
Amazon Honeycode – build web and mobile apps without writing code - bscanlan
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-amazon-honeycode-build-web-mobile-apps-without-writing-code/
======
cbdumas
I think the thing that "coding without code" fundamentally misses is that
learning to actually write Python or Java or whatever is not the hard part of
being productive in a business context. The hard part of creating useful
software is that you have to understand a business process and its
requirements so precisely that you can write it down for the computer to do.

I work with business stakeholders creating internal line of business apps a
lot, and most of the time the requirements that they are able to articulate
are some variation of vague, ill-specified, and flat out wrong. And it's not
their fault at all, it's just that unless you've gone through the process of
writing code it's impossible to understand just how pedantic and explicit you
need to be when building software versus, say, giving your human colleagues
instructions.

And by the time you've got enough experience to be able to do that, tools like
this just get in the way compared to writing some Python or SQL or C# or what
have you.

~~~
nickff
I think you are radically underestimating the perceived barriers to entry with
programming. You sound a lot like the Linux advocates who think everyone
should just memorize a bunch of commands, and get used to using shell. This
type of insider view is often referred to as 'the curse of knowledge'.

~~~
cbdumas
I think you're right about perceived barriers to entry, and I certainly didn't
say (nor did I mean to imply) that anyone should "just" learn to code. But I
think the promise of "apps without code" is a siren song, always ending in
frustration.

I'd never tell anyone that learning to code is easy (only that most people can
do it with some hard work), but I would also never tell anyone that tools like
this will make it easier because I do not believe that to be true.

~~~
danudey
My counterpoint (to your original point) is that it's not about writing code.

Making an app like this and putting it online (with roughly the same level of
features) requires:

* Learning a backend language, like Python * Learning how to design a data model * Learning how to design an admin interface * Managing authentication, security, and performance * Learning HTML, CSS, and Javascript * Learning how to set up a uwsgi server * Learning how to set up an nginx server * Learning how to set up an AWS VM and deploy the above to it * Learning how to use a VCS

I'm an experienced programmer and sysadmin who has done all of those things
and more over the last 20 years, and I still can't imagine going to the
trouble of actually doing all of that if I can just log into HoneyComb and
make everything nice and quick and just get it done.

There's value in learning how to do it, but there's also value in spending
your time somewhere else. If you're making a simple CRUD app, bashing it
together with Django and deploying it to an EC2 VM is almost definitely not
your differentiated value proposition. If it's just a throwaway app to handle
some mundane task, then it's definitely not wort hthe time it takes to make it
if you don't have to.

~~~
andrewzah
> I still can't imagine going to the trouble of actually doing all of that if
> I can just log into HoneyComb and make everything nice and quick and just
> get it done.

That sounds all nice and good until one inevitably runs into limitations of
the software. And then it has to be made again, this time from scratch.

> bashing it together with Django and deploying it to an EC2 VM is almost
> definitely not your differentiated value proposition

It never -was- the value proposition. Customers simply do not care about what
stack you used in the first place. They will care when features don't get
rolled out because of limitations. Or when bugs arise because developers duct-
taped solutions together because of the limitations of their software-making
software. Not that traditional apps are perfect, but that's one issue they
don't have.

Yes, it is complicated, and if you're making a toy app it probably will
suffice. But I would never rely on it for a business.

~~~
dataminded
> But I would never rely on it for a business.

You sir have options. Every place I have ever worked has at least one app that
someone hacked together through some combination of PDFs, Excel and Access.
This is a tremendous opportunity for those folks. The ones who will never
learn to code, never learn to deploy an application and never get enough
visibility to have a developer assigned to their project.

For the everyteam, these types of tools are exceptional. I continue to be
amazed by what dedicated people pull-off with these no-code solutions.

~~~
NOGDP
> Every place I have ever worked has at least one app that someone hacked
> together through some combination of PDFs, Excel and Access... I continue to
> be amazed by what dedicated people pull-off with these no-code solutions.

VBA, SQL, etc, which is probably what these apps are written with, are code
though.

Honeycode is a language of it's own too, it's just a trade off between
flexibility/power and learning curve.

~~~
dataminded
I should have been more explicit, the things are built in Excel and Access
with the front-end interfaces not VBA or SQL.

------
avolcano
Looks like a competitor to Retool, interesting. The focus on data permissions,
mobile support, and push notifications is really interesting because none of
those features are ones that Retool focuses on, I believe - those features
being front and center makes me think Amazon has looked at the competition and
wants to focus on what they offer that others don't, rather than just trying
to be yet-another-tool in the space.

On the other hand, I absolutely loathe every single UI that has ever come out
of AWS, and there is absolutely no chance I give the editor they've built here
a shot without hearing lots of positive reactions first.

edit: actually going to pull back slightly on this comparison, since
apparently Honeycomb is a little closer to something like Access, where there
is a database _in_ the app, whereas Retool is built around connecting to an
external data source (e.g. a SQL database). This surprised me because I
assumed the entire reason you'd want an AWS version of this kind of tool is to
integrate with the broader AWS ecosystem, like frictionless hookup to a
DynamoDB or whatever. It may have this but just not spotlight it on the
marketing pages?

~~~
txcwpalpha
>On the other hand, I absolutely loathe every single UI that has ever come out
of AWS, and there is absolutely no chance I give the editor they've built here
a shot without hearing lots of positive reactions first.

I agree so much with this. I hate the AWS console UI so, so much and It blows
my mind that such a large company can't seem to even get on the same page
about what color scheme or menu bar position they want to use.

But actually, I'm messing around with Honeycode right now and although I
haven't gotten a chance to _really_ dig deep and test the long-term usability
of it, I have to say that so far it is gorgeous and intuitive. If the UI team
that worked on this just completely took over the AWS console, I wouldn't
complain.

~~~
ihumanable
Can someone smarter than me explain why the AWS UI is so off-putting? I also
find myself just put off by AWS UIs.

I can't even figure out why I hate it so much. Looking at the screenshots
though immediately filled me with the sense that this thing would just be
awful to use. When I go back to the screenshots to try to find objective
things I dislike about the UI, I can't really find anything. It seems to do
the stuff a UI needs to do.

Maybe it's just a negative association with the look & feel of AWS UI, because
most of the time when I'm interacting with AWS I'm trying to get a service I
haven't used before up and running. Going back and forth between dense
documentation and the UI, clicking and failing, and staring at a spinner spin
for far too long.

Perhaps all those hours spent fighting with other pages that look so similar
to this one has given me a subconscious dislike for all AWS UIs.

~~~
julianeon
I seem to be the only person who likes the AWS UI. So here's my defense of it.

AWS is like the hardware store. Who thinks Home Depot is elegant? It's not.
Who think their organization scheme is a thing of beauty? It's clunky and just
functional.

But the idea is, when you go to Home Depot, you're there to get work done. The
interior communicates that. The real work comes after you leave - Home Depot
understands it's just a facilitator.

AWS did that.

I personally give credit to AWS for looking at Google, and learning. They
could've had some high-handed PM come in and roar ITS TIME TO HAVE A UNIFIED
DESIGN SCHEME and then forced everyone to deal with UI updates nonstop, you
know the game of 'where did it go now,' 'oh, they moved it here.'

AWS went in the opposite direction. At the risk of ugliness, they give you the
most bare bones UI, basically 'nudging' you as little as possible - a clean
mapping of fields, to pages, to results. We know the downside: it can be
unpleasant. But the upside is, it rarely changes, its consistent, and
(aesthetic concerns aside) it gets the job done.

It seems a little weird to commend AWS for their design sense, but when you
phrase it as their design _goals_ , I vastly prefer them to Google or any
other 'opinionated' service.

~~~
RhodesianHunter
You're not alone, and thanks for putting into words what had been the back of
my mind.

I could not care less about the aesthetics of their dashboard, when I'm on it
I'm there to get something done and I never seem to have an issue with that.

~~~
Aeolun
Unless you are trying to search, and have to wait for 5000 items to load 50
items at a time :/

Oh, and then you find that search only supports either exact matches, or (for
some reason) suffix matches.

------
odshoifsdhfs
I am working on a product in this space.

I think pretty much all the 'no code' apps that are coming out have taken the
wrong approach to it. No matter what, they are still 'designed' by programmers
with a programming mentality. This will lead to a sort of failure as people
will feel limited when using it, and a 'non programmer' mentality looks at
this and goes wtf?

For example:

> =Filter(Tasks,"Tasks[Done]<>% ORDER BY Tasks[Due]","Yes")

I can understand this, 80% of folks here also, but do your mother or father?
Or the small business owner down the street? Why is the word `Tasks` in 3
places? What is the "Yes", and so on and on

~~~
VRay
Yeah, man, this looks like a beefed-up version of Excel macros

Anyone who can write working spreadsheet macros could probably just learn to
actually program. Maybe they aren't going to be making the next RTX Voice or
proving P=NP, but I'll bet they could crank out some CRUD

~~~
odshoifsdhfs
I did a lot of customer interviews. And I mean a lot.

People that are good at using Excel (as in, not just create a table with data,
but know how to use it, do macros, pivots, etc), if the need arrives they just
move up the chain to Access/Filemaker. I would say Excel is their gateway drug
to coding. Maybe now they will move to Honeycode perhaps (if the UI is ok)

The ones that can't use Excel past putting =A1+A2*0.2 can't use most of the no
code tools. But they can use a more visual approach to programming. This is
the market I believe will/is exploding as more and more, pretty much
everything requires a computer/app, but the customisation for each specific
case isn't there. They require a more Lego like approach to 'software'
development. For me, that is the NO-CODE definition.

~~~
IggleSniggle
Call me crazy, but with all the high-level language features in most of the
commonly used languages of today, combined with the depth of rich IDE tooling
for those languages, we already exist in a no-code world.

~~~
odshoifsdhfs
Yes and no. Maybe you have better examples of programming languages, but even
Ruby/Rails, Python, etc have concepts that make sense for programmers that non
programmers don't grasp. Think of it this way, if you give a good designer the
Rails Book (or another one), he may be able to do something after a few weeks
that may match (but very crudely) the app he thought off.

Now give the same designer Sketch/Figma, but allow him to sprinkle some logic
in ready made blocks (if/elses, loops, save object, etc) and he will get much
closer to what he wanted.

Is the second approach better? Well most programmers will scream at the
database model, etc. For the designer, he did in 2-3 days what would take him
weeks and get away with something better.

I think a lot of programmers look at their experience and think 'no-code' will
never work, but (where my experience comes) 20+ years of doing software
development as a consultant, what I found is 80-90% of most software share
most of their functionality, and the remaining percent are in many ways doable
with just a bit of 'scripting'

------
bram2w
A while back Microsoft announced Microsoft Lists, which is a similar tool. Of
course there are also existing tools like Airtable, Bubble, Mendix etc. All
these tools are great, but they have some downsides in my opinion.

\- If the product ever gets discontinued you might lose all your work.

\- All these tools have limits regarding the amount of rows you can store.

\- If your business depends on such a product and the pricing model changes,
it might bankrupt you.

\- You can't create or download real plugin that integrate well if you are
missing features.

\- In most cases you can't host it at your own servers.

\- You might end up in a vendor lock-in.

These are some of the reasons why I started Baserow. It is an open source
alternative to Airtable and in the far future also for tools like Bubble.
While it is still in an early phase there is a test version at
[https://baserow.io](https://baserow.io) that everyone can try. In the coming
weeks you can expect the open source release. Right now, I am finishing up the
documentation, examples, plugin boilerplate and some final small changes.
After that you can self host it without any limits, vendor lock-in or price
changes.

~~~
lukeramsden
Wow, that looks great. An COSS alternative is exactly what this space needs. I
wish you great success.

~~~
bram2w
Thanks! I agree, was surprised to learn that there aren't that many good open
source no-code tools out there.

~~~
zubairq
I couldn't find the source code, where is it on github?

~~~
bram2w
The open source release will probably happen within 3 weeks from now. It is an
early test version that is running on baserow.io, but this is for trying it
out only. I still need to write documentation, an openapi spec, a plugin
boilerplate and some other small things. When that is finished I will make the
code available publicly.

------
martythemaniak
Funny tangent: I spent my internship (16 months between 3rd and 4th years)
building Web 2.0 apps that were essentially implementing flows people were
using on top of Word/Excel+Email. It was good work and people were happy to
have a nice dedicated web app instead of their clunky flows.

After about a year I noticed I was basically doing the same thing over and
over again, so I decided to make an app that makes web apps! I could build any
app in my app! Awesome! I spent 4th year building this awesome tool out -
there was a document editor to create your forms, there was a Visio-like flow
editor that could make decisions, take actions (email to that person, fill in
that field, send to branch 2 if that checkbox was checked etc). After a few
months I eagerly applied to YC (for summer 2007) and... nothing. Turns out I
couldn't actually describe wtf I was doing and pg would rather fund Heroku.
Good call!

Anyway, there were other similar companies back then (Coghead) that went
nowhere, but this concept keep on popping up and AirTable seems to have caught
on. I guess someone at Amazon got tired of writing the same apps over and over
again.

------
fomojola
As an aside: I've been reading the AWS blog posts from Jeff Barr, but ignoring
the Amazon Polly audio conversions. I actually listened to it today, and not
only is it not terrible, but there's a moment (around 1:05 in or so) where you
can actually hear an inhalation! I know @jeffbarr is sometimes in these
threads: is that a standard feature of AWS Polly, or is there some
preprocessing that is generating SSML to control cadence, and if so how do we
get our hands on THAT?

~~~
tlrobinson
It still sounds very robotic to me. I think Google's WaveNet sounds much more
natural: [https://cloud.google.com/text-to-
speech#section-2](https://cloud.google.com/text-to-speech#section-2)

~~~
fomojola
There's a personal taste element: I agree with you that certain WaveNet voices
sound better (I've actually used them for video narration with some success).
The breathing caught me off guard: it took me a minute to identify THAT as the
element that was there but I implicitly wasn't expecting to hear.

The breathing + pausing at commas/full stops and general cadence was frankly
superior to what I've seen with Google Cloud Voice, which is why I was curious
if preprocessing was done. I've generally had to do multiple manual passes
with Google Cloud Voice to get audio output that didn't sound robotic.

------
jeffbarr
More info at [https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-amazon-
honeycod...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-amazon-honeycode-
build-web-mobile-apps-without-writing-code/)

~~~
Cilvic
This should be the real post link IMHO

~~~
dang
Ok, we'll change to that from
[https://www.honeycode.aws/](https://www.honeycode.aws/).

------
codingdave
The comments here strengthen exactly what I was thinking - this is yet another
flavor of low-code app development. I see similarities to Salesforce,
SharePoint, Lotus Notes, Airtable, and all the other startups on this path
that don't seem to realize that they are re-inventing modern versions of
products that have been around since the 80s.

I spent years in my early career doing Lotus Notes Dev, then shutting down all
those apps to go to Sharepoint, then shutting all those down to go to
Salesforce. I walked away from that churn about a decade ago to just do SaaS,
so I can't truly speak to which of the newcomers has the most promise. But I
have yet to see someone take on this market with full knowledge of what came
before. I see potential for someone to really learn the in and outs of all
such products over the last 30+ years, talk to the folks who have re-done
their LOB apps in multiple products over that time, figure out what worked and
build a true "best-of-breed" solution.

When someone does do that, I'm all in. Until then... the legacy apps I
mentioned above are past their time, so pick your favorite flavor from all the
new ones.

------
fosk
Yahoo! Pipes tried this more than a decade ago, it's interesting to see that
the dream of "apps my mom could build" never dies.

Except most people want to be consumers of applications, not creators. And
those who really want to be creators they learn how to code. So, like with
Pipes, I am not really sure who is the target audience here.

Microsoft Popfly[1] was another one from back in the days.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Popfly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Popfly)

~~~
pandalicious
"apps my mom could build" kind of describes Excel workbooks. People
effectively use excel to build (highly constrained) GUIs for processing data
using custom logic that they specify themselves. And excel's popularity speaks
for itself, it's completely pervasive. So that's the answer; the audience
isn't programmers, it's the officeworkers all over the world currently using
Excel to automate office tasks and want a better delivery mechanism than a
shared Excel file on the office LAN. That's such a big pie that even capturing
a small slice of it might be a reasonably profitable endeavor.

~~~
miek
You are spot on. I know a ton of people who fit your description. I wish this
were higher up the comment stack. So many people are missing this simple
viewpoint.

------
amrrs
It looks like an Airtable replica to me. I might be wrong. But anyways, AWS
getting into no-code (less-code) space is definitely going to impact a lot of
small time players. AWS can complete the loop of development to Custom
Deployment and It also has bunch of other things in its offerings that anyone
would be happy to jump in. I'm just worried about how small-time No-Code
players would survive going forward!

~~~
themodelplumber
I'm exploring no-code solutions for some small business tasks. In my
experience, if I can find a non-enterprise company to fill my needs, I will be
way better off. My past experience with Amazon tools is that they happily
stand in the enterprise solutions space, with an unfortunate amount of the
baggage that brings along.

------
ixtli
I focused a bit on the history of computing when i was getting my CS degree
and one of the things I've found super interesting is that for at least forty
years (perhaps longer!) we've been at least academically interested in writing
code "without writing code". It never really works, however for a technical
person it can be a great way to do, like, a sketch.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=without+writing+code](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=without+writing+code)
is an interesting search

~~~
lucasverra
im genuinely asking myself if "this time is different".

The merging of Cloud + Software consumerism of 15 (ish) years of mobile +
software eats world can make the Bubbles, Airtable and other no/low code tools
the next long tail revolution of software ?

What is different from the front page + Dreamweaver + flash days ?

My hint : cloud computing and the hosting of database AND logic in bigcorp
maintained garden

~~~
ilaksh
I'm not sure what your point is. When you say "bubbles" and "software eats the
world" I think you are saying that these tools were supposed to replace
programming, but so far they haven't.

In fact I think that people who make that claim are wrong. Low code
development tools have become hysterically successful, especially in recent
years. WordPress (400+ million websites) has 50000+ plugins that can do almost
anything. Look at Salesforce (17 billion revenue) and PeopleSoft. Airtable
(1.1 billion valuation). Shopify is approaching 1 million sites. Wix has $600
million in revenue. There are a lot of other massively successful products
that fit into the loose association you gave.

------
careyrouse
Co-Founder of [https://www.cloudternal.com](https://www.cloudternal.com). I'm
really surprised they have a limit of 100k records on their tables. They will
have the same issue that Airtable has, it's just not suited for enterprise.

We believe there is still a gap in the "database app for non-technical users"
space, so we created one that can handle millions of records, provides
granular permissions down to the cell level and targets those creative (yet
non-developer) users who end up pushing Excel beyond its usefulness.

~~~
nslindtner
Looks awesome

FYI: When you try to request early access, I get an SSL error.

~~~
thomasrognon
Hey there, I set that up. The request early access link is a Google Form so it
was an issue somewhere between you and Google. It works for me now, but if it
still doesn't work for you, please email Carey personally (email is in his HN
profile).

------
mg794613
Ok honestly, my first thought was "here we go again", BUT when you look at the
@jeffbar provided, you can see, that yes, it is "visual" programming. It does
however require a certain logical fluency. So I was wrong: It is _not_ the
sales/ceo dream of no longer having pesky engineers. It's a proper gateway
drug into programming.

~~~
jnwatson
The most common fallacy across almost 40 years of visual programming attempts
is that one can somehow escape the essential complexity of a problem domain.
One must have "a certain logical fluency" to design essentially any process,
regardless of the technology used.

~~~
trixie_
I'm pretty sure the zillions of Excel users proves it's not logic that's the
problem It's all the scaffolding around it that is the real barrier of entry
to most development systems.

------
pradn
I don't see Microsoft PowerApps mentioned in the comments.
([https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/](https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-
us/)) It's one of the most significant recent entrants into the "make an app"
space. It looks like Powerpoint and its coding is simple, with formulas like
Excel. They sell licenses mainly to companies (creating internal app stores).

~~~
DoctorOW
Not sure if this includes Power Automate but I find it really handy for the
work I do. If you're not already familiar with how an API works, being able to
point and click on an icon to setup automation is great.

------
ZeroCool2u
This looks very Tableau-esque. Another tool that takes a similar amount of
work to learn compared to just learning programming in the first place, but
with more vendor lock-in.

~~~
themodelplumber
Maybe it also serves as a ramp up to learning programming, but along that ramp
you can deliver economic value to your audience, rather than completing CS
theory exercises. That's often one of the selling points of this kind of
product.

------
viksit
While I’m always skeptical of no code systems, this is the first one that
seems to bring to the web what Visual Basic And Access did for Windows —
VBscript, GUI driven layouts and connectors, and eventually the pipeline of
programmers who went from VB to VC++ and Java.

Amazon also has the Microsoft—esque brand to really drive this into the
Zeitgeist. IMO this might be the most game changing product they have launched
recently given how much of a business impact it can have if distributed well.
But therein also lies its biggest challenge - Amazon hasn’t historically been
good at offering their services to the small businesses and consultants that
could leverage this and build for the long tail. I wonder if they have a
strategy for that.

------
pembrook
From the looks of it, I’d say Amazon applied the same level of UX thinking
into this as they applied to the AWS admin panel—which is to say, not enough.

I think using this in the real world will be about as easy as trying to buy
the right phone charger on Amazon.com. People consistently underestimate how
long it takes to learn complicated interfaces. At which point you might as
well just learn python.

Take any advanced 3D modeling software for example. They are visual
interfaces, not command line tools, but they might as well be considering the
learning curve for the average user.

Having visual buttons doesn’t necessarily mean the process of building a 3D
model (or a piece of software) is suddenly easy.

------
odiroot
My first impression it's like SaaS version of Microsoft Access GUI "apps" (or
better said, semi-smart data entry forms).

------
andreshb
Google would be smart to acquire Glide
([https://www.glideapps.com/](https://www.glideapps.com/))

~~~
spderosso
Google acquired AppSheet earlier this year. AppSheet has been around for
longer than Glide and it has more clients and features. They already acquired
the leader in building apps from spreadsheets.

------
ilaksh
Its weird to me that people in here keep saying this looks like a competitor
to [a single specific recent product X] when in fact this type of system has
been an entire very popular product category for decades, and there are
literally thousands of systems like it. Of course not all of those thousands
of systems have become extremely popular or have the same scope or are
contemporary.

For example: Access, Salesforce, WordPress, Tableau, 10000 other ones that
never became really popular including the simple one I made ten years ago for
a client.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-
code_development_platfor...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-
code_development_platform)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-
generation_programmin...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-
generation_programming_language)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_application_developmen...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_application_development)

------
didip
I love it for the purpose of building custom internal apps.

What would make it better is if:

* It’s open source, therefore installable on-prem and free from vendor lock-in.

* It has multiple swappable backends.

This thing and Bootstrap can replace a myriad of random in-house apps.

------
steveharman
"Honeycode – Build Web & Mobile Apps Without Writing Code"

For the sake of clarity, couldn't they have come up with a name that didn't
include the word "code" ?

------
systematical
It's a spreadsheet and for when you need more (aka have to write some code),
there are conditions, functions etc...
[https://honeycodecommunity.aws/t/honeycode-
functions/90](https://honeycodecommunity.aws/t/honeycode-functions/90)

------
cosmotic
Has programming 'without writing code' ever panned out for anyone? 27th times
the charm?

~~~
pmlnr
Ladder logic used to be fairly big in PLCs a while ago, but PLCs were rather
simple.

frontpage98 was the one to kickstart my web experience.

They are good to start somewhere from, but they'll never be a replacement.

~~~
PaulWaldman
Ladder Logic is still used heavily in modern industrial automation systems.
This isn't to ease development, but to aid in the supportability by folks who
don't have a background in software and are used to reading electrical prints.

------
riskable
It's responsive layout Hypercard. We've come full circle.

Maybe more like Filemaker Pro, circa 1990.

~~~
A4ET8a8uTh0
I think you are right. You show some of my coworkers GUI built with Qt and
they will eww all over it.

edit: But this.. it is polished.

------
IdiocyInAction
Is this really no code? Those formulas they are using look quite a bit like
code to me and GUI builders and templates are also nothing new.

------
t0mas88
I'm very eager to see the Office 365 answer to this.

Microsoft is the one that needs to come up with a defensive play here, because
this is an area where Excel is used in many businesses both small and large.
I'm guessing Microsoft could do a better job than AWS integrating this with
Excel and the Office 365 or MS Teams kind of UI to make it feel at home to
their users.

On the other hand, AWS is ahead now and likely to start integrating this with
the rest of their services if it takes off.

Either way, I think this can be an interesting development for a lot of half
baked Excel processes that are everywhere in a typical company.

~~~
tda
It's called Power Apps [https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-
us/](https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/)

~~~
basch
The "Power Family" or Power Platform (PowerApps, PowerAutomate, PowerBI, Power
Virtual Agents) are inarguable the most mature bundle of WYSIWYG, visual data
flows, and data graphing on the market. It's not just about the app building
itself, but all the ways to get data in and out of it, and what else you can
do with the data once youve gathered it. Salesforce is probably the other
company in the same league.

Microsoft clearly has a branding / marketing problem, where people have
ignored them for too long, and or are just reconsidering products Microsoft
has had on the market for 10 year (another thread where people said Office on
the web has caught up to gdocs, whereas id say theyve been ahead of it for at
least 4 years.)

Mirosoft Lists (their Airtable) is a new interface over SharePoint lists.
SharePoint lists are one of the data sources for the Power Platform, but so is
Dynamics CRM, ERP etc.

[https://powerplatform.microsoft.com/](https://powerplatform.microsoft.com/)

~~~
vxNsr
> _another thread where people said Office on the web has caught up to gdocs,
> whereas id say theyve been ahead of it for at least 4 years._

This issue is that gdocs and co are free while even for just web word you need
a subscription. so the only ppl who use it are ppl willing to pay, the
freeloaders only see it when their company decides to switch back to MS apps
after being in googleville for a few years.

~~~
basch
Free outlook.com (Hotmail) account includes OneDrive (live) and Word online.

------
dennisgorelik
Ability to write code - is the main way to deal with application complexity.

If Amazon Honeycode does not have that critical feature (ability to write
code) - then Amazon Honeycode is useless for creating any complex
applications.

------
stoavio
Too bad this is just another low-code CRUD offering for SMB/Enterprise. This
would have been so much more interesting if it allowed me to build an app for
mobile and web with a custom domain, database modeling and storage,
integration-eque triggers/automations, all while keeping the underlying
platform invisible to the user. Instead, I have to create a team on AWS and
then invite members who then have to install the Honeycode player on their
phones just to use my app.

In other words, Bubble needs more competition.

------
kirillzubovsky
Using data tables to publish websites and apps is an interesting concept and
having an in-house tool to produce most commonly requested ones makes total
sense. Look at their templates: Inventory management, Team Tracking, Surveys,
Reporting...etc. It makes sense.

One hard problem here though, by the looks of it, the tool is a database
designed by engineers in response to a lengthy requirements document. It has
no regard for user experience, and is one of those things you can use, only if
you go through a 3 week training course.

This, imo, is where AWS could borrow from startup playbook, and instead of
launching a spaceship, start instead with a paper airplane. Imagine if all you
could do was to publish an inventory-management tool, that in one-click
integrated with Amazon Pay and let the customers buy your products on a
website?

Maybe Amazon is waiting for someone else to build this on top of their tools,
and then make it available, but that poses a question why. Why would someone
build on top of Honeycode, only to have Amazon eventually make it their own?

Interesting concept, but it's got a long ways to go before anyone needs to be
scared of what Amazon can do with this thing.

~~~
kirillzubovsky
p.s. One thing I can't figure out is if Honeycode can function as an API. If I
am already using AWS for my other infra, keeping my data inside their "Excel"
and then auto process and export it to somewhere using drag-and-drop
automation, that makes perfect sense.

In fact, the whole "no code" Dreamweaver analogy isn't all that fitting. If
they just said "Excel spreadsheet on steroids that integrates with other AWS
product," would make more sense, to me at least.

------
runawaybottle
I feel like many of these no-code tools are taking an all or nothing approach
that will ultimately ossify into a very specific form.

However, if something like Honeycode also had a robust programming/design API,
you allow for tons of flexibility.

We _could_ build a lot of it without code, and we _could_ build a lot of it
with code, and even better, we _could_ code more things that can be built
without code on an app by app basis.

------
deanCommie
I'm always wary of these kinds of ideas, but honestly this looks pretty cool!
I feel like the Press Release[1] actually quantifies why companies would want
to use really well.

[1] [https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-
det...](https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/aws-
announces-amazon-honeycode)

------
darepublic
What we need in this space is basically a UI where you build out what the
presentation of the data looks like, what the permissions will be, and then an
app gets generated for you automatically. You see the generated product and
can then iterate but instead of with devs with tireless coding automatons

------
zubairq
As a developer of an open source low code tool
[https://github.com/zubairq/pilot](https://github.com/zubairq/pilot) I think
it is great that Amazon has entered this space. It really validates it for the
mass market!

------
brainwipe
These kinds of systems are all well and good if you have a person in your
business with an analytical mind enough to pick it up and all your needs will
fit the limits of the framework.

If your business domain has a feature that doesn't fit then you have a
difficult conversation with business people who won't change their process to
fit the platform and won't pay to rebuild in a platform that does fit.

If you do manage to customise Honeycomb then you're down a path of not really
fitting into their model or having to upgrade on their product roadmap, not
yours. I've seen SAP and Sharepoint "installations" that have been customised
beyond all recognition.

Where this will fit nicely is for those internal apps where people are just
using Excel or Access-like systems.

------
julianeon
Are there any tools where you can design something in the UI, and then export
it as actual React or JavaScript code, that you can then take and upload
somewhere else?

Using low-code as a developer to iterate faster, and bang out lots of mini
code apps quickly, is an interesting idea.

~~~
papito
The idea of code generation is not new - but it seems like the new crop of
software developers are learning the same concepts and lessons all over again.
Hey - state machines are so hot right now.

Back in the day there was this cool concept of creating a bunch of UML
diagrams for your business logic and them BOOM - press a button and here is
your C++ code. But then architecture astronomy hits the asphalt and you
realize that most of the hard work is still ahead. So things like IBM Rational
Rose were only sold to suckers.

------
grouseway
Is this the first instance of Amazon offering an end-user (i.e. non developer)
SaaS style product?

~~~
cj
Below are a few other AWS services that I'd consider "SaaS style". Lightsail
is the only one that has a similar SaaS style pricing:
[https://aws.amazon.com/lightsail/pricing/](https://aws.amazon.com/lightsail/pricing/)

\- Lightsail (ie. self-hosted wordpress)

\- Cloud9 (IDE in the cloud)

\- Workspaces (remote windows/linux desktops)

\- Workdocs (cloud documents)

\- Workmail (email)

\- Chime (audio / video calling)

------
topicseed
This is a great way to prototype some simpler, mostly CRUD-like applications.

Definitely not future-proof as new business rules may be hard to add after a
while, but by then the PoC has shown its value and ROI, and writing a real app
might become a no-brainer anyway.

------
throwawaysea
Things are broken when a well resourced large company can just steal someone
else's innovative idea (Airtable or others) and try to muscle them out using
capital or a captive customer base. We need new anti trust laws.

------
atulatul
This is not related to main content of the post. But when I visit the page on
a laptop, a sizeable portion is taken by the header- two or three layers in a
div (lb-clearfix m-nav-double-row)- one of which is logo and create account (
blank space between logo and button), then the menu bar (blank space on the
right below create account button), then the blog menu and search. In the main
section body, a large portion on the right is white space. I have not done UI
UX for a few years. Is this a good design? Are there reasons behind it? (views
on mobile, etc)

------
Edmond
As someone working in this space (codesolvent.com)...color me unimpressed so
far.

Of course with AWS resources this can change with time. They did hype this
some months back, I was expecting something a bit more impressive OOTB.

------
syshum
So far I have yet to see a real practical use for no code, they all seem great
in the demo's and get alot of hype but at the end of the day they take far
more resources to maintain than a normal app and you end up having to have a
programmer maintain after the end user quickly exceeds their ability to
develop anything in a no code enviroment.

They either get Flustered and end up back in Excel, or the "app" gets handed
off to IT / Development who get frustrated and start a project to rewrite in a
actual programming environment

------
dsbanaj
This works only for the development of simple applications. If these no-
code/low-code platforms want to be considered for serious development, they
need to decouple front-end and back-end tiers. A developer can build front-end
in one no-code application (e.g Webflow), or Angular/React for slick single-
page applications; and the backend in another backend APIs specific no-code
application. It will also enable the backend code to be called from native iOS
and Android apps.

------
mortonpe
Is Honeycode for everyone? Nope. Is it for some people? Sure. I’ve read
through countless comments extolling the virtues of hiring python, java, or
(insert your favorite language) developer. Let’s not lose sight of the
customer. Some problems don’t need a perfect solutions. Some problems need a
solution that is more concurrent than excel. Some problems just need a quick
solution for now. You would be surprised to learn how many small business run
in these imperfect solutions.

------
nyxtom
Really wish Amazon would stop trying to eat all software startups.

------
rickyplouis
These types of tools seem excellent for prototyping, but always fall short in
addressing the real world issues of increasing scope and maintainability. No
code web development (Wordpress, and Squarespace) has largely thrived due to
blogs and largely static content, but I fail to see a similar use case in
mobile app development. Maybe it's a lack of imagination, but how valuable is
a tool like this outside of todo lists, blogs, and other minor use cases?

------
chrisvalleybay
My guess is they are doing that because one of AWSs biggest competitors will
be Azure. The Enterprise will be riding on Azure+Power Apps with data sourced
from Dynamics et. al.

------
ravivyas
If you want a new perspective to the entire nocode space, remove the line
"building apps" from any conversation or line of thought.

A spreadsheet to track a project need not be an app, the ability to
temporarily give access to internal data to a non developer team (which become
CSVs in email) is not an App.

It is this need of building a full solution which actually takes us away from
the need of the users to the need to justify a resource for the thing.

------
outworlder
Give me an intuitive, drag and drop enviroment where I can plan out my AWS
deployments and tie resources together, and then write the cloudformation for
me. Then I'll be happy.

Also, this thing requires a different login even though I'm logged in to an
AWS account with corporate SSO. Like quicksight and other tools do, and it's
just as infuriating. Just let me start using and bill for usage.

------
ivan_ah
So, this is like Neonto Native Studio[1] but with less focus on looks and UI,
and more on business worflows? I can see how this would be useful for many
businesses with rag-tag processes, being able to combine on a easy-to-watch
app that everyone has on their phone would be nice.

[1] [http://neonto.com/nativestudio](http://neonto.com/nativestudio)

------
wsc981
When looking at the website, I do think this could be a very decent product
that could fulfil a business need.

From what I've seen many businesses use Excel sheets as a sort of apps. And
this seems to be a mobile-compatible version of that idea. Of course it'll be
very limited, but for a certain niche of business apps it could be very useful
as a replacement for Excel.

------
arkitaip
It's weird that Amazon releases this low-code tool and yet they can't offer
basic managed CMS/Wordpress to millions of businesses out there. Their pricing
could start at 20 USD per month and they could conquer the premium (wordpress)
hosting market dominated by WP Engine, Kinsta, Media Temple, etc.

------
gator-io
What's the saying? Code-less environments make 90% of building an app simple,
and 10% impossible.

------
annoyingnoob
This looks like several Microsoft products stacked together, Sharepoint,
Forms, Flow, Power Apps. I already do this with Microsoft and most of the time
I don't have all of the tools I need or I want to scream at the screen "just
show me the code!".

------
tyingq
Google shut down their similar tool:
[https://support.google.com/a/answer/9682494?p=am_announcemen...](https://support.google.com/a/answer/9682494?p=am_announcement&rd=1)

------
kayman
In my experience, when people build apps without having to write code, the
first iteration is awesome. Get something working and shows great promise. But
as complexity grows, the app ends up being a badly designed excel screen on
the web.

------
ricardobeat
There is Podio ([https://podio.com/](https://podio.com/)) in this space which
I think is really cool - or it was when I tried many years ago. Always wonder
why it is not more popular.

------
psmithsfhn
i was hoping for something at least semi-interesting. not so much. airtable,
with a google aesthetic. eh.

i feel like Anvil is on the right, almost perfect, track -- except for their
choice of Python over Javascript. They chose self.Python over javascript. ok.
life is full of decisions. in their defense, callbackjavascript is...not so
promising.

bubble went with..something. right idea. not the best execution. still, a step
in the right direction.

saw a couple other tools out there that are trying to cross the chasm, but
nothing as good as VB yet.

------
alex_young
Sounds a lot like Google App Maker, which is now scheduled for shutdown in
January 2021.

[https://developers.google.com/appmaker](https://developers.google.com/appmaker)

------
reilly3000
I didn’t see much in the way of docs from the micro site at least. I’m
wondering if there is IAM integration or the ability to call Lambdas. Those
would be Airtable-killer features from where I sit.

~~~
pldr1234
I think the problem is, it's easy enough to glue to Airtable (lovely API), and
the other problem is I'm not sure how you'd generalise the power of Lambdas to
a consumer, for whatever this Honeycode thing is.

------
djohnston
It seems like a start, but unless they're supporting a community plugin
ecosystem you'll be at the mercy of what their team decides is worth
integrating. Maybe it doesn't matter.

------
theptip
So how do you unit / integration test your code in this paradigm?

Or is this just for apps that would otherwise be run from a spreadsheet, and
not displacing anything an engineer would build?

------
gonesilent
Taking the thunder from the coupon code site Honey. Won't be searching for
Amazon honey or code and finding real honey. It like doing this with product
names.

------
gdsdfe
Interesting ... there's a big push towards this "no code, low code" solutions
lately in the industry, I wonder if this is just to sell more cloud services?

------
buboard
and we're back to MS Access ! about time, really

~~~
glaberficken
Came here to write exactly this, but thought I'd do a quick Ctrl+F first =)

------
brisance
Seems like an AirTable/PowerApps competitor, but an early version which means
the polish isn't there. Personally I prefer Coda.

------
harrisreynolds
Not surprising to see Amazon get in the game with a #nocode tool. I will be
interested to compare this with Webase [1] where we've focused first on custom
views and the data model but have yet to support custom notifications (coming
soon though!).

Although the world still needs lots of developers I do believe there is a BIG
opportunity in the #nocode space.

[1] [https://www.webase.com](https://www.webase.com)

------
Illniyar
So this is Microsoft Access as a service?

~~~
guerrilla
Looks like it. My first thought was Filemaker Pro or the old Claris
Works/AppleWorks Database program.

------
ezconnect
Delphi was my first experience on apps without much coding, it helped me
understand event driven programming.

------
muddi900
>Sharing data across multiple users and multiple spreadsheets is difficult

=Importrange()

In google sheets.

------
ciguy
I'm getting major Microsoft Access vibes from this. I guess we really have
come full circle.

------
caetris1
It's cloud-native Visual Basic.

------
Aeolun
What if I need more than 100k rows per table? Where is the unlimited
(enterprise) plan?

------
hannasm
And if if ever gets discontinued you lose everything you might have ever built
forever.

------
ngcc_hk
Not for Hongkonger though. Browser work but that is not the point. Is it just
USA?

------
MangoCoffee
Am I correct to say that we have go down to this road before (no code app)?

------
ngcc_hk
Is it the fourth generation language once again? Quick Master from ICL anyone?

------
kords
A lot of these things can be done with SharePoint. Same thing, no code.

~~~
llimos
Correct, especially when you add Power Automate and Power Apps - MS have been
quietly pulling ahead in this space.

They also have one huge advantage that no-one else besides maybe Google have -
integration with Office 365: your corporate directory, email, filestore...
Which means they don't even need to be the best at this kind of product. Good
enough, plus the integration, is a game changer.

~~~
basch
Office 365 AND Dynamics (CRM, Finance, ERP etc.)

The one thing Microsoft really needs still is in house, industry specific
layers to drop on top of dynamics, such as
[https://www.mtwocloud.com/](https://www.mtwocloud.com/) instead of depending
on these third parties. Microsofts own sales teams don't know these products
exist, and they have poor visibility. Enough companies won't even touch
Dynamics, preferring something more industry specific.

Look at all the other things they cover in the SalesForce, Adobe, Oracle realm
that automatically integrate right into the Power Platform.
[https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-us/](https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-us/)

~~~
janstice
Microsoft does have industry accelerators that sit on the Common Data Model &
Dynamics, so ISV's (and presumably in-house devs) can write industry-specific
solutions that might hopefully play nicely together:

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/common-data-
model/industry-...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/common-data-
model/industry-accelerators)

------
pbreit
Has anyone ever built a decent app with a tool like this?

------
pjmlp
Looks quite basic versus alternatives like OutSystems.

------
bencollier49
The looks remarkably like an Access MDB application.

------
jonplackett
The downside... portability. Amazon now own your ass.

------
sciprojguy
Great. Another ReactNative. Just what we need.

------
koliber
Is this Amazon's disruption of VisualBasic?

------
TrinaryWorksToo
This is basically Microsoft Access forms.

------
pinewurst
I see two+ entwined fundamental problems here:

1\. Amazon isn't especially known for high quality software. I picture lots of
weird corner cases that won't be tested or fixed in their frantic pursuit of
new features (which is what's rewarded, like Google if not more so).

2\. Sky high Amazon attrition - especially in engineering!* - means that it's
always newbies who'll be working on it, under high pressure.

I have trouble imagining a non-trivial corporate app with any kind of lifespan
living on this thing.

*I live in Seattle so any Bezbots can save themselves the denial of harsh reality.

------
alexashka
This is like a movie you know 2 minutes in, is going to be a complete
disaster, give it another 5 minutes and finally turn it off. You stumble upon
it's imbd page some time later to discover it has a 3/10 rating and nobody
went to see it.

I don't see a single innovative idea in this product and I see plenty that's
worse than the experience I had in Dreamweaver in year 2000.

~~~
justaguyhere
This looks similar to Airtable, except Airtable UI seems nicer. Airtable is a
Billion dollar company, tons of people are happily using it.

I am no fan of Amazon, but I do not think it is as bad as you describe. Even
if it is half as good as Airtable, this will take off, simply because of
Amazon's weight behind it.

~~~
careyrouse
I agree, the users of Airtable love the UI. But it's mostly individuals and
small companies. Airtable isn't practical for enterprises with its 50k row
limit and extremely limited permissions.

With Honeycode being an Amazon tool, I would expect their targets are more
enterprise. But even this tool is limited to 100k rows, so until that changes,
this can't really be used at scale either.

There's still a gap in modern database apps combining scale, granular
permissions and something made for non-technical users.

