DEV Community

Cover image for App Generator - Developer Tools
Sm0ke
Sm0ke

Posted on • Updated on

App Generator - Developer Tools

Hello Coder,

When I start a new project, I have a simple checklist that helps me to deliver faster. The first thing is to avoid reinventing the wheel and to pass it, I'm using boilerplate code written by me or by other developers. The second item on my checklist is to scan the market for new technologies I can use to be more productive.


Thank you! Content provided by App Generator.


Using an app generator, sometimes those two things from my checklist can be combined and delivered at once by a single tool. In my opinion, a good app generator should provide at least three things:

  • A significant part of the source code for my app
  • The boilerplate code should be generated in modern technologies
  • Stable and tested source code

This article presents a short-list with app generators that I've used in my projects or tools that look very promising but they aren't production-ready yet. Thank you for reading!


TeleportHQ app generator

TeleportHQ is a platform and a suite of open-source tools built for user interface professionals. It simplifies the process of creating, maintaining and publishing user interfaces for desktop and mobile devices. TeleportHQ uses AI to analyze the user's intentions and augments the final result with real-time optimizations.

TeleportHQ App Generator - Gif animated intro.

TeleportHQ links


GatsbyJS app generator

GatsbyJS is a free and open-source app generator based on React that helps developers build blazing-fast websites and apps. This generator uses GraphQL to read information from various sources (headless CMSs, Markdown, YAML files) and translate all that content in blazing-fast apps. Maybe is not relevant, but all my blogs are powered by GatsbyJS.

GatsbyJS App Generator - Gif animated intro.

GatsbyJS links


Nextjs app generator

Nextjs is a React framework built by Zeit capable of generating SSR and JAMstack apps styled with CSS-in-JS. Nextjs Documentation is great but lacks on a single point: there are no official starters to play and test the technology.

Nextjs App Generator - Gif animated intro.

Nextjs links


Gridsome app generator

Gridsome in one sentence is GatsbyJS but for Vue. The whole product pattern is mirrored: information is read by GraphQL from various sources (YAML, headless CMS, Markdown) and injected into JAMstack apps ready to be deployed on Netlify, Zeit NOW and other modern platforms.

Gridsome App Generator - Gif animated intro.

Gridsome links


Quasar app generator

Quasar is a high performance, Material Design 2, full front-end stack for Vue.js that provides a single code-base for all platforms simultaneously through Quasar CLI with all the latest and greatest best practices out of the box.

Quasar App Generator - Gif animated intro.

Quasar links


Full-Stack app generators

AppSeed App Generator

I must say from the beginning this is my startup, witch encapsulate my whole R&D work for the last two years. The code generation process is split into two steps.

  • Flat HTML themes are parsed and converted to various template engines: PUG, Jinja2, Blade using an interactive HTML parser
  • The HTML components and layouts are injected into simple Nodejs, Python and Php boilerplates already coded with authentication, ORM and database connectors.

Sample apps (MIT license): Admin Dashboards, JAMstack, Full-Stack Vue, React

AppSeed App Generator - Gif animated intro.


App Generators & Related tools


This is an open list, feel free to suggest more or AMA in the comments. Thank you!

Top comments (0)