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it_user715149 - PeerSpot reviewer
CISSP at a retailer
Real User
Makes It Possible ​To Realize A Secure, Remote, Two-Way Interface With A LoRa Device

What is most valuable?

Built-in security, easy of use, support and available examples of how to use it.

The built-in security makes security-by-design from the start possible. The local modeler is easy to use. For the few occasions that I need support, after a beginner's fault, it's available, as is the cloud solution. The many available Mendix software examples make it possible to develop using of existing solutions.

How has it helped my organization?

I use it to learn how to program Mendix.

What needs improvement?

Indeed nothing is 100% perfect. But who am I to say what should be better? Nevertheless, I think Mendix is very strong if you want to store and retrieve something in a database. My personal experience with connecting the LoRa device (which itself is not fully developed yet, so the interface requirements are not fully known) is that it has been a hard job to get done. Be aware that I’m a Java developer so loading the encryption, hashing and decryption libraries was hard for me to find. On the other hand, interfacing with new Internet of Things (IoT) devices creates endless possibilities.

For how long have I used the solution?

A half year.

Buyer's Guide
Mendix
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Mendix. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable and there is 24/7 support.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No.

How are customer service and support?

Very good support if you have a problem.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

No.

How was the initial setup?

Simple, and there is a free course which shows all the in and outs of how to use the modeler to design and develop a solution. It helps, but it's not necessary if you have Java experience, for those cases where you want to go further than the standard.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

No.

What other advice do I have?

Developing standardized programs even with a custom design interface is possible. Such easy Java interface possibilities make it possible for me to realize a secure, remote, two-way interface with a LoRa device, even with very little Java knowledge.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Delivery Module Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Consultant
​To market time has been reduced as development time has come down a lot.

What is most valuable?

Being a device agnostic solution and responsive design support are most valuable.

How has it helped my organization?

To market time has been reduced as development time has come down a lot.

What needs improvement?

Seamless integration with legacy application is what I would like to see the most.

For how long have I used the solution?

I started with v5.7 approximately two and a half years ago.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We've had no issues with the deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We initially faced issues with complex web services, but now Mendix have evolved and fix most of the major issues with web services.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We've had no issues scaling it for our needs.

How are customer service and technical support?

Initially the support was very good and quick, but now it is taking more time and needs a few follow ups.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have not used a different solution similar to Mendix. I started using Mendix since my organization wanted it.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was easy and straightforward. Just an exe to run. Also they provide good 18 Hrs training for you to get started with the product.

What about the implementation team?

We use the cloud option only for implementation, but In-house cloud deployment is also supported. You can chose your deployment option based on your need and type of application. They also provide third party cloud support like AWS, HP Helion etc.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

As far as I know, the licence is costly.

What other advice do I have?

Mendix is a good option for people looking for fast deployment and Multiple device support with single code. But they need to check if the licence cost fits to their budget. Other than that no issues. I have seen large scale applications also running in Mendix.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Mendix
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Mendix. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user8394 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager of Operations with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
Mendix Application Builder

Mendix is a product (and company) that caught my attention in the recent days. It boasts of a very easy drag-and-drop UI builder, a business process modeler , a built-in collaboration workspace and an agile model built-in to each project.
I started this off by signing up for the product. It appears that a “free” email account does not work. It required me to enter a corporate email account. Once I did that, registration was done quickly and I was able to download the product quickly.
One cool feature I liked was that it made it really simple to invite other interested parties (in the organization) to get started. I was able to download and install the business modeler. I am running win7 with 4GB memory and it was no big deal to install and get it up and running
Once up, I noticed that there were a few sample projects. Unfortunately, none of them made sense with regard to what I had in mind. So , I got started with creating a brand new project. The business modeler is pretty intuitive and I was able to quickly develop a data model and scaffold a screen with CRUD operations. I had some problems with getting the form to work. But after seeing some youtube videos, I was on my way.
I also had an issue with the pop-up form options and could not figure out a way to get rid of it. But after some more youtube videos, I was well on my way.
A couple of more features that I really like are the built in workflow builder and the social media features. Mendix has made it really easy to define workflows, statuses and tie that to forms. Also, the social media features make it easy to collaborate with your social network.
All in all, this is a good product. Oh and by the way, the forms can be desktop based or mobile based.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user4401 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user4401Developer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor

What I like at Mendix is that it allows the user to directly capture feedback to an application, right at the screen to which the feedback is associated to. After that, the feedback gets into a queue that developers can access and answer them. At the company that I work for, we used Mendix also to slot the feedback for sprints of future releases.

Industry Expert and Advisor at a financial services firm
Real User
Time required to build applications has been reduced by up to forty percent
Pros and Cons
  • "I think that the workflow and automation features are quite good."
  • "Overall, integration with the enterprise ecosystem needs improvement."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case is for agile development using low-code and no-code tools.

How has it helped my organization?

This solution has allowed us to reduce the time required for building applications.

What is most valuable?

The workflow and automation features are quite good and valuable.

What needs improvement?

Overall, integration with the enterprise ecosystem needs improvement.

I would like to see the inclusion of APIs that can help with the interoperability.

For how long have I used the solution?

Two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is ok. It is a bit stable, but we are seeing an increase in workload complexity, so they'll have to figure out a scaler.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I think that right now, the scale-out is quite ok. It is scalable.

We have more than twenty users including developers, system handlers, business analysts, testers, and DevOps. The DevOps team is really what really takes it ahead.

In terms of usage, there is a lot of interest in low-code and no-code tools. There are even other tools like OutSystems and others. There are also automation tools, such as RPA (Robotic Process Automation) tools. It is still an evolving market.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is quite okay, although as they expand they will probably have to increase their global support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Before Mendix, we were looking at some open source solutions.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was not too complex, but it took some time. I would say that it was mid-difficulty.

Our deployment took about four to six weeks, and then we used it for some of our application development builds. We took some of the agile projects and aligned them to that.

What about the implementation team?

We used a system integrator for the implementation.

What was our ROI?

In terms of ROI, we have seen an approximate 30%-40% reduction in time that we require for building applications.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Initially, we started with a year for approximately $25,000, and if we need to expand the number of seats then we will increase it. There are no additional costs for us at the moment, but I think that if you need any professional services then they charge for them.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated OutSystems, Pega Platform, Google App Builder, and a few others.

What other advice do I have?

This solution has good coverage, but I think that their roadmap still needs more features and functions. It also needs better integration with the current stack.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Consultant at a tech services company
Consultant
It provides the tools for creating and deploying business applications.

What is most valuable?

Most valuable is the fact that the Mendix platform provides all the tools for creating and deploying business applications in one complete package. You do not have to understand all the "nitty-gritty" technical details that lie underneath.

This allows for a developer like me, who is most interested in designing the process, to realize the technical solution from start to finish.

How has it helped my organization?

Since Mendix requires less deep technical knowledge, it allows more business and process minded developers to become really successful Mendix developers/consultants.

This allows for a different way of working in my organization, where there is no longer a gap between the business and technical oriented professionals.

What needs improvement?

Pricing: Development is free, but deploying applications in production requires a monthly fee, based on the amount of users.

This makes Mendix unfit for small businesses, since they can rarely afford high monthly costs. Also, Mendix cloud charges ridiculous monthly fees for data storage.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have used this solution for four and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

When the design of a solution is sub-optimal, the service can get very slow or crash because of too many database calls, or too big Java heap sizes.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There have been scalability issues. Think about scalability early on, so you don't have to refactor your design when you are already in production.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would give technical support a rating of 9/10. Support is usually quite fast and bug fixes are quickly realized for paying customers.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not use anything previously.

How was the initial setup?

The setup is very straightforward. Download the right modeler and start building apps!

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Think about the amount of simultaneously used logged-in users the app should support. The more business apps you decide to realize in Mendix, the cheaper it gets.

Also, think about where you want to host your app (Mendix cloud or on-premise) and compare prices, especially if you want to store a lot of data.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We didn't look at other solutions.

What other advice do I have?

Make sure you have capable people working on your product who understand your needs and have enough experience.

It is a tool that, when used correctly, can make app development very easy.

However, it is still important to make the right design decisions in order to get a stable, performing app that is maintainable and knowledge transferable.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Business Engineer / Consultant at a recruiting/HR firm with 51-200 employees
Consultant
They have a stable release management so bugs get solved quickly​.

What is most valuable?

The best feature is that you can create applications real fast. Forget large software teams. Alone or with small teams one can accomplice products in days that would take other software development teams months. Key features are that the product is flexible can connect with other applications using standards like SOAP, REST or OData.

We use Mendix as our software platform for building our HR solution. For each client of ours we buy a Mendix license so our clients can use our HR solution. Our product runs in the Mendix cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

Clients are at first amazed that product feedback gets realized in days while other with other software vendors, things only get realized after months or never at all. Bugs are solved most of the time the next day.

What needs improvement?

Creating better document templates would be nice. You can achieve what you want but not a speedy as you can do everything else.

For how long have I used the solution?

Since 2010

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Deploying to the Mendix cloud are painless. And there are a lot of new option if you want to host your model in a different environment like Clound Foundry etc.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stil software that as all software can still have bugs. But Mendix responds very well in that area. They have a stable release management so bugs get solved quickly.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have had no issues scaling it to our needs. You can either scale by using multi tenancy or as we did use the same model for multple customers.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

The customer support is awesome. Of course they need to be able to reproduce the bug, but they are very helpful.

Technical Support:

The best part of Mendix is the user forum. There you get answers in hours. Only in the rare case that no answer will be given you need to contact the support desk, but most of the time Mendix will answer the question in the forum. The developers are also there to provide knowledge. Even with the most difficult technological questions they will give their view on how to solve your problem.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The Cordis platform was used before we got to know Mendix. Cordis was just a failure that did cost us a lot of money with no result.

How was the initial setup?

Even if you do not know the platform at all you can learn to build Mendix applications in hours even with no program experience. It is better to have a good knowledge of your business processes than knowing how to program. That last part is easier learned than the other way around.

What about the implementation team?

If you use the cloud setup implementation is a breeze. All our clients use the cloud based solution. We can bring a client live in a day if we want to.

What was our ROI?

Since the developer version is free you do not need to invest to start working with the modeler. You can even deploy to a free slot where you can demo to a client the sollution you made. So you only start paying after you closed your first deal with a customer.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

For small companies the pricing can be a bit steep. The gap between the free version and a paid version is to big in my opinion.

What other advice do I have?

In the university world model driven development has been talked about a lot but never realized its potential. Mendix is, in my opinion, the first product that realized the potential of model driven development. More products are are coming but for me Mendix still has the edge in this field.

Just download Mendix and start playing with it. If you run in to trouble post your question in the forum and just check the product yourself if it is something for you.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Software Business Engineer at Intonovi
Real User
Version control allows multiple team members to collaborate quite easily
Pros and Cons
  • "It's amazing that you can build web apps and mobile (hybrid) apps with one code base in a few clicks. It's a full continuous integration environment."
  • "Mendix has made a great deal of effort to provide its developers a healthy, modern environment for developing. First of all, it adopts Agile methodology by creating a SCRUM-based app where you can handle your user stories. Next comes version control, which really allows multiple team members to collaborate quite easily. And last but not least, Mendix modeler, which is your IDE for developing Mendix apps."
  • "It needs to provide an overview of model versioning control for the sake of the review process; better SCRUM board; an overview of model changes from the repository through Sprintr (SCRUM board). Also, a choice between versioning control system would be nice."

What is our primary use case?

Mendix has a variety of usages, and its bottom line is to deliver a continuous integration system that will make your life easier during development, deployment, and testing of your apps. I primarily use it to develop large data systems and user-friendly applications that scale easily.

How has it helped my organization?

It's amazing that you can build web apps and mobile (hybrid) apps with one code base in a few clicks. It's a full continuous integration environment. Full focus on the business case needs and not on implementation.

Speeds up the development by a factor of several times over regular development.

What is most valuable?

Mendix has made a great deal of effort to provide its developers a healthy, modern environment for developing. First of all, it adopts Agile methodology by creating a SCRUM-based app where you can handle your user stories. Next comes version control, which really allows multiple team members to collaborate quite easily. And last but not least, Mendix modeler, which is your IDE for developing Mendix apps. Speed and rapid software development within Mendix is a breeze. We at Intonovi absolutely love it.

What needs improvement?

  • Overview of model versioning control for the sake of the review process
  • Better SCRUM board
  • Provide an overview of model changes from the repository through Sprintr (SCRUM board)
  • A choice between versioning control system would be nice

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user413343 - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate(Java Developer) at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Consultant
We were able to completely refactor middleware from SAP BPM to Mendix.

What is most valuable?

It as an integrated server with one-click deployment. The deployment of Eclipse to analyse a code-based environment with XML to domain mapping by having just the XSD. Visual Programming is fairly intuitive and intricacies of code syntaxes are abstracted so we could focus solely on logic building.

How has it helped my organization?

We were able to completely refactor middleware from SAP BPM to Mendix. This was done in a relatively short time and the product created a common language between developers and business analysts that facilitated the translation of business requirements, frequent validation, and/or modification to the technical solution. This actually reduced a few development cycles which gets crucial with short-term projects.

What needs improvement?

I think it has made some good/significant changes like Model API and a presence in AWS as well as integration with cloud foundry. Going forward some important improvements would be the inclusion of support for non-relational databases . Non-relational databases have had a fair presence in domains like Big Data and the ability to extract data out of them represented in Mendix and then go on for analysis could be an important feature .

For how long have I used the solution?

We've used it for one and a half years/

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We were not directly involved in deployments, but as far I can recollect we did not encounter many issues.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I cannot speak much about the stability of the cloud deployment which probably is more sought after. We haven't, however had any issues with the on-premises version.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have had no issues scaling it to our needs.

How are customer service and technical support?

8..5/10 - our modules were fairly complex with the most complex thing being our communication with SAP backend . We had a very good support from Mendix liaisons to counter challenges regarding the interfacing .

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We had previously been working on 3GL solutions such as Java and C++. We also had some work done in AllFusion Gen 7.6 that led us to explore other model driven tools. We had a few choices but took up Mendix mostly because it had natural integration with customized Java/Scala code . Our vision was to further use the product to enhance/refactor our legacy solutions of other projects and incidentally high percentage of them were in Java .

How was the initial setup?

Pretty straightforward . Mendix is a one-stop solution with most things integrated and it would require only a few changes such as custom configurations for various aspects like the database, to bootstrap a project and start building solutions.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented the solution in an offshore/onshore model with technical expertise from a Mendix liaison. There are fairly complex modules (SAP Connector) which might need expert help if one is trying to use them in their solutions so it would be great to have an expert from their side .

What was our ROI?

Not sure about an exact metric count on this but as a subjective answer it did reduce development cycles. The official claim was somewhere between a five to sixfold increase but it was hard to corroborate that with actual metric.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is still a bit on the higher side and with other players in the MDD domain Mendix might need some price cuts to maintain/grow its popularity. It has already been placed once in the Visionary quadrant by Gartner and could really further build on that with competitive pricing to create farther appeal. Again, the issue with pricing is a completely personal opinion and I am pretty sure there are other factors to be considered before the final offering could be made by the Mendix.

What other advice do I have?

The product is easy to use and learn. The tough part is orienting your thinking to a model driven solution, or to better put, to an effective optimized solution. This would require some practice and some challenging use cases.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user