Wondering if Draftbit is the right platform for building your mobile app? With so many app-building tools available, it's crucial to understand what sets each one apart before committing your time and resources.
Adalo lets you build database-driven web apps and native iOS and Android apps — published to the App Store and Google Play — from a single no-code editor. Draftbit takes a different approach, requiring technical knowledge to fully leverage its capabilities, which makes comparing these platforms essential for choosing the right fit.
What is Draftbit?
Draftbit is a web and native mobile app-building platform that lets you publish your apps to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Unlike many other app-building platforms, you need technical and coding knowledge to fully leverage Draftbit's building interface.
Signing up for Draftbit's free version is straightforward. Enter your email address, create a password, answer a few questions, and you're ready to start. After verifying the confirmation email, you'll land on the introduction page with a 4-minute video introducing Draftbit's building interface. Watch it to understand how the platform works before diving in.
After the intro video, you'll reach your dashboard. From here, you can start building your app, explore the community forum, or message a Draftbit representative.
To get started building your app, click on the "Workspaces" tab on the left-hand side of your dashboard. After naming your app and answering a few survey questions, you'll choose your template.
You can either start from scratch or choose a template type. Draftbit comes with the following templates:
- Events apps
- Workout apps
- Business/CRM/Project Management apps
- Product Listing (e-commerce) apps
- Food Delivery apps
- NFT apps
- Rental apps
- Real-estate management apps
- Educational apps
- Dating apps
- Medical apps
- Shipping apps
Select your app type, and it's time to get building.
Draftbit Review: The Building Interface
At the center of your building interface, Draftbit provides an hour-long video that deep dives into using the platform. If you have the time, watching this comprehensive tutorial is worthwhile.
Draftbit also provides a "pop-up tour" where a pop-up tab introduces every aspect of your building interface. This 21-step process demonstrates the complexity of Draftbit's building interface—a significant consideration for anyone evaluating the platform.
The building interface has four major parts:
- The left-hand drop-down dashboard lets you select different screens and add components.
- The right-hand drop-down dashboard lets you edit, adjust, and configure the elements you add.
- The building canvas sits in the center.
- The special components bar at the top of your screen lets you add logic, insert custom code, conduct a live preview, and more.
Overall, Draftbit's building interface is very involved and requires significant time investment to learn. The team at Draftbit recognizes their product has a steep learning curve, so they provide extensive video tutorials and documentation to help users figure it out.
Draftbit also has a long list of components like lists, forms, buttons, and more. Adding new screens is simple—you can start from a blank screen or use pre-made ones by pressing the "add screen" button. Each screen can be edited to your specifications.
Draftbit's Highlights
- Draftbit has a thriving ecosystem with countless tutorial videos, community-provided plugins and code, and extensive help documentation.
- While Draftbit's template library appears limited, there is an abundant amount of individual screens and elements that you can add to your app, letting you build out the user interface exactly as you envision it.
- You'll find extensive integrations with third parties, including Zapier and Github. You can upload your app's source code to Github and work on it there. Draftbit also comes with a REST API for gathering data from other programs, provided you have permission.
- Draftbit lets you test how your app will work on both iOS and Android systems. This helps prepare you for the publishing process on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
Is Draftbit Right For You?
Draftbit is a powerful app builder but has a limited audience. Select Draftbit if:
- You're a techie who wants to put your coding skills to work.
- You want to publish your app to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
- You want a flexible app-building platform for an enterprise that can build several powerful apps with live collaborators.
However, you should consider other app builders if:
- You don't have any technical or coding knowledge.
- You don't need to keep your app's source code.
- You want an app builder that you can use right out of the box.
What Kinds of Apps Can I Build With Draftbit?
While Draftbit's complicated building interface takes time to learn and requires technical skills, you can use Draftbit to make almost any kind of app you can imagine: an online store, a social network, business tools, or almost anything else.
The advantage of Draftbit is that you can publish your app to app stores and the web, where people can find it through Google search. This allows you to get your app in front of billions of potential users.
Draftbit Pricing: Is it worth it?
Draftbit caters to all levels of the technical crowd—freelancers, enterprises, and people with no time to build an app on their own—so it has multiple pricing tiers.
Tier 1: The Freelancer/Entrepreneur Pricing Tier
Although Draftbit's free version only lets you tinker with the building interface, its Basic Version at $29/month (billed monthly) lets you publish to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. It also gives you the power to connect to unlimited API endpoints.
For those who want to apply their technical skills fully, Draftbit's Pro Version at $79/month (billed monthly) includes features that will make techies drool: keeping your source code, watching your code change as you build your app, and the ability to add custom code to create unique features.
The Freelancer Version at $129/month (billed monthly) lets you create 3 apps. Choosing this version also makes you a Draftbit affiliate: refer your app-building contacts to Draftbit, and they'll share some of the revenue generated from these referrals with you.
Tier 2: The Agency/Enterprise Pricing Tier
Draftbit's Team Version costs $249/month (billed monthly). It offers everything the Freelancer Version offers, plus real-time collaboration. You can publish up to 15 apps with 5 collaborators. Draftbit also provides dedicated training sessions to help you master the app-building interface.
The Agency Version, starting at $399/month (billed monthly), gives you all the benefits of the Team Version and increases the number of collaborators to 10.
For those building Draftbit-made apps for multiple clients, the Enterprise Version starts at $995/month. You'll get all Agency Version benefits, plus unlimited collaborators and a dedicated account manager.
Tier 3: The Hire-a-Professional Draftbit Expert Pricing Tier
Think Draftbit can produce an amazing app, but you don't have the time or technical skills to build it yourself? Draftbit offers a team of professionals who can build it for you.
Draftbit's Bronze Version costs $2,000/month. Your dedicated app-building team will work on your app for 8 hours/week, with communication via Slack.
Draftbit's Silver Version at $4,000/month gives you one dedicated expert working on your app for 20 hours per week. You'll have Slack communication and bi-weekly meetings to plan out sprints—specific tasks you assign them to complete.
At $7,500/month, Draftbit's Gold Version provides one dedicated expert and a project manager. They'll put in 40 hours/week toward building your app, with weekly sprint planning and communication via Slack and Zoom.
Starting at $12,000/month, Draftbit's Platinum Version gives you a full team of Draftbit professionals who will build out your app as fast as possible. You can also have them build multiple apps, though that increases the cost significantly.
Draftbit Alternatives: What Other Tools Should You Try?
Although Draftbit is geared towards tech lovers, it's not for everyone. Here are alternatives worth considering:
- Adalo is an AI-powered app builder requiring absolutely zero technical knowledge that you can use right out of the box. Adalo creates database-driven web apps and native iOS and Android apps—one version across all three platforms. Magic Start generates complete app foundations from simple descriptions, while Magic Add lets you add features by describing what you want. With over 3 million apps created on the platform and a visual builder described as "easy as PowerPoint," Adalo handles the complex App Store submission process so you can focus on growth rather than technical hurdles. Paid plans include unlimited database records with no usage-based charges.
- FlutterFlow is a low-code platform (not no-code) designed for technical users who want to keep their code. However, users need to manage and set up their own separate database, which requires significant learning complexity—especially when optimizing for scale. Pricing starts at $70/month per user for app store publishing, but that doesn't include database costs, which users must source, set up, and pay for separately. The builder also limits your view to 2 screens at once, whereas Adalo can display up to 400 screens on one canvas.
- Glide is an app builder heavily focused on set templates. This makes it fast to build and publish with, but creates generic, simplistic apps with limited creative freedom. Glide excels at spreadsheet-based apps, but pricing starts at $60/month for custom domain capability—still limited by app updates and data record rows that attract additional charges. Glide does not support Apple App Store or Google Play Store publishing.
Draftbit vs. Adalo: A Detailed Comparison
For non-technical users, the choice between Draftbit and Adalo is straightforward. Draftbit requires coding knowledge and has a steep learning curve with its 21-step onboarding tour and hour-long tutorial videos. Adalo's AI-assisted platform lets you start building immediately.
| Feature | Draftbit | Adalo |
|---|---|---|
| Technical Skill Required | Coding knowledge needed | Zero coding required |
| Learning Curve | Steep (hour-long tutorials) | Minimal ("easy as PowerPoint") |
| Starting Price | $29/month | $36/month |
| Database Records | Varies by plan | Unlimited on paid plans |
| Usage-Based Charges | Yes | No—unlimited usage |
| AI Features | Limited | Magic Start, Magic Add, X-Ray |
| App Store Publishing | Yes | Yes—streamlined process |
| Apps Created | Not disclosed | 3 million+ |
Adalo's modular infrastructure scales to serve apps with millions of monthly active users, with no upper ceiling. Following the Adalo 3.0 infrastructure overhaul in late 2025, the platform is now 3-4x faster and can scale infrastructure with app needs. X-Ray identifies performance issues before they affect users, ensuring your app maintains speed under load.
For users who want source code access and enjoy working with complex technical interfaces, Draftbit remains a solid choice. For everyone else—especially those who want to launch quickly without hiring developers—Adalo's AI-powered approach offers a faster path to market.
Verdict
Now it's time for the final assessment. Should you get Draftbit now, shortlist it, or avoid it?
Get it now if you've got coding experience and want to use it to build unique features in your app, and the idea of learning a complex app-building interface excites you.
Shortlist it if you're a techie but you're not sure about how much time you can spend learning the building interface.
If you're looking for an app-building platform that requires absolutely no coding or technical skills and comes with a simple drag-and-drop interface, Adalo offers a powerful building interface with enough flexibility to bring any app idea to life. With Magic Start generating complete app foundations from descriptions and no record limits on paid plans, you can go from idea to published app in days rather than months.
When you build your app with Adalo, you'll be able to start using it right after signing up. After you finish building, you'll publish your app to the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store—the hardest part of launching an app handled automatically. Start using Adalo for $36/month. [INTERNAL LINK: How to Build Your First App with Adalo] [INTERNAL LINK: Adalo vs FlutterFlow Comparison]
FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Why choose Adalo over other app building solutions? | Adalo is an AI-powered app builder that creates true native iOS and Android apps. Unlike web wrappers, it compiles to native code and publishes directly to both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store from a single codebase—the hardest part of launching an app handled automatically. With over 3 million apps created and unlimited database records on paid plans, Adalo offers proven scalability without usage-based charges. |
| What's the fastest way to build and publish an app to the App Store? | Adalo's drag-and-drop interface and AI-assisted building let you go from idea to published app in days rather than months. Magic Start generates complete app foundations from simple descriptions, and Adalo handles the complex App Store submission process so you can focus on your app's features and user experience. |
| Which is more affordable, Adalo or Draftbit? | Adalo starts at $36/month with unlimited usage and no record caps on paid plans. Draftbit starts at $29/month for basic features, but comparable functionality costs more. Draftbit's professional services range up to $12,000/month. Adalo offers better value for non-technical users who want to build and publish without hiring developers. |
| Which is faster to build with, Adalo or Draftbit? | Adalo is significantly faster for non-technical users. Draftbit requires watching hour-long tutorials and completing a 21-step onboarding process before building effectively. Adalo's visual builder is described as "easy as PowerPoint," with Magic Start generating complete app foundations from descriptions in minutes. |
| Which is easier for beginners, Adalo or Draftbit? | Adalo is designed for beginners with zero coding experience. Draftbit explicitly requires technical and coding knowledge to fully leverage its building interface. Adalo's AI-assisted features like Magic Add let you add features by simply describing what you want. |
| Is Adalo better than Draftbit for mobile apps? | For non-technical users, yes. Adalo creates true native iOS and Android apps from a single codebase with streamlined app store publishing. Draftbit also publishes to app stores but requires coding knowledge. Adalo's modular infrastructure scales to millions of monthly active users with no upper limit. |
| Can I migrate from Draftbit to Adalo? | While there's no direct migration tool, you can rebuild your app in Adalo using Magic Start to generate your app foundation from a description. Many users find rebuilding in Adalo faster than expected due to the AI-assisted building features and intuitive drag-and-drop interface. |
| What is Draftbit and who is it best suited for? | Draftbit is a web and native mobile app-building platform best suited for developers and techies who have coding knowledge and want access to their app's source code. It has a steep learning curve and complex building interface that requires significant time investment to master. |
| Do I need coding experience to publish an app to the app stores? | No, you don't need coding knowledge if you use Adalo. While Draftbit requires technical skills, Adalo lets you build and publish professional native apps using an intuitive drag-and-drop builder that works right out of the box, with AI assistance throughout the process. |
| What types of apps can I build with app-building platforms? | App-building platforms support a wide variety of app types including e-commerce stores, social networks, business tools, fitness apps, food delivery apps, real estate apps, educational apps, and more. Adalo's flexibility allows you to bring almost any app idea to life without coding. |
