1. Good UI. Skaffolder has a really great UI and CLI to, well, scaffold an app. It lets you go fairly in-depth about how you want your data tables structured and related, how the API looks, and what the app pages do. This is not an easy thing to do well, and Skaffolder strikes a nice balance between too many options and not enough.
2. Ease of use. Some may argue about this, but I take issue with the questions suggesting Skaffolder make database relations easier. I'm a software developer. There's a lot to know in building an app, and I don't see how Skaffolder could hide the fact that there are multiple tables with related keys between them and still have a useful product. When an app has more than one "entity," when it deals with lists of several different things, there is always the complexity of relationships. Where Skaffolder shines is that I can, for instance, show my wife how to define tables and help her link a few and she'll be empowered to create more on her own.
3. Freedom from scaling costs. Skaffolder generates the source code for your app. You can deploy it where you want at whatever scale you want. You'll pay for the extra hosting and bandwidth, of course, but that's a bargain rate compared to what many mobile app services charge when you scale.
Now for the downsides:
1. Skaffolder gives you a great start on an app, but you're going to need some skills to polish it up and to host it. These "disadvantages" are just the flip side of the benefit of getting source code and an app structure meant as a scaffold. It doesn't offer a graphical tool for designing your app pages in detail, and it doesn't give you the bloated app such graphical no-code tools give.
2. Skaffolder has more templates, it seems, than they can maintain. The number of options is exciting! You can generate your app code in so many different technologies. But it takes a lot of labor to make sure those templates stay up-to-date. The React + Sequelize app, for instance, uses several old or deprecated libraries. Skaffolder-cli throws audit errors when installing and a deprecation warning (DEP0148-deprecated folder mapping in exports) whenever it runs. The Sass in the generated app requires a native library that won't build on my M1 Air.
So...it's a fair tool. I'm curious to see where it goes. Some of what makes it complex also makes it great. Some of the templates could use some revamping.
Ive finally had a chance to work with Skaffolder. Its a great tool and exactly what Ive been looking for. Many of the projects I start need the same basic setup, Skaffolder quickly allows me to setup a base app and build on top of it. I expect to use Skaffolder as a starting point for many apps.
One other point about the number of templates being locked in after selecting them. I didnt realize you could only select a template once and then its locked into you account, I had a call with Luca back in December, as I only was testing Skaffolder and didnt have any real apps yet, he kindly reset my templets and I made the correct selection for my first app with Skaffolder.
It's one of these tools which I want to like. But then there are some pieces which make this difficult. It creates clean code, which you usually feel at home easily - that's important for adjusting it afterwards. It has a vast library of templates to offer (even though I miss some based on e.g. Python or Flutter). Having a way to create a basic CRUD API and CRUD screens ready for extension is really great. The UI is clean and functional (although the help screens seem to show a different version than deployed). But some details disturb me. Example: the limits on templates. You select a template and don't know exactly what you will get. There is no sample application one could browse to check whether one likes it. And if after trying out you think it's not a good fit for you, it still counts to your limit. Another example: the one template I tried out had source code comments in Italian. They are not critical and the code is clean, still I would not want to have Italian comments in my application at the end, so that requires manual clean-up. Four tacos at the moment. I'm still contemplating to either refund or go full-steam on tier 4 without limits on the templates.
Founder Team
Luca_Skaffolder
May 9, 2024
Thanks for your feedback. We may have missed some Italian comments, thanks for advising, we are fixing it soon.
If you noticed something that we missed please reach us at info@skaffolder.com indicating where are the Italians comments to change.
Being our plan lifetime, we have to add a limit on templates that can be bought standalone. Before picking the template there is the folder structure...
Verified purchaser
Gone Baby Gone
Both the product and CEO is missing! I wish Appsumo does electronic KYC of each vendor that sells here.
Share Skaffolder
Verified purchaser
Cool Tool, Needs Updating
On the plus side:
1. Good UI. Skaffolder has a really great UI and CLI to, well, scaffold an app. It lets you go fairly in-depth about how you want your data tables structured and related, how the API looks, and what the app pages do. This is not an easy thing to do well, and Skaffolder strikes a nice balance between too many options and not enough.
2. Ease of use. Some may argue about this, but I take issue with the questions suggesting Skaffolder make database relations easier. I'm a software developer. There's a lot to know in building an app, and I don't see how Skaffolder could hide the fact that there are multiple tables with related keys between them and still have a useful product. When an app has more than one "entity," when it deals with lists of several different things, there is always the complexity of relationships. Where Skaffolder shines is that I can, for instance, show my wife how to define tables and help her link a few and she'll be empowered to create more on her own.
3. Freedom from scaling costs. Skaffolder generates the source code for your app. You can deploy it where you want at whatever scale you want. You'll pay for the extra hosting and bandwidth, of course, but that's a bargain rate compared to what many mobile app services charge when you scale.
Now for the downsides:
1. Skaffolder gives you a great start on an app, but you're going to need some skills to polish it up and to host it. These "disadvantages" are just the flip side of the benefit of getting source code and an app structure meant as a scaffold. It doesn't offer a graphical tool for designing your app pages in detail, and it doesn't give you the bloated app such graphical no-code tools give.
2. Skaffolder has more templates, it seems, than they can maintain. The number of options is exciting! You can generate your app code in so many different technologies. But it takes a lot of labor to make sure those templates stay up-to-date. The React + Sequelize app, for instance, uses several old or deprecated libraries. Skaffolder-cli throws audit errors when installing and a deprecation warning (DEP0148-deprecated folder mapping in exports) whenever it runs. The Sass in the generated app requires a native library that won't build on my M1 Air.
So...it's a fair tool. I'm curious to see where it goes. Some of what makes it complex also makes it great. Some of the templates could use some revamping.
Share Skaffolder
Verified purchaser
Great tool
Ive finally had a chance to work with Skaffolder. Its a great tool and exactly what Ive been looking for. Many of the projects I start need the same basic setup, Skaffolder quickly allows me to setup a base app and build on top of it. I expect to use Skaffolder as a starting point for many apps.
One other point about the number of templates being locked in after selecting them. I didnt realize you could only select a template once and then its locked into you account, I had a call with Luca back in December, as I only was testing Skaffolder and didnt have any real apps yet, he kindly reset my templets and I made the correct selection for my first app with Skaffolder.
Share Skaffolder
Verified purchaser
I really want to like this tool ...
It's one of these tools which I want to like. But then there are some pieces which make this difficult.
It creates clean code, which you usually feel at home easily - that's important for adjusting it afterwards. It has a vast library of templates to offer (even though I miss some based on e.g. Python or Flutter). Having a way to create a basic CRUD API and CRUD screens ready for extension is really great. The UI is clean and functional (although the help screens seem to show a different version than deployed).
But some details disturb me. Example: the limits on templates. You select a template and don't know exactly what you will get. There is no sample application one could browse to check whether one likes it. And if after trying out you think it's not a good fit for you, it still counts to your limit.
Another example: the one template I tried out had source code comments in Italian. They are not critical and the code is clean, still I would not want to have Italian comments in my application at the end, so that requires manual clean-up.
Four tacos at the moment. I'm still contemplating to either refund or go full-steam on tier 4 without limits on the templates.
Luca_Skaffolder
May 9, 2024Thanks for your feedback.
We may have missed some Italian comments, thanks for advising, we are fixing it soon.
If you noticed something that we missed please reach us at info@skaffolder.com indicating where are the Italians comments to change.
Being our plan lifetime, we have to add a limit on templates that can be bought standalone. Before picking the template there is the folder structure...
Share Skaffolder