responsive to feature requests, and keep pushing the envelope to make the product relevant.
The product is intuitive, and able to leverage HTML, CSS, javascript and other outside products. It is truly a Rapid Application Development tool and one that connects to various backends (MS SQL, MySQL, Azure, Posgress, etc.).
There are various groups and events that offer support, such as Alpha's weekly webinars, and IADN, a group of Alpha Developers that also offers a weekly webinar, as well as other sources of support, such as hundreds of videos, documentation and the Alpha Message board.
If you are unsure, try the free community development edition. You will not be disappointed.
I would rate Alpha Software a 10 out of 10 stars if you want to design a data-centric cloud-based application.
Foundation:
Design:
Languages:
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, xBasic, Python, Ajax callbacks, etc.
Builders:
Reports:
Other builders:
I have built many applications small and large. I have also used other non-Alpha products. I like Alpha Software the best because I like how the IDE is designed plus Alpha is written by people that understand that data needs to be flexible and dynamic.
It's been a good choice for our software business. We switched from Microsoft development tools about 10 years ago and it has helped us to double the size of our business and build market-leading systems for the web and mobile. Support is good, very responsive, and they continue to innovate and extend the product.
Hosting options are varied and increasingly solid with IIS and AlphaCloud deployments giving solid 24x7 reliability and scalability.
Those are the significant positives to working with Alpha Anywhere.
Nothing is perfect and we find that upgrading to the latest public builds, to get the benefit of the new features they have included, is always a challenge and there is inevitably a period after upgrade when bugs in the development product itself are found and fixed. We will continue to hope that their quality control and build process will improve.
To coin a well used phrase, "Just do it". I extensively use the product to leverage applications for my clients, but the most telling and compelling reasons for using Alpha Anywhere are regularly offered up by individual developers, new and old, that I teach to use the program. They are mostly employed by companies already using or starting to use Alpha Anywhere. Often they start to laugh out loud when I demonstrate aa particular feature of the programme.
Taking advantage of the low code/no code paradigm you can rapidly develop feature rich applications and when you are ready you can open the hood and tweak as little or as much as you need. Utilising css, javascript, python, node as needed.
Database connectivity is beautifully handled to just about any backend system.
The whole product really helps a developer to focus on delivering what the customer wants in a timely fashion.
I would rate Alpha Anywhere a seven out of ten.