Build native mobile apps
with Adalo
We build mobile and web apps with Adalo, the drag-and-drop no-code builder that publishes native iOS and Android apps. Fast prototyping, component-based design, and App Store submission handled.
The best tool for
mobile / web app builder
Adalo is a no-code mobile and web app builder with a component-based visual editor. It publishes apps directly to iOS and Android, making it one of the fastest paths to a native mobile MVP.
What we build with Adalo
From MVPs to enterprise platforms, here's how we use Adalo to ship faster.
Consumer Mobile Apps
B2C iOS and Android apps with onboarding, notifications, and user profiles, published in weeks.
Community Apps
Member directories, community feeds, and event apps for associations and online communities.
Service Apps
Booking, scheduling, and service delivery apps for local and SMB businesses.
MVP Validation
Test your mobile app idea with a working Adalo prototype before investing in custom development.
Certified Adalo experts
We don't just use Adalo, we master it. Our team is certified and has shipped dozens of projects with it.
Apps delivered
We've shipped over 50 production apps using Adalo and the broader no-code stack, from seed-stage MVPs to enterprise platforms.
Faster delivery
Adalo lets us build in weeks what traditional dev teams take months to deliver, giving you a decisive speed advantage.
Fixed pricing
Every project comes with a clear scope, fixed price, and weekly demos. No surprises, no scope creep, just results.
Tools we combine with Adalo
We integrate Adalo with the best tools in the no-code ecosystem for end-to-end solutions.
The Complete Guide to Adalo Development
Adalo is the fastest no-code path to a published native mobile app, giving founders and agencies a drag-and-drop builder that publishes directly to the App Store and Google Play without any code.
Adalo for Mobile MVPs: What It's Good For
Adalo occupies a specific and valuable niche in the no-code ecosystem: it is the fastest tool for building and publishing a native mobile MVP with minimal technical knowledge. Where FlutterFlow requires understanding Flutter's widget model and Bubble requires mastering a complex workflow system, Adalo is genuinely approachable for first-time app builders. You pick a template or start blank, drag in components, configure your data, and publish. For a simple consumer app, a directory, a booking system, a community platform, this speed is a genuine competitive advantage. The apps Adalo builds best share a common profile: clear, simple screens; list-based data models; standard mobile interaction patterns like navigation stacks and tab bars; and moderate user volumes in the thousands rather than tens of thousands. Community apps, service directories, event apps, booking apps, and internal team tools fit this profile perfectly. These are not toy apps, they are real products that generate real revenue for their owners, and Adalo has delivered them faster than any alternative for thousands of founders. The scope limitation is real and important to acknowledge. Adalo is not the right tool for apps with complex relational data, high-performance requirements, real-time collaboration features, or heavy custom business logic. If your MVP validation reveals that you need any of these capabilities, you will need to migrate to a more capable platform. This is not a failure, it is the entire point of an MVP. Adalo lets you validate the concept cheaply and quickly; a more capable platform handles the scaling. Many successful apps launched on Adalo and migrated to FlutterFlow as they grew.
Adalo Database and Relationships
Adalo's database is a proprietary, hosted data store built into the platform. You create collections, equivalent to tables, and define properties for each collection: text, number, date, true/false, and relationship fields. Relationships in Adalo are set up through linked properties: a Service collection has a Provider property that links to the Users collection, establishing that each service belongs to a user. Adalo handles the storage and retrieval of these relationships automatically, you reference them in component bindings without writing queries. The relationship model in Adalo is intuitive but limited compared to a full relational database. You can establish one-to-one and one-to-many relationships easily. Many-to-many relationships require a junction collection, a Memberships collection that has both a User property and a Group property, for example. Adalo supports this pattern but it requires more deliberate data modelling than tools with native many-to-many support. Spend time with Adalo's database documentation before designing your schema, the relationship system works well once understood, but it is easy to model data incorrectly if you approach it with SQL assumptions. Adalo's database has practical size limitations that become relevant at scale. Collection sizes in the thousands of records are fine; hundreds of thousands of records are not. Query performance degrades noticeably as collections grow, and there is no indexing mechanism to compensate. For apps that will accumulate significant data over time, social feeds, transaction logs, activity histories, plan for external database options. Adalo supports connecting to external APIs for data storage, which means you can use Xano or Supabase as the database layer while retaining Adalo's visual builder for the frontend. This hybrid approach extends Adalo's viable product lifespan considerably.
Adalo Component Library and Custom Components
Adalo's component library covers the essential building blocks of a mobile app: lists, forms, cards, buttons, images, maps, charts, input fields, navigation bars, and action sheets. Each component is configured through a properties panel: you bind data sources, set styles, configure actions, and enable or disable features. The list component is the workhorse of most Adalo apps, it renders a collection filtered by any criteria you define, with a custom card design for each item. Adalo's Marketplace provides additional components built by third-party developers, including Stripe payment forms, calendar pickers, signature capture, QR code scanners, social login buttons, and dozens of other specialised UI elements. Some Marketplace components are free; others are paid. Before building a custom solution for any UI requirement, check the Marketplace first, there is likely an existing component that covers your use case. The quality of Marketplace components varies, so review the ratings and comments before adding one to a production app. Custom components in Adalo are built with React Native and packaged following Adalo's component SDK specification. If you or a developer on your team can write React Native, custom components let you add any capability that Adalo's native library and Marketplace do not cover. Custom components receive data and actions from Adalo's editor interface, making them feel native to the builder experience. This extensibility is one of Adalo's genuine strengths, the platform is not a walled garden. That said, building custom components requires a development environment setup and React Native knowledge, which reintroduces technical complexity that Adalo's target users are specifically trying to avoid.
Publishing Adalo Apps to the App Store and Play Store
Adalo handles the app build process for you, you do not need Xcode, Android Studio, or a Mac to publish. In Adalo's publish settings, you configure your app name, bundle identifier, icon, splash screen, and store metadata. Adalo builds the binary on its servers and provides the IPA (for iOS) or AAB (for Android) file for submission, or submits directly to the stores depending on your plan level. For iOS publishing, you need an Apple Developer account and must configure the provisioning profile and distribution certificate in Apple's developer portal. Adalo's documentation walks through this process step by step. Apple's review process typically takes 1–7 days for initial submissions and 1–3 days for updates. Common rejection reasons include missing privacy disclosure strings (explaining why your app requests camera, location, or notification permissions), insufficient metadata, and screenshots that do not match the current app UI. Address these before submission to avoid delay cycles. For Google Play, the process is simpler: create a Google Play Developer account, create your app listing, and upload the AAB file that Adalo provides. Google Play's review process is faster, typically 1–3 days. Both stores require a privacy policy URL (a simple hosted page explaining your data practices), age rating information, and content categorisation. Prepare all of this before you submit, gathering store metadata after the app is built always takes longer than expected. Budget one to two weeks for the full submission-to-approval cycle across both stores on your first submission.
Adalo Pricing Tiers: What You Get
Adalo's pricing is tiered by the number of apps, the number of external database actions per month, access to publishing features, and the ability to remove Adalo branding. The free plan allows you to build and preview apps in Adalo's mobile app but does not include publishing to the App Store or Google Play, it is a prototyping and exploration tier. The Starter plan enables publishing and covers most individual founders and small teams building a single product. The Professional plan adds multiple apps, more external database actions, custom domain for Adalo's web app output, and priority support. Teams at this level are typically running a production app with paying users and one or more apps in development. The Business plan adds team collaboration features, higher action limits, and access to advanced Marketplace components. Adalo's pricing is positioned as accessible for indie founders, significantly cheaper than FlutterFlow at equivalent feature tiers. The most important pricing consideration is the external database actions limit. Every time your Adalo app reads from or writes to an external collection via API connector, it counts against this monthly limit. Apps with heavy external API usage, connecting to Xano, Supabase, or any third-party database, can hit this limit faster than expected. Monitor your usage in the Adalo dashboard as you approach your plan limit and upgrade before you hit the ceiling. Unlike some platforms, Adalo does not automatically overage charge, hitting the limit stops external data operations until you upgrade or the billing cycle resets.
Adalo Limitations to Know Before Committing
Adalo's performance ceiling is the limitation that most frequently forces migration. As your app accumulates data and your user base grows, list loading times increase and complex screens become noticeably sluggish. Adalo's database queries are not indexed, the rendering engine is not optimised for large datasets, and there are limited tools for performance tuning. If your app's core value proposition involves displaying large, fast-loading datasets, a product catalogue, a social feed, a real-time dashboard, Adalo will struggle to deliver the experience users expect. Real-time features are not natively supported in Adalo. There is no equivalent to Supabase Realtime or Firebase's live listeners, data only refreshes when the user navigates to a new screen or explicitly triggers a refresh action. For apps where users need to see live updates, a messaging app, a live bidding platform, a collaborative tool, this limitation is critical and there is no workaround within the platform. Messaging apps built on Adalo require users to manually refresh to see new messages, which is a fundamentally broken user experience for that use case. Offline support is limited and not configurable. Adalo apps require a network connection for almost all data operations. Users on poor connections will see loading spinners and occasional failures. For apps targeting markets with unreliable connectivity, rural areas, on-site field workers, international markets, this is a significant usability concern. FlutterFlow, which generates real Flutter code, offers configurable offline mode and local data persistence that Adalo simply cannot match. Know these limitations before committing: Adalo is excellent within its scope and genuinely the wrong choice outside it.
How Adalo compares
See how Adalo stacks up against other popular tools.
Ready to build with Adalo?
Book a free 30-minute call. We'll scope your project, answer your questions, and send you a fixed quote, no commitment required.
Book a free call →