Pros and Cons of using PowerApps

[Anonymous]

Looking into using PowerApps but was curious if anyone can provide me some Pros and Cons.

Thanks.

[hpkeong · Accepted solution]

Hi

May I share my short experience of using PowerApps since 6/Jan 2017?

Let me share on CONS:

- The Apps loaded may not be as fast as normall native apps from Android or iOS (say: 5-10 sec compare to 2-3 sec)

- You can run only One Apps a time unless it is run as Web Apps where you can run multile apps at a time of the same account

- You can't publish into Win Store, Apps Store and Google Play

- PowerApps users must have a valid Work Mail or School Mail to sign-in prior using

- It depends greatly on Internet Connection. Speed does count!

- PowerApps Studio can only be accessed with internet connection

- PowerApps studio, though officially launched in Nov 2016, but there are still several issues or improvement needed to gradually replace others, such as Delegation, Printing, Offline, Independent Apps, etc.

Nevertheless, those CONS mentioned above are gradually overcome by the great effort by MS PowerApps Team, which i can see great improvement esp. in 2017.

However, PROS are plenty:

- If you have Excel background & Logic concept, you can easily Make Apps (rather than writing Apps) within seconds as a basic workable apps, using fast track mode, for a CRUD apps

- You can easily connect to most of the common connector in Cloud, such as DropBox, OneDrive, Google Drive, SQL, as well asMS CDS, which conveniently combines Data Storage & Table Creation (two-in-one)

- You can use Excel and Google Sheet in Cloud for data storage (free) though improvement is still on going and coming soon

- CSS writing is almost not required as PowerApps Studio is, just like PowerPoints, enable drag and drop, change and modify, from within PowerApps Studio environment, exactly like MS Office features.

- HTML codings are supported, though not in full

- All properties are possible to be defined as Context Variable (similar to that of programming where you define Var ....)

- Pages / Screens Navigation are in visible and easily modified

- Apps, can be easily shared among the same domain uses (or organization), with sharing of datasource (for CDS, it is automatically shared), and unshare if you wish to, at anytime

- Last but not least, the Tutorial is giving ample of examples on the application (with supplement from those in the PowerApps Community Forums).

Hope my little information may give you some input prior to indulge yourself into PowerApps world....

Have a nice day.

A user of Project Siena (since 2013), with guidance from all, until 2016 (Jan) PowerApps...a fans of Windows Metro UI Design.

[v-micsh-msft]

Hi @Anonymous,

In addition to the greate details shared by hpkeong, I will share some additional information:

For Pros,

Check PowerApps blog:

PowerApps blog

Which would have blog posts for the important updates regarding PowerApps service,

For Cons,

Check PowerApps idea

PowerApps Idea

Listed with the shortcomings, limitations of the current PowerApps and the wanted features in the future PowerApps which submitted by the PowerApps users.

Regards,

Michael

[cbelmans]

Hi,

Apart from the nice list of PROS, this important CON : Apps connected to sensitive data -> excel downloads possible by all users.

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/PowerApps-Forum/Common-Data-Service-Database-Security/m-p/30235#...

Chris

[mr-dang]

I like @hpkeong's list. 

I was a heavy Excel user and switched over to PowerApps as an alternative for my solutions. I haven't needed to access things in spreadsheet unless I needed to print things. Overall PowerApps nearly overcomes everything that could not be done in spreadsheets.

Pro

• Excel knowledge transfers 
• No Visual Basic to learn
• Filter() blows away all the Pivot Tables you would've needed in Excel
• Flexible Height Gallery and Gallery.WrapCount sets PowerApps apart from Project Siena
• Universal access--iOS, Android, ANY WEB BROWSER
• Data can be saved, analyzed, and viewed anywhere--in app or in Excel
• Ingtegration: Flow allows you to communicate information between multiple services
• Media can be saved within the app--no hosting needed
• You can connect to competitors including Dropbox and Google Drive
• SVG works--there is a lot of unused potential here
• Regular Joe can build an app: PowerApps is a low-code solution, yet it can also do complicated things if you push it.
• The PowerApps team has implemented ideas shared by the community.

Con

• You more or less need to sell Office365/PowerApps user plan if you're a developer
• Apps cannot be placed on the app store like other platforms
• Apps are only accessible with a Microsoft account; apps are only usable within a domain

I'd recommend PowerApps to anyone.

[ashishmundra]

I documented some findings here - http://ashishmundra.blogspot.com/2019/02/powerapps-vs-custom-mobile-development.html 

Picked 2-3 lines from here as well to include in the blog above.