SQL premium connector alternative

[Anonymous]

Hi Everyone, I have a question, as powerapps have made connectors like SQL and on-premises data gateway Premium and made compulsory for all the users to get the Premium license to use any app having a Premium connector. The price is around 40 pounds per user per month which is making it difficult to get the stakeholders on board... is there any solution to connect to or retrieve on-premises SQL data in powerapps? Will a custom API work? Or any other solution anyone can propose will be a great help! Thank you.

[Pstork1]

There really is no way to get around it.  Using a custom API connector would also be premium.  your only other option is to redesign the app to use data stored in SharePoint or Excel tables.  Anything else is premium.

[PaulD1]

You could try up-voting the following idea, but I wouldn't hold my breath 😉 

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Apps-Ideas/PowerApps-Licensing-Bait-and-Switch/idc-p/67098... 

Since the new licensing came in, we have not had a single new project for Power Apps + SQL and all our clients who had pre-license-change SQL based based Apps (and so get a license exemption until 2025) are planning on moving to alternate platforms before the exemption expires.

[Anonymous]

Hi @PaulD1 ,

Can you please let us know what are the possible alternate platforms?

[PaulD1]

I believe they are mostly looking at Web based apps (if largely used on desktop) or Xamarin (if largely used on mobile).

I'm currently looking into Blazor which so far seems promising. It is a lot harder to get started with (depending on your existing skill set) but a lot more flexible/powerful.

I think the consideration is, do you want to pay a significant chunk up front for Pro development, but then have much cheaper ongoing  costs (licensing/hosting and maintenance), or do you want to pay less up front but be tied to expensive licensing and the other restrictions/shortcomings of Power Apps (e.g. no sharing outside your O365 tenant).

[Langemyr]

We are going to leave the powerapps platform and go back to html psp design.. since we are dependent on some sql data in addition to sharepoint. 
The price for us with 180 users became to lage..  $7200 /month just for the sql connector. 

this does not seem very well thought out by microsoft. We can also then cancel 130 e3 licenses 😉
I know several in our community that going the same way. Mobil today is crustal and Powerapps that seemed to be a god solution didn't last long 

[PaulD1]

@Langemyr For what it is worth, I think you are making the correct decision. I just don't see how the SQL Server connector cost (or indeed the cost to any other MS service, e.g. Azure Blob Storage) makes sense.

The more I use Power Apps, the greater the concerns I have over robustness (unless very well designed against a good datasource, which is rare, they are highly prone to failure), supportability (the lack of code re-use and standards, the constantly shifting platform and so on, make Apps hard and expensive to maintain).

I would also argue that a pro dev on 'pro platform', familiar with their toolset and with a 'toolbox' of functions and extensions can create a moderately complex App much faster than a skilled Power App Dev. 

With the above in mind, I simply don't see the value proposition to match the cost.

[Atul22]

@Pstork1, custom connector of dotnet REST API is premium connector to PowerApps application?

Currently in PowerApps application it is not showed as premium. Can you please assist since it will become as premium connector? 

[pstork]

Every custom connector is Premium.  There is no way to connect to a SQL server using Power Apps without a custom connector of some type.

But its been awhile since this post was originally made.  In the meantime two things have changed.

1) The introduction of Dataverse for Teams makes a full relational database available for Power Apps built and used within a Teams environment without a premium license

2) MS has a sale going on right now for premium licensing that is much less than the $40 retail cost.  But there is a minimum purchase requirement.  "The Power Apps per app plan is priced at USD3 per user, per app, per month (minimum purchase of 200 licenses) via volume licensing (VL) and cloud solution provider (CSP) channels. The Power Apps per user plan is priced at USD12 per user, per month (minimum purchase of 5,000 licenses) via VL. Other conditions may apply. Contact sales to learn more."

[PaulD1]

Perhaps splitting hairs, but I'm not sure Dataverse for Teams can be described as a 'full relational database' as it does not have a query language capable of combining relations through Joins (at least from a canvas Power App and more than one join deep). Indeed, the term relational does not appear in MS own description of the product: What is Microsoft Dataverse? - Power Apps | Microsoft Docs

I think anyone coming from the SQL world is likely to be very disappointed by the limits of Dataverse (lack of SQL style Views, lack of Stored Procedures, lack of Transactions and so on). This has certainly been my own experience.

I believe there are improvements underway to give Dataverse some of the capabilities of SQL, but how full-fledged those will be and when they will be available I don't know.