Google App Maker was officially launched in 2018 when it was taken out of beta as a low-code application development environment. However, it seems like it did not pick up enough users as Google has announced it is shutting down App Maker due to low usage by January 19, 2021.
The App Maker was originally launched in 2016 as a beta and was taken out of it in 2018. It was designed to be a low code, drag and drop app building environment. However, the interest in simple app building solutions have died over the years as Google has decided to shut down the service due to low usage.
For the shut down, Google has announced a timeline that is listed below:
- Starting today, existing apps continue to work. Though App Maker is no longer under active development, the service will continue to be maintained.
- Starting April 15, 2020, users will no longer be able to create new App Maker apps. But they can still edit and deploy existing apps.
- Starting January 19, 2021, existing App Maker apps will stop working and users will no longer have access to them. App maker data stored in Cloud SQL will remain unchanged and continue to follow the policies established by their Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account.
Google has also offered alternatives to the App Maker service depending on the use case:
- Using App Maker to automate business processes: Use AppSheet which supports Cloud SQL databases. This allows users to build an application on the existing database tied to your App Maker app.
- Using App Maker to develop apps: Use App Engine to build and deploy applications on a fully managed platform. App Maker data is stored in Cloud SQL, allowing users to build an App Engine application on the existing Cloud SQL database tied to their App Maker app.
- If you use App Maker for data collection: Use Google Forms, which has many new features that were not available when App Maker launched.