Microsoft Power Apps are a fast and cost-effective way to build web and mobile apps for use in your organisation. Power Apps are Low Code solution that are designed, built, and deployed in a fraction of the time it takes to develop other kinds of web applications.
At their heart Power Apps are React web applications that can run in any modern web browser, on any device, such Google Chrome on your desktop or laptop PC, Safari on your iOS smartphone or tablet, or a web browser on any Android device.
On mobile devices Power Apps can run inside the Microsoft Power Apps mobile app giving them extra features such as push notifications and access to device hardware such as cameras, GPS, and smart card readers.
Power Apps come in 2 types of application: Canvas Apps and Model-Driven Apps.
Canvas Apps are mobile-first apps used for building regular form-type applications, that most closely resemble mobile phone applications, and allow complete control over the app's layout and behaviour. Custom code can be added to Canvas Apps that can add any kind of functionality required. Although mobile-first apps Canvas Apps also work well in desktop and tablet browsers.
Canvas apps are built by dragging and dropping controls on to a canvas, much like building an application in a traditional programming environmment.
Model-Driven Apps are applications that can be generated automatically from your data model, such as a traditional database like SQL Server, an Excel Spreadsheet, Sharepoint, or using the new Microsoft Dataverse. Because the entire Model Driven app is generated from your data model it leads to rapid application development, often with no coding required. Model-Driven apps can be developed in a fraction of the time of Canvas Apps, but have less scope for customisation than Canvas Apps. They are ideally suited to admin backends and interfaces that are for internal use rather than customer facing.
Power Apps are so quick to develop that a proof of concept can be developed in a few hours, and a production ready application built and deployed in a matter or weeks or even days.
Because Power Apps are hosted in Microsoft's Azure cloud, they are quick and easy to get corporate cybersecuity approval for.
Due to their rapid development process Power Apps are ideal for quickly prototyping your app idea into an MVP (Minimally Viable Product) in order to determine the value of your idea.
Power Apps also make it easy to connect to APIs and other systems.