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Im looking at creating a teams app, however struggling to find the best route (or any valuable comparison). There seems to be a couple of options, Power apps and teams tool kit for visual studio.

Is there a definitive difference apart from power apps being low code? any advantages of using one over the other?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/teams/how-templates-built

or

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/platform/toolkit/teams-toolkit-fundamentals?pivots=visual-studio https://www.figma.com/community/file/916836509871353159/Microsoft-Teams-UI-Kit

Simon
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1 Answers1

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It's also possible to build an app for Teams using SPFx - see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/platform/sbs-gs-spfx?tabs=vscode%2Cviscode

PowerApps vs SFPx I think depends on what functionality you need, how quickly you need the app, and what skills you already have in your team. Importantly though, both are locked to the same tenant (another organization can't install your PowerApp out of the Teams store, for instance). So if you're wanting to put something in the store, you should go with Teams Toolkit (or basically your own custom web app - Teams Toolkit is just a starter kit essentially).

Relatedly, PowerApps, while very powerful, has functionality limitations - certain things are not possible / not feasible, compared with more 'general' web development in SPFx / Teams Toolkit / custom dev.

Hilton Giesenow
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  • Thank you, thats very useful, Im a developer, and so the toolkit seems more comfortable for me, will continue to deep dive into that branch for now i think. Thank you – Simon Mar 24 '23 at 11:08
  • Great, glad to help. If you've got the dev skills, then it's useful knowing the app is essentially JUST a web app, with some added javascript. That means you can build it in any technology you like (ASP.Net, React, php, Node, Blazor, whatever). – Hilton Giesenow Mar 24 '23 at 11:29
  • Thats interesting.. we specialise in Angular, would that also be compatible? – Simon Mar 24 '23 at 13:16
  • Yes, totally - like I said, it's just a web app, with reference to the Teams JS library (and some calls to initiate it and get context) - see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/platform/tabs/how-to/using-teams-client-library?tabs=javascript%2Cmanifest-teams-toolkit – Hilton Giesenow Mar 24 '23 at 14:59
  • To be clear, we're only talking about certain kinds of Teams apps here - tabs and task modules. Bots is a different beast. See here for more: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/platform/concepts/design/map-use-cases – Hilton Giesenow Mar 24 '23 at 15:00
  • just taking a look at the links, the internet doesnt seem to have many resources available for angular with teams which is a shame. I assume the microsoft links are the best training currently? – Simon Mar 24 '23 at 16:49
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/252768/discussion-between-simon-and-hilton-giesenow). – Simon Mar 25 '23 at 07:29