Oracle has announced making its popular APEX low-code development platform available as a managed cloud service for app developers to quickly and easily build data-driven enterprise applications. Oracle APEX Application Development platform has been designed with two decades of easy-to-use, browser-based APEX functionality already used by 500,000 developers to create modern web and mobile apps. 

According to its official release, while the original APEX platform was only available as part of the Oracle Database, the new APEX Application Development will be available as a standalone service and capable of working with a variety of applications. Running on Oracle’s cloud infrastructure (OCI), APEX’s price starts at $360 per month, providing support for more than 500 users with unlimited applications.

Recent study data shows that developers could build enterprise applications 38x faster with the Oracle APEX service without learning complex, full-stack technologies. Therefore, developers who are interested in easy, app development without complex coding can leverage this low-code platform to build applications for free.

The official release further stated that the applications that are built using the APEX would be benefitted from high security, scalability, and performance provided by Oracle Autonomous Database. This, in turn, allows developers to focus on solving business problems and not the underlying technology.

Andrew Mendelsohn, the executive vice president of database server technologies, Oracle believes that the new APEX service will also enable teams like business analysts and citizen developers to rapidly create and deploy data-driven applications with minimal effort. 

“APEX is powerful enough to build the vast majority of business applications. Building data-driven applications with traditional coding should now be the exception rather than the rule,” said Mendelsohn.

Pre-configured with Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) and SQL Developer Web, APEX service allows developers to utilise ORDS for creating custom REST APIs against their application data. They can also use SQL Developer Web to create SQL queries and graphically model data. APEX also allows traditional coding if the business requires.

Oracle’s APEX architecture provides extremely tight integration with the database, allowing a 10x reduction in round trips between the application and the database. Additionally, APEX service allows developers to fully harness the power and simplicity of SQL, stated the official release.

The APEX service comes with everything required to build and run low-code applications, with no extra fees. It is also fully managed so that the customers do not need to manage their application platform, database or infrastructure. 

Learn more about APEX Application Development here.