The Case for Xojo

We’ve gathered some of the questions Xojo developers commonly get when pitching Xojo to their clients. Read on to learn how Xojo can save you and your clients time and money.

Why should we consider Xojo?

If you want to be able to build great-looking apps in a fraction of the time it would take with another tool, then Xojo is for you. Xojo uses native controls on each platform so you get a better looking user interface and user experience, plus you’ll automatically get the features the Operating System provides, like spell-checking or accessibility. If you're using a language that takes shortcuts and uses non-native controls, that means they are not using the Operating System itself under the hood so your project can’t take advantage of those features. Xojo apps will last longer because as the Operating System changes and as features get added, native Xojo apps automatically take advantage of that.

Development time can be significantly less when developing with Xojo. In fact, we have heard from Xojo users who built their apps in 20% of the time it took with other tools. How does Xojo help you develop faster? One way is the drag and drop user interface builder. Another is, as opposed to platforms that have thousands of APIs that you need to learn, Xojo abstracts you from the platform details. You’ll save time because you can focus on what makes your application unique and not worry about learning all of these time-consuming APIs.

Wouldn't it be safer to go with a more well-known development tool?

Consider the competitors Xojo started out against in the 90's - which of those tools are currently supported, which are still owned by the same company and which are growing? Not VB6, not Apple's MPW, Borland Delphi or Metrowerks CodeWarrior - but Xojo is. Betting on a well-known tool, from a big company doesn't necessarily offer long-term security or support. Xojo has been around for over 25 years. We added iOS and Raspberry Pi support within the last few years, as well as native M1 / Apple Silicon support and we are planning for the future of Xojo with Android support coming up next.

It's true that Xojo is not as well known as C#, Java, JavaScript, Swift or VB, but that concern is usually centered around finding qualified software developers to build and maintain a project. There are hundreds of thousands of Xojo developers scattered across the globe. With users on every continent it's not difficult to find Xojo developers. Xojo even offers a Consulting list for those who are looking to hire qualified candidates.

For those who aren't familiar with Xojo, it's a modern, object-oriented language with a dot syntax that is very easy to learn for anyone coming from VB, JavaScript, Java and other languages similar to those. This means that experienced developers new to Xojo can get up to speed quickly.

What about developers worried about being dependent upon Xojo itself?

It’s no secret that professional developers don’t usually write all of the software themselves. They find and use third party libraries, third party apps, or depend on open-source projects without the intention of becoming an expert in these resources. Developers use these things to save time and development effort. And using Xojo is no different. If you try to remove all of the potential dependencies in your projects, then your costs are going to go sky high, in addition to all of the additional time spent starting from scratch. It's just not practical in most cases to be completely independent.

What if Xojo just disappears one day?

Software products don't just disappear one day, that's not how it happens. If a software product is not updated, then it can fade away over time. We, however, keep Xojo on a treadmill - we are constantly updating it. There was a time when we only supported PowerPC and were Mac only. Now we support x86, ARM processor, and M1. Plus you can develop for the Mac, Windows, Linux, the web, iOS and we are working on Android, and we also support the Raspberry Pi. Xojo has been cashflow positive, continuously modernized, and has a thriving community, so it's not going to just disappear one day. But even if it did, It would continue to function for years allowing you the time you'd need to redevelop your application in some other language.

Xojo has been a shipping, modern development tool since 1998. Few other languages and tools have been around that long and are as modern as Xojo. We relentlessly update Xojo to support the latest and greatest technologies and platforms. For the most part, Xojo is built with Xojo.

With any development tool there is a point in which it may no longer be viable. But when that happens, you typically have a lot of runway. VB6 is a great example, Microsoft stopped supporting it years ago and lots of people continue to use it. There are other factors to consider too - Xojo has been around for over 25 years and we’ve seen many development tools come and go.

Similarly, like languages, no project lasts forever. Most people build software that will be in use for 5-10 years and then it's not needed anymore or a new project is built. If you have a rare project that does last decades, technology changes will force you have to re-develop, regardless of the language you choose. When we started, web apps were not a consideration when choosing a development platform and there were certainly no mobile apps. But today you have to consider which platform is the right choice for your project. Will it be a desktop app? Will you support mobile? Will there be a web component? Technology generally requires re-development at some point. Xojo has you covered for all of those options.

What is the real risk of going with Xojo?

There's a risk no matter what language you choose. Given how often IT projects fail, the risk of using one of the more mainstream languages is that it will simply take too long to finish the project. Using Xojo goes a very long way to mitigating that risk by dramatically reducing the cost of getting to version 1.0 of your project. It also reduces the cost of reaching other platforms once they become important to you because Xojo provides the same language, IDE and API for all the supported platforms. What you can see from our history is that we have stuck to our vision of providing the fastest tool for building software for more than two decades now.

In Summary

Large companies have more resources than small ones, but that's not always a positive. The Mythical Man Month explains that every extra developer you add to a team decreases the overall productivity due to the overhead of communication and coordination. Big companies also have a lot of bureaucracy that small companies do not. In general, big things are slow and lumbering while small things are agile and fast.

Choosing Xojo means choosing to work with a team that is accessible. If you have a big project and an important problem to solve, you can reach the people you need to reach all the way up the Founder and CEO, if necessary. That's hardly the case with the mainstream languages provided by large companies.

The Xojo team is incredibly dedicated and here to help. Please reach out to us with questions or concerns at hello@xojo.com.


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