Google reveals plans to shut down free tool App Maker

Google has today announced plans to gradually shut down its free App Maker tool by January 2021 due to “low usage”.

According to Google’s announcement, App Maker is now considered “no longer under active development”, but “critical bugs are still addressed”.

Although existing apps will be available to use until January 19, 2021, users will be unable to create new applications starting on April 15.

The news comes on the heel of Google’s acquisition of AppSheet, a similar no-code app development platform.

App Maker will join the Google tools graveyard along with Google Hire — a free applicant tracking system designed to streamline administrative recruitment processes, and set to officially shut down in September — and several iterations of chat apps such as Spaces, Gchat and Allo.

Small businesses looking to replace App Maker may now need to turn to paid alternatives to enjoy the same level of integration.

App Maker was introduced in 2016 as a low-code solution to build customised dashboards to support internal workflows in the Business and Enterprise, and Education editions of G Suite. As part of the Google cloud system, the entry-level tool integrates several other tools such as Analytics, Gmail and Calendar, while accompanying tool Apps Script allows users to integrate other third-party services.

“Due to the specific source code used for App Maker, you can’t directly migrate your apps to another platform,” Google said in its announcement.

Users looking to stay on Google platforms will now need to split the services between AppSheet to automate business processes, App Engine to develop apps, and Google Forms for data collection.

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