Most of the best secure email providers offer users a new email address, client, and service to start from scratch, but most can be daunting, too, with loads of technical language that non-experts may not understand - and a wealth of tricky, intimidating options to select while setting up and configuring the client.

That’s not the case with Soverin. This secure email provider still aims to provide robust encryption but with a more accessible and straightforward approach than many rivals.

That makes it a potential winner for anyone who wants secure email without delving too much into the technical side of security.

Soverin: Plans and pricing 

Soverin’s pricing structure isn’t divided into rigid tiers. Instead, this product uses a more personalized system that enables you to build a package based on your needs.

The minimum cost of €39/$40/£32 per year immediately undercuts many other secure email providers. For that money, you get one mailbox that uses your existing domain and 25GB of space, which is a generous amount of capacity – lots of other services only provide 5GB or 10GB.

If you want to buy a new domain to set up a new, secure address, that costs extra, with .NL and .EU domains costing €13/$13/£11, .COM and .NET sitting at €18/$19/£15, and .ORG topping the list at €23/$24/£19.

Additional mailboxes cost €10/$10/£ each, and if you want to add an extra 25GB block of storage, it’ll cost you €29/$30/£24 every time.

There’s a thirty-day money-back guarantee, and the service doesn’t need personal information when you sign up – although you can’t pay with cryptocurrencies or cash, as you can with other secure email providers.

Soverin: Features

Soverin offers full encryption to emails sent and received through their servers, which is an excellent start for any secure email service. Soverin strips IP addresses from emails – something that not every secure email provider actually does – and supports two-factor authentication through its own web client.

Outbound SMTP servers check and honor TLSA records, and inbound servers benefit from published TLSA records.

Soverin uses DKIM/DMARC by default and, deploys SRS and ARC for email forwarding, and is fully compliant with a broad range of laws and standards, like GDPR, AVG, SPF, SSL, DANE and more.

Third-party services independently verify Soverin’s encryption: it scores a 100% confidence rating on CheckTLS.com and an A+ from SSL Labs. Soverin also scores 5/5 in the EU’s MESCA email test.

It’s worth noting that while Soverin always uses encrypted connections with OpenPGP used throughout, they don’t control security used outside of the Soverin ecosystem. If you want this level of security, you’ll need to use your own OpenPGP connection using a service like Mailvelope.

There’s no tracking, no advertising, and no chance for Soverin to see the contents of your mailbox.

Elsewhere, lots of features prove Soverin’s versatility. Thanks to IMAP and POP3 support, it works with any mobile or desktop email client, and you can use your own domain. A unified platform with full user control can be built and provided, mail can be imported from external services, and domain management is available, too. The platform also has its own spam filter and 24-hour monitoring and alerting for suspicious activity.

If you’re buying Soverin for an organization you can customize the product with custom colors, menus and your logos, you’ve got complete control over the number of mailboxes and aliases you use alongside custom domains, and the web client has integrated calendar, contact and task functionality.

Soverin’s servers are hosted in three data centers in the Netherlands, where secure infrastructure and disc encryption protect physical hardware. Hosting providers are selected based on Soverin’s strict privacy requirements. No customer information is shared with third-party organizations.

Soverin: Interface and in-use

Because Soverin works by encrypting your existing account, a little setup is required to get things started. You’ve got to verify that you’re the owner of your domain by adding text records to your DNS, MX and SPF settings.

Once that’s done, you can access Soverin’s mailbox. This attractive and straightforward mail client mimics the three-panel design so often seen elsewhere, making it easy to use for anyone familiar with online email.

At the window's top-right are icons that allow you to switch to your calendar, contacts, and to-do list. In the settings menu, you’ll find all of the key options you need for configuration, but it must be said that many other services give you more granular control over functionality – Soverin’s settings menu is not complicated or intimidating, but you will have more options elsewhere.

Soverin: Support

To access Soverin’s support, you can email them – it’s that simple. The company intends to respond to messages quickly and maintains a service status page on its website.

Elsewhere, the Help section includes guides on setting up your service and customizing key functionality. The guides are well-written and have straightforward explanations that should be easy to follow, even for beginners. There’s also a good FAQ section.

That’s it for support, though. There’s no live chat and no phone support here, which is the kind of thing you’ll find from larger organizations, and lots of other email products offer more depth in their online FAQ and help sections, too.

Soverin: The competition

Soverin’s status as an accessible and affordable secure email provider sees it competing with some big names, including Tuta and Posteo.

All three services are similar, with good security functionality and rock-solid core email client experiences.

Soverin offers more storage than Posteo, but Posteo is even cheaper than Soverin – and it’s not like Soverin is particularly expensive. Tuta, meanwhile, has exceptional security and it also has mobile apps, but customer support is not great.

If you’d like more functionality, including Office tools, VPNs and cloud storage, then it’s worth considering products like Proton and Mailbox.org – and even Zoho if you want a complete business solution. But they’re far more complex and potentially much more expensive, too.

Zoho Mail: Final verdict

Soverin is an effective secure email option, with robust security procedures, straightforward design and flexible, affordable pricing – so if you want a no-nonsense secure email product, it’s worth consideration.

That said, products from larger organizations will offer more support functionality, which is essential for businesses, and the lack of in-depth support won’t sate technical users and people who want more control over their emails.

Nova Development produces an impressive array of design and productivity software, including a range of 3D home design tools, the top of the line version being “Virtual Architect Professional Home Design 12”.

Having reviewed all the best interior design software, I wanted to see how the latest version compares to the rest. So let’s take a look at it.

• Interested in Virtual Architect Professional Home Design 12? Check out the website here

Virtual Architect Professional Home Design 12: Pricing & plans

• Purchase the software online, as you’d expect these days, with a price that’s to be expected for the number of available features, but we were very disappointed to learn that no trial version was available

This software is PC-only, compatible with Windows 8, 10 and 11. It requires a 64-bit OS, a minimum of 2GHz processor, 4GB of RAM and 30GB of storage, and it can be yours for $125.

Sadly, Nova Development does not offer a trial version, so there’s no way for you to check out its wares before purchasing the software. However, they do offer a 60-day money back guarantee, so if you buy it and if it turns out not to be your cup of tea, return it, no questions asked.

The easiest way to get this title is by clicking here - although we found the installation to be quite lengthy, even on full fibre, but we got there in the end.

• Score: 3 / 5

Virtual Architect Professional Home Design 12: Interface

• The interface feels somewhat antiquated, but its organization is pretty much perfect, allowing you to select the tool you need with ease

The interface feels dated, but the way the information is organised is very clean and easy to understand. The icons at the bottom of the window are used to control your environment.

This is where you get to choose which view to work in (2D or 3D), add cameras to your 3D environment, choose which level of your building to work in, along with general controls when moving objects on your canvas, such as restricting movements to right angles, and making sure objects don’t collide with each other.

You’ll find a series of tabs at the top, which is where all your design tools are stored, organised by clear categories. Further up is the traditional menu bar which contains links to those aforementioned tools, giving you multiple ways to access the same functions, which is something we greatly appreciate: the software allows you to work how you prefer, rather than forcing you to adapt to a developer’s idea of working.

To the right, is the Inspector panel, which changes its content based on the currently selected tool. It’s very clear and simple, although we found the information there to be quite small compared to the other sections.

We also found having to navigate through tiny folders inside a tiny inspector got a little frustrating at times. Thankfully there’s a search field at the top, if you know what you’re looking for.

• Score: 4 / 5

Virtual Architect Professional Home Design 12: Building

• Considering the complexity of designing a building, using this software is remarkably simple as the developers have clearly gone out of their way to make the creation process as easy as they could manage it

Designing walls and rooms is very easy: select the wall tool, click on your canvas, click somewhere else, and one wall has been added between those two clicks. There’s even a function (selected by default) to ensure those walls stay straight, and go off from others at a 90 degree angle.

You can add walls by using your mouse or trackpad, or by typing the value you’re after. By default the measurements will be shown in antiquated feet and inches, but you can alter that to the much more precise metric system from the ‘Settings’ section.

There’s a lot of little touches we greatly appreciated, like the software being intelligent enough to know when the latest wall you’re adding will enclose a room, or when you reposition an existing wall, any other wall connected to it will also be resized as you do so, saving you tons of time when redesigning and fine tuning your project.

Adding doors and windows is just a matter of choosing the one you’re after from the Inspector panel, and dragging it until you’re happy with its position. These objects know they’re supposed to be embedded into a wall and will snap to one in your project as you decide where to put it, even if your cursor veers off a little.

Adding a ceiling can be done in a single click if you just want to cover the entire level in one go, but you’ve also got the option of being much more precise, choosing different types of ceilings for each room, say, or even creating partial ceilings. The flexibility and ease of use is impressive. Same goes for when it’s time to add a roof.

You’ll likely primarily be working in the 2D environment, but you can also switch to 3D, and not just to appreciate your design in three dimensions: unlike some competing products, you also have design control in that environment as well, and we had a lot of fun with that.

• Score: 4.5 / 5

Virtual Architect Professional Home Design 12: Wizards

• If you need another helping hand, conjure up a wizard to speed up some common design necessities, such as a kitchen, bathroom or deck

Despite all the features created to facilitate the building of complex projects, sometimes you may need things to be speeded up somewhat. That’s where wizards come in. This software has a handful of them, to create the bare bones structure of a house, a kitchen, bathroom, a house’s foundations, or even a deck or shed.

The wizard won’t do it all for you, of course, but through a series of simple choices, you can apply a template to your project, and then customize it further after it’s been inserted.

For instance, the Kitchen Wizard will ask you for the basic shape you’re after (L-Shape, Galley, or U-Shape), its orientation, the generic placement of most units, and the style you’re after. After that, you add it to your plan, resize it to suit, and its job is done. You’re then free to take individual items, such as the sink or fridge, and move it around until you’re happy with its position.

It’s a great way to get the basics done in a few seconds, giving you more time to fine tune and personalize your creation.

• Score: 4.5 / 5

Virtual Architect Professional Home Design 12: Indoor and Outdoor Decoration

• The software has a large catalog of objects you can use to furnish your design, and comes with powerful tools to shape the landscape

Adding furniture, both indoor or outdoor, is as easy as selecting a door or window: choose the right category, then scroll down the list in the Inspector until you find the item you’re after.

We were unable to find a way to customize the available objects though (just like we couldn’t resize a chosen door or window), but there are so many options available you’re bound to find the one that matches your needs.

And speaking of outdoor, this software goes beyond your house, and grants you the ability to design the outside, complete with altering the terrain, creating hills, retaining walls, the works, and of course, has a slew of plants and vegetation you can use to bring your design to life.

As you’d expect for a program with such versatility, its minimum specs should be seen as that: minimum, and likely not even worth trying to match. As long as your computer swims in RAM and has a powerful processor, it should easily handle the software.

• Score: 4 / 5

Should I buy Virtual Architect Professional Home Design 12?

Buy it if...

You’re on a PC, and you’re looking for a powerful, versatile, yet easy to use software package to design a project in 2D and 3D.

Don't buy it if...

You don’t need something with so many options, your PC isn’t powerful enough, and the lack of trial software really puts you off.

For more home design tools, we've reviewed the best landscape design software and the best architecture software.

Home design apps and tools are plentiful these days, and you’ll find loads f options for designing interior and exterior spaces online, on your desktop, and on mobile devices. IMSI Design FloorPlan Pro offers high end options for your desktop.

I was keen to see how this professional design tool compared to the best interior design software I've tested - especially considering the company behind it is also responsible for the excellent TurboCAD.

• Interested in FloorPlan Pro? Check out the website here

FloorPlan Pro; Pricing & plans

• It's not the cheapest 3D home design software out there, but it promises to offer a wealth of features, which you can try free for 15 days

As for this writing, although FloorPlan Pro is available for both Macs and PCs, the former hasn’t been updated in years, and we’ve been told a brand new version is just round the corner. As such, we’ll be focusing our attention on the Windows version.

FloorPlan Pro is the high-end version of IMSI Design’s 3D home design family, the other two being “FloorPlan Deluxe”, and “FloorPlan Instant Architect”. As such it bears the highest price at just under US$280.

With it, you’ll get over 1,000 3D interior design furnishings and materials, over 4,000 plants for landscaping, foundation and HVAC planning tools, advanced dimensioning tools, the ability to import your own materials, backgrounds and plants, and much more.

This is a big software package and you may feel you need time to explore it and make sure it offers all the features you’re after. Thankfully, IMSI Design allow you to try their program free for 15 days.

• Score: 4 / 5

FloorPlan Pro: Quick Start

• A great way to quickly and easily create the basic outline of the building you’re about to create

There’s little doubt that FloorPlan Pro is replete with powerful features, and is designed with someone who’s serious about 3D home design in mind. However, despite that, the software is also designed to be as approachable as possible, and this is made exceedingly clear from the outset, thanks to the Quick Start section, which greets you when you launch the software.

This enables you to create the bare bones of your building in next to no time: to the right is a sidebar containing various generic rooms, such as a Kitchen, a Bedroom, a Garage, and so forth. Drag them onto your blank canvas (pretty much the rest of the interface), resize them, place them next to others, and within seconds, you’ll have created the outline of your building.

Now, you can’t do much else with this section - you can’t even add windows or doors - that’s for later on - but it does let you get started at lightning speed. Once you’re happy with the results, click on ‘Continue’ to access the ‘proper’ interface.

• Score: 4.5 / 5

FloorPlan Pro: Interface

• The interface feels crowded as there are buttons and icons on every edge of the screen, but everything is well organised and it won’t take you long to figure out where everything is and make good use of the available tools

FloorPlan Pro’s main interface is pretty busy, although well organised, despite the fact it looks antiquated and could do with a more modern lick of paint. You have alignment controls at the bottom, a series of cursors offering different functions to the left, and at the top, all the tools you need to design your home, organised by category, with ‘Floor’ being selected by default.

That section contains the tools you need to build walls, add windows and doors, insert stairs, railings, columns, and more. Other categories allow you to work on the foundations, add a roof, design the electrics and plumbing, work on the ventilation and air conditioning, add a deck, landscape the outside, etc. It’s incredibly full featured.

If you’re unsure what a tool does, just hover over it for a couple of seconds, and a detailed tooltip will appear telling you exactly what it does, and how to use it. Some even include a short animation to explain the concept more clearly.

By default, you’ll be working in a traditional 2D view, but you can also add a 3D view to the mix, which you can explore in parallel. You can use it to navigate through your design, select items and such, but you cannot manipulate your work from there.

When it comes to making alterations, the interface is very responsive: click on an object to select it, and drag it to move it around or resize it. We did notice however, that unlike other competing products, when you reposition a wall, adjoining walls aren’t resized and repositioned at the same time to accommodate that wall’s new position: you need to work on each in turn.

It’s cumbersome if you’ve grown used to the other way of working, but it shouldn’t be a deal breaker, especially if you like more precise control over your project.

• Score: 4 / 5

FloorPlan Pro: Tools

• There’s a lot of tools at your disposal, and once you’re used to the interface’s layout, you’ll start enjoying the creation process

As mentioned above, you can find the tools along the interface’s edges, and once you’ve gotten used to their location, accessing the right tool when you need it becomes second nature. In fact we found designing a project to be pretty easy considering the number of available options - not as easy as the “Quick Start” feature, mind, but still, it can become an immersive experience, as you focus on your design.

Working primarily in 2D to create your project might be viewed as a drawback, but there’s an inherent simplicity to the concept that we ended up enjoying the process, occasionally switching to 3D to see how it was all shaping up. The biggest drawback though is that you need a large screen, especially with the 3D view activated, as it can overlap with the rest of the interface and all too easily gets in the way, especially when you’re furnishing your building.

When it comes to furnishings and materials, everything is located in a drop down menu to the right. All items are organised by category which you can explore, or just use the search field to quickly find what you’re looking for, which you then click and drag onto your design.

We really liked the landscape feature, and can understand why FloorPlan Pro have so many available plants for you to populate your grounds with. The versatility is immense, even allowing you to create uneven ground, creating a much more realistic look for the surrounding area; you can even build a house, cut into a hill for instance, and turn the garden into a dense forest.

The 3D view truly comes into its own when altering the landscape, as this is where you get to change the topography with the various available tools.

• Score: 4 / 5

Should I buy FloorPlan Pro?

Buy it if...

You’re looking for a professional-grade home design program, with a vast array of features and options, and don’t mind the somewhat dated interface.

Don't buy it if...

You prefer creating, designing and altering your house in a 3D environment, or feel you need an interface that looks a little more modern.

For more design essentials we tested the best landscape design software and the best architecture software.

Spoak is an online interior design service made to be ‘easy, fun, and accessible to all’. Well, at least that’s what their website says. We headed over to spoak.com to find out how well this browser-based tool compares to the best interior home design software out there.

Spoak: Pricing & plans

• Three tiers, one for individuals, one for teams, and one for businesses. No free plan, and some puzzling in-app purchases which should really be free. Plus you have to give your card details if you want the 7- or 14-day trial. Not a good look.

Although Spoak offers a free demo near the bottom of the homepage, this is not a free service, nor does it offer a free plan. It comes in three flavours. ‘Play’ is focused on the solo designer. It allows you to work on up to 10 public designs, comes with various features, and have a 7-day free trial, for $15 a month (choosing to pay yearly would save you 20%)

‘Power’ is more aimed at businesses and teams, where you can add up to ten seats to your account (at the cost of $40 per seat per year), and gain the ability to make your projects private, among other additional features. That account would cost $50 per month and has a 14-day free trial.

Finally, there’s ‘Enterprise’, which is more of a bespoke tier for high-end businesses, and as such the cost itself is also bespoke.

On top of that, there are purchasable add-ons. For instance, both ‘Play’ and ‘Pro’ allow you to have 3 and 10 active designs respectively. Need more? You can, for a price. We were disappointed to see that the Spoak watermark can only be removed through one of these purchases. This feels a little like the company is milking their customers.

The free trial is not without its risks either as you need to hand over your card details in order to access it. In an age where so many services let you try them out without having to do that, this does leave a bad taste in the mouth, as you then have to remember to cancel your subscription before it’s even started.

Considering their site states that “‍You are solely responsible for properly canceling your account” and that “Spoak does not offer refunds”, you have to wonder how many people lost money forgetting to cancel a trial in time, and how much of that contributes to their business model. It’s not a good start. Let’s hope the service wins us over…

You can check out Spoak by clicking here.

Spoak: Getting Started

• Spoak offers a lot, from mood boards to 2D floor plans, and more. The interface could be better when it comes to choosing your project, but once in, it’s very easy to get down to business.

Your home page offers a sidebar on the left, where you’ll access your designs, projects, community forums, job fairs, and clients. The main section features a selection of items for you to choose from based on what the algorithm thinks you’ll like, and above that, different types of projects, such as ‘Mood Board’, where you put objects together and see if their various styles work with each other, or ‘Vizi’ which is a mockup of the room you’re trying to recreate in real life. ‘Floor Plan’ would be a top down 2D mockup of a room, while ‘Elevation’ is a front facing 2D view of a room.

Weirdly, whichever one of these four types you choose, you’ll be brought to the exact same page, where further templates are presented to you. Why ask you to choose initially if the result doesn’t alter where you go next?

Anyway, your options are broader there, with empty rooms, pre-set backgrounds, product comparisons, and more - there’s even a section for outfits, making design concepts… more wearable. Each category has a good number of templates to choose from, and you also have the choice of starting from scratch if you prefer.

Spoak: Designing

• Adding objects is easy. So is creating a room from scratch. Some concepts work better than others, but the whole thing feels marred by too small an inventory: some, like ‘Outfit’, barely have any.

We found designing to be a relatively simple affair. Working on a floor plan for instance was very easy, with a strong intuitive feel. It’s all done through clicking and dragging. Take walls, for instance: you can add them, reposition them, and resize them, simply by clicking on specific parts of that element. Then, you add windows and doors which automatically reorient themselves as you drag them, to match the wall’s orientation. As we said, easy. Next comes the decorations. For those, you click on the ‘Assets’ category and scroll through until you find what you want, or better yet, use the search field. Add, reposition, resize, done. Full marks for ease of use.

There’s even an ‘Inspiration’ button, which loads up similar designs in a sidebar to the right, to offer you ideas of what to do next.

So far so good. ‘Head-on Elevation’ is more simplistic, but still lets you create front-facing 2D designs with a simple drag and drop. The ‘Mood Board’ is designed to throw ideas around, and mix and match furniture and decor. It’s all good.

What doesn’t work so well are the ‘Pre-set backgrounds’. These should help you immerse your design in a more realistic environment, but the customizability felt very poor. For instance, you’re able to paint the walls, which sounds great. Unfortunately, doing this washes out any decoration or detail that was present on said wall, leaving you with a rectangle of colour. Sure you can change the opacity, but then you end up with a blend of the previous colour with the new one.

Worse still is the poor choice of elements to add. Depending on the type of project you’re working on, there isn’t actually that much to choose from.

What we didn’t appreciate was the fact some items were shot in front of a background. Add them to a project, and that background is still there. There’s a background remover tool, but it doesn’t come free. You can manually remove the background yourself for free - a tedious and thankless task - or use the ‘magic’ button which costs one credit a pop (we had 40 to play with in our 7-day trial). But our main question was… why? This feels like penny pinching: imagine the number of people who would choose to pay to remove the background of the exact same object.

Finally, the Outfit section sounds like a fun idea - on paper - mix and match different outfits, that kind of thing… except we couldn’t find outfits to add to our ‘Mood board’. Yes, there’s the odd cap, but another evening dress, a dinner jacket, a pair of jeans? The search field comes back empty. Maybe more will be added in time, but for now, that section is barely a curiosity.

Should I buy Spoak?

For more creative design tools, we've tested out the best landscape design software and the best architecture software

Zapier Interfaces is a relatively new addition to the Zapier suite of apps. It helps extend Zapier’s popular workflow automation capabilities into the realm of no-code app development.

You can use Zapier Interfaces to build custom front-end interfaces, such as client portals, and dashboards that integrate seamlessly with Zapier's automation tools.

In this review we’ll look at the platform’s features, interface and ease of use, integration and extensibility, deployment and maintenance, pricing and documentation, and how it stacks up against its peers.

Zapier Interfaces: Features

Zapier Interfaces provides a visual, drag-and-drop interface builder that you can use to create layouts, and add all kinds of components, without writing code.

You can throw in components such as forms, Kanban boards, link cards, AI prompts, chatbots, and more into your apps. Each of these components can be easily customized, and you can also adjust the layout, colours, and fonts to align the look and feel of your apps to your brand.

The platform also offers pre-built templates that cater to several common business use cases. You can start with these templates, and then customize them as per your needs to help save time. There are templates that’ll help collect customer feedback, capture leads, build client portals, onboard new employees, and more.

The core strength of the platform lies in its seamless integration with existing Zapier Zaps. You can easily use Interfaces to connect the various components to Zap triggers and actions, and create automated workflows to power your custom apps.

Zapier Interfaces also integrates with Zapier Tables to help manage and display data. For instance, you can use the platform to create a form to capture customer information, which upon submission triggers a zap to create a new record in a Zapier Table to store the data.

Also, apps created with Zapier Interfaces are responsive, and work across various screen sizes whether viewed on desktops, tablets, or smartphones.

Zapier Interfaces: Interface and Ease of Use

Zapier Interfaces has an intuitive interface that’s easy to get started with.

There are two broad categories of interfaces you can create with the platform. Forms capture information, and Customer Portals, which can be public, or require login. You also have the option to start with a template, or from scratch.

If you start from scratch, the platforms will ask you to select a component to build your first page.

Remember, you can have multiple components on a single page. Besides components that gather or display information, you can also add decorative components, such as media, and dividers to the pages.

Components in a page are displayed on the left-side of the platform’s builder. You can click on a component to edit it in the right-hand pane.

Depending on the tye of component, it’ll have various settings for you to adjust and tweak, such as its appearance and behavior. For instance in the Text component you can use markdown to format the text, adjust the component’s width, and change alignment of both the text, as well as the component itself.

Interactive components, such as Forms, give you more customization options, which will vary depending on the type you use. These are usually divided into three tabs. If you add a Form component, you can add and remove fields from the Content tab.

You can also point the form to an existing table, or create a new one from under the Data tab. Then there’s the Actions tab under which you define the action that takes place when something happens on the component.

For instance, in the Form component, an action can be triggered when the user hits the submit button, such as displaying a confirmation message that the form has been submitted. This is also where you create a Zap, or point to an existing one, to automate workflows.

Every page also has a Page Options button on the top that you can use to alter the page’s name, meta title, and even the URL.

In the left sidebar of the builder, you get more options to further personalize and manage different aspects of your interface, such as its theming, and branding, and more.

Zapier Interfaces: Integration and Extensibility

A standout feature of Zapier Interfaces is its deep integration with Zapier's extensive ecosystem, which supports thousands of popular apps. This integration allows you to build apps that interact with a wide range of services, including CRM systems, marketing automation platforms, and productivity tools.

You can also link your apps to Zapier Tables to store and retrieve your data. Click the Linked Assets button in the sidebar to see a list of all the connected Zaps and tables in a particular page.

Zapier Interfaces also allows you to build apps that accept payment via Stripe. The platform also has a chatbot component that you can use to create a ChatGPT-powered AI chatbot.

The component is currently in beta, but it worked flawlessly for us. You give it a directive on how it should respond to users. Very helpfully, the platform already adds a detailed directive that you can tweak as per your needs.

Zapier Interfaces: Deployment and Maintenance

As it is with no-code apps, deploying apps built with Zapier Interfaces is pretty straightforward.

Click the Settings icon in the left sidebar, where you get the option to specify your own custom subdomain for your app. You can also publish the app to your own domain by heading to the Custom domain option in the sidebar.

By default, all apps are accessible to anyone with the URL. However, you do get the option to control who can view your app by heading to the Access & Users option in the sidebar. Here you get a couple of options to restrict access. You can either lock access with a password, or to a specified set of users.

Zapier Interfaces also lets you invite and collaborate with other users using the Share button in the top-right corner.

The sharing interface also has an Embed tab that you can use to embed pages from your app inside another website. You’ll be able to select the page you wish to embed, and adjust its height and width.

Zapier Interfaces: Pricing and Documentation

Zapier Interfaces offers a free tier that provides you with access to enough components and features to explore the platform.

For advanced features, such as custom branding, custom domains, access to OpenAI models, components like Stripe, and more, you can opt for one of the paid plans.

The $20/month Pro plan unlocks access to all components and lets you create a maximum of five apps with up to 20 pages. But to publish apps to custom domains, you’ll need to switch to the $100/month Advanced plan, which also increases the number of publishable apps to 20, with up to 50 pages in each.

In terms of documentation, Zapier Interfaces has a handful of tutorials that’ll help you familiarize yourself with the platform. You’ll find step-by-step guides to create and manage apps, as well as on using the various components.

Zapier Interfaces: The Competition

In the no-code app development space, Zapier Interfaces competes with platforms like Bubble, and Adalo, which offer more extensive development capabilities.

These platforms offer more functionality, and allow for greater customization, but have a steeper learning curve than Zapier Interfaces. Also, while most of its competitors excel at building general purpose web apps, Zapier Interfaces distinguishes itself by its seamless integration with the Zapier ecosystem.

Zapier Interfaces: Final Verdict

Zapier Interfaces provides a versatile platform that you can use to create client portals, dashboards, or internal tools that can enhance your business processes, without writing any code.

However, it's important to recognize its limitations in terms of customization, and extensibility as compared to other general purpose no-code platforms. Its main selling point is its close integration with Zapier workflows.

As we’ve said before, Zapier Interfaces is not designed to be a full featured web app development platform. Instead look at it as a platform to add custom user interfaces to your existing Zapier workflows.

If you want to build apps that automate and interact with data from Zapier's integrated apps, the platform is a wonderful option. Its ease of use and tight integration with the Zapier ecosystem makes it a good choice to help design, deploy, and manage custom web apps that complement your automated Zapier workflows.

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Codev is a no-code platform that relies exclusively on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help transform natural language descriptions into web apps. In this review we’ll delve into its features, interface, ease of use, integration and extensibility, deployment and maintenance, pricing and documentation, and compare it with its competitors.

Codev: Features

Codev is one of the simplest no-code platforms, which also makes it one of the easiest to get started with, even for first timers.

As we’ve mentioned, Codev is one of the growing number of no-code platforms that leverages AI to create apps. The use of AI makes it dead simple for non-developers to create web apps without writing a single line of code.

All you need to do is describe your app idea in regular English, and Codev will take care of the rest. The platform will analyze your input to build your app together with all the necessary components, styling, and functionality for the app.

You can then again use AI to keep refining the app. Very helpfully, the platform will keep track of all the iterations of the app, and you can revert to any previous version with a single click.

You can also upload images to the platform, which you can then ask it to use in the app. This is helpful for things like app logos, custom headers, product images, and such.

Besides AI, the platform also lets you customize the broader look, and feel of your apps with just a few clicks. You can, for instance, change the primary color to align the app to your brand, adjust the corner radius, and switch between light or dark modes.

Codev can work with the open source Firebase-alternative, Supabase, which uses PostgreSQL to add databases to your apps. You can also use it to roll in authentication services, like user sign ups and logins.

By default, all Codev apps are responsive, which means they can adapt to different screen sizes and devices. This ensures that your apps provide a consistent user experience across desktops, and smartphones.

When you are done, you can also transfer your project to a GitHub repo, which is a helpful feature if you need to make manual code edits to your apps.

Codev: Interface and Ease of Use

Thanks to its limited number of features, Codev has a simple, and straightforward interface, unlike many of its peers. This makes it very approachable, especially if you are new to no-code app development platforms.

Once you’ve entered the prompt, the platform will start building the app, and detail each and every step.

Remember however, that you can only add authentication services, and databases to your app at the start of the app creation process.

One of the good things about Codev is its verbosity. The platform details each and every step in the app creation process. For instance, it’ll tell you how it’s going about putting together the backend (the database structure), and assembling the frontend (user interface).

It’ll also list all the features it has implemented, like contact listing with search, contact creation with form validation, and such. Codev will also list all that you can do with the app in simple language. Finally, the platform will also offer suggestions on how you can improve the first iteration of the app.

Once it’s done building the app, you can preview it on the left side of the screen. By default, the preview shows the desktop view, but you can also switch to the mobile view.

You can also optionally rate the output as well, based on how closely the app meets the requirements you specified in the AI prompt. The platform keeps track of all iterations of the app above the preview. Interestingly, you can switch, and preview any version, before you decide to revert to an older instance.

There’s also a button to view the error log, in case it ran into any during the build. If you do get an error, you can use the Attempt Fix button to let the platform resolve the issue on its own.

Unlike many of its peers, Codev doesn’t include a designer to help fine tune the various elements in your app, such as the titles. However, you can use the Select Element option to hover, and mark the elements you want to refine. You can then describe how you’d like to modify these elements to Codev’s AI.

Codev: Integration and Extensibility

Codev relies on the Next.js framework to power its apps. The platform also does

Server-Side Rendering (SSR) and Static Site Generation (SSG) to pre-render the web apps on the server, which helps improve its initial load times, and SEO ranking.

The platform also uses the Prisma Object-Relational Mapper (ORM) to simplify database interactions, and make it easier to build data-driven apps.

As we’ve pointed out earlier, Codev gets its database from Supabase. Earlier, the platform offered a code download feature, but you can now hook it up with your GitHub account, and ask it to transfer your web app to a GitHub repo.

This is especially useful for advanced users who want to manually make changes to the code, or perhaps collaborate with other developers. Remember though, there’s no provision to upload the exported code back into Codev.

Codev: Deployment and Maintenance

Once your app is ready, you can publish it with a single click. By default, the platform will publish the latest version of the app. However, you can publish any of the earlier versions as well.

As with its peers, Codev too publishes apps to its own subdomain. The advantage of this is that you don’t have to distract yourself with the nitty-gritties of web hosting. That said, you do have the option to deploy the app to your own custom domain.

Remember however, that any changes made to the app will not be reflected in the deployed version automatically. Instead, you’ll have to manually republish the app, while ensuring you select the latest version of the app.

Codev: Pricing and Documentation

Codev's pricing model offers flexible options in order to cater to a wide range of users, from startups to larger businesses.

The Free tier offers a limited number of features, but is good enough for exploring the platform. You can use it to query the AI 15 times a month, with a maximum of five messages a day.

If that number’s too low for you, there’s the $19/month Lite plan that offers 50 additional AI queries per month, with no daily limits. You can have up to five private projects in this plan, and publish projects to a custom domain as well. This plan also lets you transfer the code for your app to your GitHub repo.

If you are looking to publish more than one app, switch to the $49/month Pro plan, which allows you to publish an unlimited number of apps to an unlimited number of custom domains. The plan also offers an additional 150 AI messages, gives you early access to new features, and access to the platform’s developers.

In terms of documentation, Codev has a handful of tutorials that cover best practices for writing effective prompts, supabase setup, and authentication. The share update, and details about new features via their official blog.

Support is dispensed through Codev’s Discord channel, and Pro users can also seek support from the platform’s developers.

Codev: The Competition

Codev competes against three other platforms, all of which make extensive use of AI to democratize app development.

First up, is the newly launched Hostinger Horizons, which offers more integration like payment gateways. And while it won’t send code to your GitHub repo, it does let you download and edit it offline. Also, unlike its peers, you can interact with Horizons AI using several non-English languages, as well as through voice prompts.

Then there’s Lovable, which can do everything you can with Codev, and then some. For instance, it offers two-way sync with GitHub, pre-built templates, a Figma-like visual editor, and more.

Codev: Final Verdict

Codev’s best feature is its use of AI to design, and debug the app, which makes the platform usable by non-programmers as well.

However, Codev has a limited set of features, as compared to its peers. It also doesn’t have a visual GUI editor, nor any templates to jump start the app creation process. The platform also can only make web apps, and not mobile apps, or even progressive web apps (PWAs).

All things considered, Codev comes across as a barebones AI-powered no-code platform that offers the bare minimum features you need to spin up a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with minimal effort.

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Glide is a no-code platform that allows users to create web apps without writing any code. It helps non-programmers build functional and responsive apps by leveraging data from Google Sheets, Airtable, and several other data sources.

In this review, we will examine Glide’s core features, user interface, ease of use, integration and extensibility, deployment and maintenance, pricing, documentation, and its competitive landscape.

Glide: Features

Glide allows you to build apps directly from your existing data. The platforms can connect to your data from various sources, including spreadsheets like Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, Airtable, data warehouses like BigQuery, relational databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and cloud databases like Google Cloud SQL.

If you’re starting from scratch, you can also use the platform’s own Glide Tables, or Glide Big Tables if you need an enterprise-scale database.

Best of all, you can use the platform to visually create relationships, and look up values across all your tables. And whenever your data changes in Glide, it instantly syncs directly back to your original data source.

To keep your data safe, Glide lets you control who can manage, view, and edit your apps with granular permissions. You can also restrict who can access or download specific rows of data based on an email address.

Another advantage with Glide is that you don’t have to rely on external automation tools. You can instead use Glide Workflows to automate tasks, which comes in handy when you need to manage processes such as sending emails, and data updates.

You can start these workflows from app interactions, schedules, emails, and more. There’s also a Webhook workflow that kicks in when it receives data from external services, such as Stripe, or TypeForm.

The platform also keeps a track of all the workflow runs to help you review their execution, and rectify any errors. That said, you can still use external workflow builders like Zapier and Make, with Glide.

In addition to starting with existing data, you can also create an app from an AI prompt, or from its existing collection of templates. Glide has templates for common business apps including CRMs, customer portals, inventory management systems, sales dashboard, and more.

Glide also lets you roll AI capabilities like natural language processing, and computer vision into your apps. The platform, very helpfully, also has a set of AI templates that you can customize as per your requirements. The platform is also beta testing a new feature that will help you build custom components that don’t exist in Glide by prompting AI.

Glide: Interface and Ease of Use

When you first sign into Glide, it’ll ask you to create an app using an AI prompt. The platform will then build the app, and suggest ways to improve your app.

As we mentioned earlier, in addition to using the AI prompt, you can also create an app from existing data. In this case, you’ll have to point Glide to your data wherever it resides. It’ll then look through the data, and automatically create an app for you.

In either case, you’ll end up in the Layout editor that’ll help you refine, and fine tune your apps.

Here, use the left sidebar to add, and manage screens to your apps, and also add components to the screens. The platform has several different kinds of screens, and each one relates to your data in a different way. There’s a Data tab on the bottom of the sidebar that you can use to quickly view the data for the currently selected screen.

In the middle of the screen you can preview, and interact with your app. You can switch between the mobile, and desktop views, and also view the screen as it would appear to different users.

On the right side of the interface, you can configure each screen and its components, tweak their appearance, and bind them to your data.

From the top of the interface, you can switch out from the Layout editor to tweak other aspects of your app. The Data tab takes you to the Data editor where you can view and edit the data. On the left, it’ll list all the imported and synced tables. From here you can modify your data, add new tables, sync external data sources, and more.

The Workflows tab brings up the Workflow editor, where you can create different types of custom Workflows. You can either create a workflow from scratch, or customize one of the six existing ones. For instance, there’s one that will intercept emails, and use AI to extract data and add them to your tables. Another will automatically respond to an email with AI.

Then there’s the Settings tab from where you can adjust your apps’ name, appearance, and other settings. When you’re done, use the Publish button in the top right corner to make your app public. All apps created with Glide are responsive, which means they look good on both desktops, and smartphones.

Glide: Integration and Extensibility

Glide not only allows you to connect to various data sources, but you can connect multiple data sources to a single Glide app. For instance, you could combine data from a PostgreSQL database with business data stored in Google Sheets.

You can also use Glide to connect your apps to all over 50 useful third-party business tools. For instance, you can get your app to interact with Asana to create, and delete tasks, and projects, or with DocuSign to sign a document, generate content with Google Gemini, and OpenAI, and a lot more.

Integrations in Glide can provide different features that can be used in various ways. Depending on the integration, you may need to grant permissions or enter secrets such as an API key. The project has detailed documentation on how to add and configure each of the supported integrations.

Glide: Deployment and Maintenance

Once you’ve created an app, use the Publish button to make it live. As it is with most no-code platforms, by default, all apps are published to a Glide subdomain.

The platform will also generate a QR code that you can scan to access the app from your smartphone. All Glide apps are Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), which means your device will give you the option to install, and use it like a native app.

Once an app is published, you can move it to a custom domain, or unpublish it. By default, all apps will be available to a restricted set of users. However, you can easily make the app accessible to anyone.

Also, since Glide apps are basically web-based, any changes you make to the app, or to the data in the connected data source, will automatically be reflected in the app without any manual intervention. This makes maintenance incredibly easy, and ensures that all users have access to the latest version of the app.

Glide: Pricing and Documentation

Glide has a tiered pricing model, starting with a feature-restricted Free tier. For instance, Free users can browse through the list of Free templates, but will need to upgrade to a paid plan to use them.

Paid plans start with the $60/month ($49/month billed annually) Maker plan. You can use this plan to connect your app with Google Sheets, import data from Excel, or CSV files, or use Glide’s own data sources.

The $249/month ($199/month billed annually) Business plan lets you use Airtable, and Excel as additional data sources over the Maker plan. To unlock all of the supported data sources, you’ll have to switch to the Enterprise plan, which is priced according to usage.

Also, remember that each plan also restricts the number of rows you can have in your app, and the list of available features. Furthermore, with the Maker plan you can only make your app available to users who sign in using a public email service, such as Gmail, or an education domain (.edu).

To complicate matters further, each plan has a limited number of updates. These are like credits that you consume to change, and sync data from external sources like Google Sheets, and Airtable. However, these don’t apply if you use Glide’s own data sources.

In terms of documentation, Glide has enough text and video resources to help you get started with the platform. It’ll teach you how to use the platform’s essential functions such as automations, and workflows. You can take your questions with the platform to Glide’s forum boards, though users on the paid tiers get priority support as well.

Glide: The Competition

There are lots of other no-code platforms, but Glide mainly competes with Softr, which also allows you to build apps from your existing business data.

While it originally started as an interface on top of Airtable, Softr too can now work with popular third-party databases, ranging from simple options like Google Sheets, to relational databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, and more. Glide however offers its own in-house data sources.

When compared to Softr, Glide offers a more robust platform with built-in workflow capabilities, and very handy AI-powered features. But that also gives it a stepper learning curve as compared to Softr.

Then there’s Bubble. Unlike Glide, which helps create data-driven apps for internal use, Bubble is more versatile, and can help create all kinds of SaaS platforms. Also, while Glide can create PWAs, if you want to create native mobile apps, there’s Adalo, which like Bubble can be used to spin up all kinds of business apps.

Glide: Final Verdict

Glide is a good option if you’re looking to quickly build data-driven apps without much effort. The platform combines ease of use with powerful features, which help make it appealing to both beginners and experienced users.

However, Glide has a complex pricing plan, and might turn out to be a little more expensive than its peers, depending on your exact use case.

That said, it has a lot going for it in terms of its seamless integration with popular data sources, intuitive interface, visual editors, and built-in automations, and customization options. These features make Glide a must try option for anyone looking to convert their existing business data into visually appealing PWAs.

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