New Amazon Cloud service to let no-coders build apps

Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is the Cloud arm of Amazon, has announced a new Cloud-based service that allows customers to build powerful mobile and web applications with no programming skills required.

Called Amazon Honeycode, the fully-managed service allows low-code or no-code software developers use a simple visual application builder to create highly interactive web and mobile apps backed by a powerful AWS-built database, to perform tasks like tracking data over time and notifying users of changes, routing approvals, and facilitating interactive business processes.

"Customers have told us that the need for custom applications far outstrips the capacity of developers to create them. Now with Amazon Honeycode, almost anyone can create powerful custom mobile and web applications without the need to write code," said Larry Augustin, Vice President, Amazon Web Services.

Amazon Honeycode is available today in US West (Oregon) with more regions coming soon, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

People who need apps to track and manage things like process approvals, event scheduling, customer relationship management, user surveys, to-do lists, and content and inventory tracking no longer need to do so by error-prone methods like emailing spreadsheets or documents, or hiring and waiting for developers to build costly custom applications.

Using Amazon Honeycode, customers can create applications that range in complexity from a task-tracking application for a small team to a project management system that manages a complex workflow for multiple teams or departments.

Customers can get started creating applications in minutes, build applications with up to 20 users for free, and only pay for the users and storage for larger applications.

Applications built using Amazon Honeycode leverage the full power and scale of AWS, and can easily scale up to 100,000 rows in each workbook, without users having to worry about building, managing, and maintaining the underlying hardware and software.

In Amazon Honeycode, customers can get started by selecting a pre-built template, where the data model, business logic, and applications are pre-defined and ready-to-use (PO approvals, time-off reporting, inventory management, etc.).

They can import data into a blank workbook, use the familiar spreadsheet interface to define the data model, and design the application screens with objects like lists, buttons, and input fields, said AWS.

"We're excited about the opportunity that Amazon Honeycode creates for teams to build apps to drive and adapt to today's ever-changing business landscape," said Brad Armstrong, VP of Business and Corporate Development, Slack.