The Best No-Code App Builders in 2023

In this article, we’ll help you choose the right no-code app builder for your project, whether that’s a mobile app, web app or any other use case.

No-code app builders give today’s startups and entrepreneurs the ability to build and go to market with incredible software applications, without hiring expensive developers or having any technical ability to start with.

If you’ve got an idea for an app and want to ship it fast, with minimal investment, these tools will help you do it.

Quick Summary: The Best No-Code App Builder for Specific Use Cases

Before we dive in, here’s our pick for the top no-code app builder in a few specific categories - from simple web apps, to mobile apps, to complex business apps.

• Best App Builder for Simple Web Apps: Bubble
• Best App Builder for Mobile Apps: MobiLoud
• Best App Builder for Building Native Mobile Apps from Scratch: Thunkable
• Best App Builder for Internal Business Apps: Google AppSheet
• Best App Builder for Enterprise-Grade Projects: Quickbase

Keep reading to learn more about no-code app builders, including a closer look at the top no-code platforms on the market today.

What is a No-Code App Builder?

A no-code app builder is a platforms that allows someone to create functional software and apps without actually writing code.

Usually, to create an app, you would need to be proficient in coding. For web apps, that means web frameworks like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python and many more, while mobile apps are built using mobile-specific frameworks such as Java, Kotlin and Swift. 

This code powers the visual interface and functionality of the app for end users. Thousands of lines of complex code works under the surface to produce a usable app.

No-code tools let you do all this without writing the code yourself. The code is already built into the platform. All you need to do is design the look and functionality of your app in a practical sense.

Learn more about Low-Code and No-Code development.

The Benefits of No-Code App Builders

Coding is a huge barrier of entry for people who have an app idea and want to get it developed. To build a custom app, you generally need to be a competent developer, with skills in the specific frameworks that fits the type of app you want to build.

Alternatively, you’d need to hire someone (or multiple people) who do have this expertise, which gets expensive - another big barrier of entry.

No-code app builders allow basically anyone to build a working app. There’s no need to hire expensive developers or spend years learning app development frameworks yourself.

And even if you do know how to code, writing code line-by-line takes a long time, which can be drastically reduced by using a no-code tool.

Here are the key benefits of using a no-code app builder for your project:

• Faster time to launch. You can create custom apps in a fraction of the time, letting you work out sooner whether your app has product-market fit.
• Lower cost. Developers are not cheap. A no-code tool costs significantly less than paying people to write code and build your app from scratch.
• Reduced communication barriers. Non-technical people can build and iterate on their ideas without having to explain exactly what they want to a developer.
• Easier to test new ideas. It’s easier to try a new app idea without needing to invest as much time and resources.

The payoff for using a no-code app builder, compared to building an app from scratch, is a sacrifice in flexibility and customization. With some tools, this is a big sacrifice. Other, more sophisticated app builders are able to get the results much closer to what you’d get with a custom app.

The Best No-Code App Builders for 2023

If you’re a non-coder and want to build an app, these platforms will help you do it.

The best tool depends on the job. You may be looking to build Android apps or iPhone apps from scratch, or convert an existing website into mobile apps. Alternatively, you may be looking for a tool for web app development, such as building a progressive web app, or the plan could be to build an internal tool to help your business.

Whatever the job, one of the following no-code tools will help you do it.

MobiLoud

If you already have a functional website, web-based app or tool, MobiLoud is the #1 solution to turn your site into a native mobile app.

With MobiLoud, you can turn any website into native mobile apps without having to write code.

Everything on your site works just as it does on the web. Your theme, plugins, design and any other features remain the same.

You can add mobile-specific elements to your mobile apps as well, such as push notifications and a native tab menu and navigation.

Generally, if you were to convert your web app to a mobile app, it's not as easy as tweaking the design a little for mobile. You’d need to rebuild it from scratch, in a new coding language. This means a huge investment to build and ship your app.

At the end, you’re left with two separate code bases to maintain, and inconsistent functionality across your two platforms.

That’s why MobiLoud is so powerful. You can get into the Apple App Store and Google Play and onto users’ home screens faster than any other option, at minimal cost. And when you go live, you’ll have only one app to maintain. No need to keep separate developers on call to manage your web, Android and iOS apps separately.

MobiLoud is perfect for news sites, blogs, eCommerce stores, digital magazines, forums, or any kind of app or site that would benefit from having a native mobile app.

Pricing: starting $200/mo (plus App Store submission fee).

Best features: fastest time to launch, simplicity, and the ability to retain your existing app’s functionality as a native mobile app.

Suitable for: existing websites or web apps, looking to create apps for iOS and Android.

Get a personalized walkthrough, showing you how MobiLoud can turn your website into like-native mobile apps without writing any code. Just click here to get a free demo.

Bubble

Bubble is a name that’s become synonymous with the no-code movement. It's a no-code tool that allows you to build web applications from the ground up, with no coding knowledge and a minimum of time and money invested.

Bubble has a simple drag-and-drop interface you can use to add interactive elements to your app. Once you put your UI together, you can set up workflows to control the functionality of your app.

For example, your workflow might be set up to trigger when a user logs in, or when they click on a specific element. You can do this easily with Bubble, without needing to know anything about coding.

It also offers a wide range of plugins you can install, for particular elements or integrations you might need.

All this happens without writing one line of code. Bubble lets you do some pretty powerful things as a non-developer.

The one thing we should mention is that Bubble is just for web apps. You can build out powerful apps designed for mobile, but they need to be accessed via the mobile browser. You can’t develop mobile apps, unfortunately (though you could always build your app in Bubble and convert it to mobile apps using MobiLoud).

Pricing: free for private use, or from $29/mo for a live app.

Best features: its intuitive UI builder, and active community of builders.

Suitable for: building responsive web apps and landing pages.

Softr

Softr is a no-code tool dedicated to building web apps. These could be standard websites or landing pages, two-sided marketplaces, member-only communities, resource directories, courses, and more.

The differentiating feature about Softr, compared to other tools, is how it lets you take data and workflows from Airtable and display them as elements on your web app.

You’ll keep and maintain your data in Airtable, while using Softr to build a customer-facing interface and interactive web app.

This is perfect if your app relies on a lot of data that constantly needs to be updated, such as a membership site, or marketplaces like Upwork or AirBnb.

You can add payment gateways to your site, set up paid or free memberships and member-only content, and much more with a wide range of integrations, templates and pre-built blocks.

Like Bubble, it is only for web-based apps. So, again, you’ll need another solution if you want to create a native mobile app.

Pricing: free, or from $29/mo for white label (no Softr branding)

Best features: Airtable integration, intuitive builder.

Suitable for: building responsive apps for the web, using Airtable as a database.

Thunkable

Unlike the previous two no-code platforms, Thunkable is a drag-and-drop no-code app builder designed specifically for native mobile apps.

Thunkable offers full creative freedom when building custom native apps for iOS and Android. You don’t start with restrictive templates, and the options you have to customize the look and feel of your app are extensive.

You start with a blank canvas. From here you can build your app with blocks, modules and integrations with other platforms.

After putting together your UI, you can set up “Advanced Logic Modules” to handle the functionality of your app, meaning which actions are going to be taken based on different user inputs.

They also assist with publishing your app in the iOS App Store and Google Play. An app store presence is a huge advantage of native apps, as opposed to responsive web apps or hybrid solutions like progressive web apps.

Pricing: free plan with limited storage capacity and download limits. From $45/mo for unlimited downloads.

Best features: drag-and-drop editor and advanced logic workflow builder.

Suitable for: building native mobile apps from scratch with no code.

Glide

Glide is extremely easy to use, and allows you to create both mobile and web applications.

Like Softr, Glide utilizes spreadsheets (such as Airtable, Google Sheets or Excel) as your app’s database. You just need to update the spreadsheet and the data shown in your app will change too.

Glide comes with a range of pre-built app templates, for both web apps and mobile apps, that help you launch your app extremely quickly.

The templates cover apps for a wide range of use cases, such as CRMs, landing pages, eCommerce apps, delivery apps, city guides, personal planners, and much more.

You can customize your app further with a drag-and-drop editor as well.

You may run into certain limitations compared to what you can do with more complex app builders. But the payoff is a simple, intuitive app building experience.

Pricing: free plan with limited storage and users, or from $25/mo for paid plans.

Best features: template library, intuitive app builder.

Suitable for: building simple web or mobile apps.

AppSheet

Google’s AppSheet offers a powerful way to build apps and workflows, with a robust Google Workspace integration and no coding skills required.

You’ll start by connecting a data source, such as Google Sheets, Google Forms, or external integrations to apps like Dropbox, Office 365 or Salesforce.

From here, you can edit the UI of your app, set up different views, and create workflows, bots and automations that give your app its power.

A large collection of templates speed up the time it takes to get your app off the ground.

It's worth mentioning that AppSheet is geared more towards building apps for internal company use than consumer-focused apps. There’s a bit of a learning curve, the editor is not quite as intuitive, and it’s not set up to deploy on App Stores.

You’re not going to build the next Uber or AirBnb with AppSheet. It’s more for apps you plan to use yourself, such as a custom CRM or project management tool. But for that purpose, it offers a lot of power.

Pricing: from $5 per user per month.

Best features: robust workflows and database integrations.

Suitable for: internal company apps and workflows, for people with a degree of technical ability.

Quickbase

Quickbase is a no-code development platform designed to help businesses build complex apps and powerful workflows for internal use.

It allows you to build complex systems, customizable at every step, with robust, real-time handling of your business data.

Quickbase offers solutions for a range of different professional use cases and industries and lets you deploy high-level platforms with no-code (or low-code) development.

Quickbase is definitely not for everyone. It’s not a tool you’d use for creating a shopping app, or an app for your news site, for example.

It’s complex, and it’s expensive - very expensive. Quickbase starts at $600 per month (paid annually) for the lowest plan. And the next tier up is $2,000 per month. So it’s clearly catered towards enterprise users rather than personal use.

Pricing: starting from $600/mo (paid annually).

Best features: power and flexibility.

Suitable for: high-end enterprise applications.

Retool

Retool is a no-code platform made for developers.

That might sound strange - why does a developer need a no-code platform? Can’t they just write the code themselves?

The idea of Retool is to cut down the time it takes to build and deploy a functional app. Sure, you can write each line of code yourself. But it’s exponentially quicker and less effort to build an app with something like Retool, which lets you drag and drop different components in your app, pre-built and pre-coded for you.

There’s an impressive collection of templates you can use to start with. These templates cover elements such as admin panels, dashboards, software integrations and much more.

Retool is better put under the category of low-code development platforms, rather than no-code, as you’ll need to write JavaScript queries at some point if you want to build any real functionality for your app. You'll probably want to add your own custom code at some point in the development process too.

It also requires at least a basic understanding of how code works in order to get your head around the platform. So if you're coming in with zero coding background whatsoever, it’s not the best option.

It is, however, a powerful platform for developers who want to build apps for internal use, but don’t want to dedicate months towards building something from scratch.

Pricing: free plan available for private use - from $10 per user per month for active use.

Best features: flexibility, and range of pre-built templates and modules.

Suitable for: developers building internal tools.

Ninox

Ninox is another no-code tool made to help you build internal tools, rather than customer-facing native apps for the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

You'll start by using a simple and intuitive drag-and-drop editor to set up and customize your UI.

Once your UI is set up, you can build out smart workflows and automations to help your business run more smoothly.

Their templates give you an idea of what you can build with Ninox (as well as helping you build it quicker). It does show you, however, that the platform is centered around collecting and displaying data on tables, and doesn’t do a lot more than this.

In this respect, it’s a little like a powered-up version of Google Sheets or Airtable. For some use cases, this is perfect. Think accounting, CRM, inventory management. But if you’re looking to build more visual or interactive apps, you should probably look at one of the other options on this list.

Pricing: from $12/mo (paid annually).

Best features: streamlined UI and workflow builder.

Suitable for: creating powerful spreadsheet-based tables and automations.

Betty Blocks

Betty Blocks is made for building enterprise-grade applications fast, without coding.

The name suggests it would be a block-based builder, and it doesn’t disappoint in that regard. The platform is really simple and intuitive. You’re given a drag-and-drop editor to build your UI, and blocks for specific APIs.

That means it’s easy to integrate your app with a range of external platforms - from Slack to Trello to Google Maps. Just install the relevant API block and place it where you want it.

It also provides a visual interface to help you build advanced app features, such as workflows, automations and user roles.

It’s a truly “no-code” tool. You don’t need any coding ability at all, even to set up API calls.

Betty Blocks isn’t suitable for B2C applications. It’s honed in on use for enterprise apps, designed to take away the need for large companies to keep an expensive IT department, or IT contractors on staff.

The pricing model also reflects that it’s not for personal use. You need to contact them directly to get pricing, and it appears to only be available with a long-term contract. 

Pricing: contact for pricing.

Best features: no-code UI builder and API blocks, high-level security and stability.

Suitable for: enterprise-level, internal software applications.

Wrapping Up

The no-code development platforms introduced above are all powerful ways to build a wide range of apps, all without coding.

From mobile apps to progressive web apps to internal company apps, just about anything can be done today with no-code.

Choose the best no-code app builder for your specific project. If you want to build a simple web or mobile app from scratch, the drag-and-drop functionality of apps like Bubble, Glide and Thunkable makes these tools a good choice.

For a more advanced app builder, capable of more complex workflows, look at something like Quickbase or AppSheet.

If you've already got a working website, and your idea is to convert this into a mobile app (and enter the Apple and Google Play Stores), MobiLoud is the best tool for the job, letting you go live with mobile apps in under two weeks, with an 80% (or more) reduction in development costs compared to apps created from scratch.

Click here to get a free, personalized demo of what MobiLoud can do, if you're looking for a way to create mobile apps with no code.