Reviews on these RAD tools

Question

If anyone has used one of these systems could you give me a feedback on the pros and cons for both? Also are there better tools out there besides these?

1. Alpha Five
2. Outsystems agile development
3. Omnis Studio from Tiger Logic

Thanks in advance, Jimmy

Answer 1

We have been using OutSystems for more than a year. As a good reviewer, I will start with positives

Pros

1. The platform is awesome for CRUD apps. If you just want to create tables, enter data and save. This is really easy with OutSystems and you can do it quickly.
2. Excellent REST integration. You can integrate with REST easily.
3. Centralize user/session management.
4. Free error and performance moniotoring
5. Excellent Product support. I have not seen such a support in a while.
6. Supports extension in .net, using Visual Studio.
7. Excellent Bootstrap based layout for easy layout creation.

Cons.

1. Support for javascript and DOM manipulation sucks.Basically you have to write string blobs.
2. The Ajax is not really a Ajax. Possibly, it's worst than full page reload. It reloads complete DOM. It's a shame they are using 2006 technology in 2016.
3. No knowledge base. Just google and you won't find answer to any OutSystems questions. It's big drawback. They have forum but it really is not stackoverflow :-)
4. Java version is lame. So practically only supports .net.
5. Every single change need to be uploaded to server before you see.
6. No string merge support. This is the worst source control in the world. I mean, we are living in the time of GIT.
7. No proper user groups out of the box.
8. Only admins can create connection strings, so admin is stuck with that job.
9. Deployment get stuck if are deploying lots of app.
10. Only strong references so you will have tons of dependencies. That creates deployment nightmare.
11. Does not play with angular due to fake ajax.

Answer 2

Here is an example of Web app built in Alpha Five

Web based AJAX project management app | video 1 | video 2 | video 3 | video 4

The page containing this and other examples of apps built by customers is at http://alphasoftware.com/products/v10/

Answer 3

We have used Omnis Studio for many years.

The answer to your question is depending on what you want to do.

1. Do you want to develop a desktop application with native datafile support?

2. Do you want to develop a desktop application using SQL against a database?

3. Do you want to develop a web application?

Omnis Studio can handle all 3 options, but there are many other tools that handle option 3 better IMHO.