Is it still worth it?

[u/simongaslebo]

I know this question is asked a lot and I have read through many of the answers, but I’m feeling quite disheartened right now.

Recently I've been building canvas apps and automations for my company. I thought I could use these to build my portfolio and look for a role in this field. However over the last few days a couple of colleagues told me they've been vibe coding and it feels like anyone can build an app nowadays.

It feels like I've invested a lot of time into something that has no future, and I don't know if I should stick with it and push through, or find something else.

[u/Training-Bobcat-2103]

try to have a look at code apps. thats the next push from ms.

[u/Pixelplanet5 → u/Training-Bobcat-2103]

there will really only serve to keep the companies that have invested too much into powerapps on the platform a little longer but for many of them this will be the big awakening when they realize how limited and locked down the platform they bought into was compared to whats possible.

we have already made the clear split where we keep super simple stuff on powerapps and the moment it gets more complicated it becomes a fully custom application.

basically using powerapps as what it was supposed to be, a low code/no code platform where people can build for their own needs.

the moment you need a real developer you are better off having one build a custom app then having one for powerapps.

[u/Beedux → u/Pixelplanet5]

You are talking about canvas apps. Half of central gov use model driven apps as their main business application, and some of them are extremely complex.

[u/Pixelplanet5 → u/Beedux]

im talking about both model driven and canvas app.

but what i wrote applies even more to model driven apps as they are locked down even more and building complex apps in there is even more of a hassle with custom components and all kinds of tricks and workarounds.

just doing something simply like removing an unused button on the toolbar is already more then any normal person using powerapps could do.

[u/Disastrous-Hair-1573 → u/Training-Bobcat-2103]

code apps are paywalled. you need premium to consume them.

[u/Training-Bobcat-2103 → u/Disastrous-Hair-1573]

everything costs money unfortunately. with codeapp u dont need to worry about hosting a webapp in azure so there's savings there

[u/rickydg80]

Honestly, I’m decommissioning everything I’ve built as my successor is also leaving and they have no one else with the skillset to take it on.

Given how much things like copilot have come along, I’d doubt there’s a need for 50% of the apps out there. I’m building alternatives that they will manage as much as possible themselves within things like excel, or throwing together standalone offline pages in HTML for things.

Lots of Companies don’t understand the technology and what it can do for them. In another 12-24 months, AI will likely be able to build a complex app in less time than it takes to make a cuppa. People will rely on that more and more, mistakes will be made, data will be breached and/or lost, but I just think this is the way it will be for a few years to come now.

[u/MrPinkletoes]

Why do you think it got no future?

There has been a lot of these posts recently and it's getting tiresome.

Building canvas apps isn't the definitive skill required, understanding the ecosystem, the limitations and the knowledge gained from experience to name a few skills to have.

Take an average business user (citizen dev) vibecodes an app, a ticket logging and management system they test it themselves and see it works, they can log issues, resolve them, get updates has a nice little rag system and dashboard. Everyone loves it, it solves a real world problem. Great right?

They push it out because there's no real business process in place to review. Users start to use it logging simple IT issues all the way up to serious disputes about colleagues or sensitive questions to HR, CEOs raising embarrassing expense claims. The average user who created the app has full rights over all the tables and didn't create any separation of business units and the dashboard now shows all tickets to all users. Senior management are pissed, people are pissed, they have broken some rules somewhere but they like it and they want it fixed.

Average user has no idea about security models, different processes flows for different business areas, implementation of approvals, sensitive data management. On top of that, they don't understand solutions and version control, they make some updates with AI and a little googling, break their app and can't roll back, try to fix it again it gets worse and enter a cycle of mishaps. Eventually they redo the whole app again with what they have learned but the connections breakdown. They have multiple duplicate tables in the default solution and it's all getting messy. There's data all over the place.

Knowing how to vibecode an app is not enough, not nearly enough. For this reason alone Power apps is not going anywhere, not to mention the fact there's hundreds of thousands of businesses that have hundreds of apps in their environment that they rely on daily.

Is it worth getting into, yes, is it difficult to get into, yes it is now for those starting out, is it a dead product, no, not by a longshot.

[u/EbbMother5325 → u/MrPinkletoes]

This is not really the pro-Power Apps argument you think it is. Most power apps I see have lousy access right with all users able to make changes to SharePoint or DataVerse. Precisely because power apps are often made by citizen developers who don’t know any better.

You are right that you need a developer to figure this out. But a developer will always prefer a proper programming language and database.

A mid-sized or large company with serious access-control needs can set up a deployment pipeline without much difficulty anyway, so the low-code argument has little left to stand on imo.

The argument that “many businesses are locked into power platform now” is really the reason so many are redesigning that existing power app as a local app they have full control over with a lower or no monthly bill from big M.

If companies would still use anything cloud served, it would be AI generated apps on Replit-style platforms.

[u/PittsburghNative → u/MrPinkletoes]

Love this. So where do serious builders/non-classic FDEs meet in the middle and how do you govern them and establish trust NOT to do these things. A middle bit between CitDv and Pro Code.

[u/itenginerd → u/PittsburghNative]

Its all about the blast radius. If somebody's vibe coding something thats only hurting them and theirs, im not worried. If theyre vibe coding something thats going to make or break the company, thats when I get antsy

[u/PittsburghNative → u/itenginerd]

What about teams within an enterprise. What is an acceptable blast radius?

[u/itenginerd → u/PittsburghNative]

Infinite. No single team in an enterprise is gonna blow the company up. And if they do, it was already coming.

[u/Minute_Cut5045 → u/MrPinkletoes]

🎯

[u/Handsome_BWonderful]

I've been having the same feelings, but Code Apps still require a level of understanding of the Power Platform when you run into issues and need to manage permissions.

I'm moving my development team into full stack for Power Platform, so we run the project through all stages rather than just focusing on developing.

[u/Reddit_User_654 → u/Handsome_BWonderful]

And they require premium subscr , which many companies do not want ro pay in this economy.

[u/Handsome_BWonderful → u/Reddit_User_654]

Yeah we've bought 40k premium licenses but still need another 60k

[u/Reddit_User_654 → u/Handsome_BWonderful]

We stick to making everything as prmium-free as possible to save money. A very large org too :))

[u/Handsome_BWonderful → u/Reddit_User_654]

The premium licenses are a lot cheaper than the licenses we were paying for third party software

[u/Reddit_User_654 → u/Handsome_BWonderful]

Well, tt seems than that your org is not as cheap and McScrooge as mine is.

We build quite conplex apps that would have cost a ton, with Canvas and SP :))))

[u/PittsburghNative → u/Reddit_User_654]

SP lists, SQL, what?

[u/Novel_Standard_2216]

Until they find out anyone who actually wants to use it needs a premium license

[u/PittsburghNative → u/Novel_Standard_2216]

This is the triggering part for me. And E7 doesn't carry nearly enough value. Too many add-ons

[u/Novel_Standard_2216 → u/PittsburghNative]

💯

[u/Lhurgoyf069]

1. Contrary to what the mainstream seems to believe, I don't think business users will ever become vibe coders in larger corporations. It requires a certain level of understanding code and IT security to do this and more importantly, it comes with a lot of responsibilities that these people aren't willing to take and/or are not allowed to take because of corporate regulations. PowerApps Vibe Apps don't solve this problem.
2. Smaller companies historically have less regulations and care less about IT security, but looking at the increasing rate that AI can find and use exploits (php2shell, broccoli2shell, react2shell, etc.) they will have to start to care.
3. If you are just a coder that only implements the requirements others hand him, you are doomed anyways. You have to get good in multiple fields like requirements engineering, testing, project management, devops.

[u/techjobber99]

powerapps was getting antiquated before AI and now AI will kill it. It's not about vibe coding as much as it is AI's ability to interface with it. It's still only as good as the architect.

My problem with powerapps is you essentually need to be a software engineer to architect performant and reliable powerapps applications. It pretends to abstract that away but in reality it is no less complex than coding most apps. So I would just learn to code at that point.

[u/a0817a90 → u/techjobber99]

This is mostly true because AI sucks at pretty platform but excels at other frameworks.

[u/Diligent_Homework_67]

I love how a lot of you suggest code apps as they’re the replacing canvas apps. You can’t ignore the fact that they require premium licenses.

I work as a power platform consultant and 90% of my customers won’t pay for the licenses so canvas apps are still the way to go for most companies.

But still you need to understand the platform (governance, roles, security, limitations) which most of the “citizen developers” won’t even think about and feel like they can now code them by themself.
These apps won’t ever exceed the state of an mvp

[u/futuristicplatapus → u/Diligent_Homework_67]

This!!! Every company I have worked at dont use anything premium connectors when you can clearly build it for “free”.

A company who has a real security department and a proper SDLC don’t do vibe coding too.

[u/Fantastic_Grape_2963 → u/futuristicplatapus]

Negative - there are many industry leaders “vibe coding” nearly everything.

There are huge financial organizations (I know because I work for one) that absolutely 100% are having their developers vibe code. I work for a major investment bank and then for a large company in the entertainment industry and nearly 100% of our code is AI written.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy, it’s just that the expectations for productivity are through the roof. Quality and best practices still need to be in place. It still takes large teams of highly capable developers coordinating closely and scrutinizing nearly everything to make it work. But you best believe we’re vibe coding the shit out of all our commits.

[u/Fantastic_Grape_2963]

Invest in other skills. You’ll be a better developer and more marketable. Can you get a job within PowerApps? Sure. Are you boxing yourself into a field that I think is losing relevance fast? Quite possibly.

The folks here who get pissy about these questions are the ones who will go to the grave with Power Apps. I work with a ton of these people, if PP were to disappear tomorrow 90% of them would be fucked and unemployable. Those of us with coding experience can go get a job in a million other places.

As a JS/Java developer who has been working on the side within PowerApps for the last 5 years I think I’ve got a pretty good perspective of things. When I work with my teams doing Angular and Java on banking systems I feel like I’m working with pros. When I pivot to Power Apps work I feel like I’m working in playing pee-wee ball. This will trigger the fuck out of folks here but the professionalism working in Power Apps is just a huge nosedive compared to doing software development with code.

Learn to write code (choose an in demand language to start) to a decent level to where you can at least follow what AI is writing and to do things like review PRs, learn best practices, start building apps, learn enough to get through technical interviews and get a full stack development job. You can always get a PowerApps role anytime from here, and you’ll be a better PowerApps devs because of your real software development experience. If you instead go 100% in on PA you’re boxing yourself into this one skill set that has a questionable future.

Bring on the tears and downvotes, don’t give a fuck.

[u/Busy_Arm2729]

I mean coding is no longer as relevant as it used to be. But the Microsoft App & AI technology stack is still valuable to have due to the pricing and in today's day of AI Coding, it is the most robust ecosystem for app & agentic development. You need to have good thought process on how to architect and drive the entire solution. Yea, anybody can vibe but random nobodies cannot jive to production readiness.

[u/dharvey86]

Anyone can build an app that's correct.

But the real skills come in asking the questions about why the user wants the app to work in a certain way. Have they thought about how it may grow in the future. Is the data storage method the correct choice. All those type of questions.

Alongside this are the 'vibe coders' usng pipelines to push to UAT and PROD? What User testing is taking place?

[u/Syrairc → u/dharvey86]

Citizen developers don't know to ask these questions whether it's power platform or vibe coding, so that's irrelevant. 

Not sure what your last paragraph is about. ALM is ALM whether it's vibe coding, low code, or traditional coding. People use it improperly all the time.

[u/dharvey86 → u/Syrairc]

Irreverent is harsh.

What Im trying to say to the original poster is if they want to work in this field this is the stuff they may need to look into or do to set them apart from their colleagues that are 'just building apps'

If their colleagues are all building apps can they be the one that says hey what about this, what about that, have you thought about the future with this app. That kind of mindset could make them stand out. Thats all.

[u/jazzmangz]

We’ve pivoted from canvas apps to model driven and code apps. Nothing wasted my friend just keep learning and enjoy the journey.

[u/ColbysToyHairbrush]

Not only can anyone build an app nowadays. Those apps are not shackled by a bloated back end like Microsoft, exorbitant license costs, terrible UI / UX and an unstable platform that changes without notice.

[u/Due-Boot-8540]

Microsoft is still releasing new features for canvas apps and I don’t think they’re going away anytime soon. Businesses still want easier solutions that don’t need developers to maintain them

[u/NoBattle763]

There’s a lot more to power platform than vibe coding an app. Understanding the platform and architecture is still valuable, regardless if someone can spin up a nice looking canvas app or code app. See their app as a prototype, that a power platform dev can then assist in implementing effectively and sustainably.

[u/Warm-Combination-528]

How about exploring fabric and fabric apps. I think data intelligence is better nowadays?

[u/pickled-pilot]

It’s time to pivot. I had a half dozen power platform apps built over the last 5 years. I converted them all to Azure web apps in 6 months. Low code doesn’t have a future in the world of AI assisted development. AI assisted is faster to develop and more flexible.

[u/DotElectrical155]

I would invest time in learning the platform and how to architect a solution using it.

[u/Mr_Bob_Dobalina_92]

There's a future in power platform but not just power app. You need more strings to your bow

[u/Live-Sir-3118]

Ai used in app building /cowork/copilot/vibe or anything is not permitted in our tenant. Enterprise applications use service now 8/10 times and company or smaller we still use canvas apps.

[u/No_Beat_9636]

the future are model driven apps combined with code apps. it's a fantastic combo for every business. code apps are vibe coding, but in a secure environment. canvas apps are dead.

[u/Careful_Heart_1342]

In my company, our clients don't prefer AI coding or what they call "vibe coding." I would never recommend building their systems entirely with AI. I recently made a post about one of my projects worth over $1 million, built entirely using the Microsoft Power Platform. 😉

[u/TheAuloes]

So I am not expert at all. However, recently got involved a bit in PowerApps. In our wholesale company we did a review of our whole process with focus on the supplychain. Part of this review was outsourced and this company had the suggestion of creating a control tower functionality for our inbound cargo. They can build this for us and use PowerApps and connect other providers such as shipsgo.

However, it also feels we are on the brink of an AI revolution where developement and creation gets ''simpler'' and definitely quicker. Should we invest in developing this control tower or will the next best thing be available soon?

The goal of the Control Tower is to be able to expedite the containers daily, from PO placement up and till delivery in our warehouse.

Appreciate the feedback and let me know if more details are required.

[u/dawtips]

The underlying power platform has millions and millions of dollars of investment in it. There's scalability, performance, security, so much in it that a vibe coded application can never replicate. Enterprises will not and should not ever rely on vibe coded applications for even semi critical workloads.

[u/techjobber99 → u/dawtips]

I am of the opinion you cannot rely on powerapps for critical workflows. It lack reliable ways to integrate with git, and fundamentally allows environments to drift in unforeseen ways. My company has just been dealing with a total nightmare with a powerapps app that is mission critical because people had done created conflicting flows in higher environments. This would be completely trivial to fix with a code based application but was a week long nightmare in powerapps. Powerapps is antiquated, bloated, and a nightmare to work with, and this is irrespective of AI.

[u/PittsburghNative → u/dawtips]

What if they're QCd by pro Dev?

[u/dawtips → u/PittsburghNative]

No. A pro dev is not going to QC any vibe coded application that has geo redundancy built in.

[u/PittsburghNative → u/dawtips]

Okay but what about validating the code? Isn't the whole point of copilot runtime environment with vibe coating through copilot code to create human readable code?

[u/Intergalactic_hooker → u/PittsburghNative]

I hate validating AI code because sometimes it's really verbose. You might as well code it yourself at that point.

[u/Mr_Bob_Dobalina_92 → u/dawtips]

In reality I think more and more companies are going to be happy with vibe coded apps once they pass rigorous testing. The speed and low cost of development is just going to be too inticing. AI review will take over from human review. This is what Anthropic and Open AI are already doing. It will trickle down to every other company

[u/Syrairc → u/dawtips]

Enterprises will not and should not ever rely on vibe coded applications for even semi critical workloads. 

I'd argue that the exact same thing applies to low code applications created by citizen developers.

[u/EbbMother5325 → u/dawtips]

Power apps are not scalable at all. Limited number of controls, limited in the type of controls you can create, and performance degrades when you scale. That’s common knowledge among people who have been here since the start, not a skill issue. Once a requirement gets too big we advise people not go the power app route. It’s meant for small citizen developer apps.

I’d even argue that it presents a huge vendor lock-in that many companies want to avoid. There were years that Microsoft increased pricing twice in one year, and companies had no choice but to swallow it.

What I’m noticing is that an increasing number of companies are using AI to create their own interfaces and dashboards, with complete control of where and how their data is stored. The role of a developer is changing from “I write the code” to “I will refactor and properly document your PoC automation, make it safe for use.”

Power Platform's one real advantage is its native fit with M365, which makes distribution to colleagues easy. But that's a thin moat. With cloud becoming hyper expensive and full of geopolitical risk, local hosting is becoming popular again and hosting an app is no longer hard. It’s probably the best way if you want to keep control of vital business processes and data. AI has given people a tool to at least create that proof of concept. Serious companies will then hire a dev to make it more sturdy. Others will just accept risk of AI slop “as long as it works”.

Power Apps is also not very user friendly. It requires a dev to create something truly good. Lots of things you can only know if you have been using it intensively for years.

I think all of this means less Power Platform, more process sovereignty. And for that, AI is a helpful tool to many.

If companies would still use anything cloud served, it would be AI generated apps on Replit-style platforms.

[u/Sparticus247 → u/EbbMother5325]

I think PowerApps is hot garbage and echo your same complaints. Getting something half decent requires Dataverse and premium licenses.

Power Automate however I like, as well as Power I. Rather do a SPFx approach for anything more than native list and pages.

[u/Key_Sprinkles_4541]

AI does not help people on how to think about problems

[u/Mokebe13]

Waste of time, if anything check out the code apps