Good day guys I am trying to find out if Defold is good for making non game apps like an E-Commerce app for example. I cant find any info on this in the forums or on the web. Thanks
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Defold is primarily a game engine with a feature set suitable for creating games. It does have a basic GUI system with more advanced extensions for GUI and screen management, but it is likely not going to be enough for an enterprise app which I assume is very UI heavy?
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Thank you, I really like the Lua Language and Defold for making games but guess I will have to try another program for what I need to do.
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It’s possible, but native UI is always preferable. With some mad skills you can use native UI with Defold, but it’s way too hard.
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Yh I figured it would be a lot harder to do it in Defold, possible but way too time consuming
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To preach to the choir. I have made a small app for a Homebrew system that adds Pokémon to Dungeons and Dragons (called Pokemon5E). The app is only GUI you can see “a preview” of it here https://jerakin.itch.io/pokedex5e
The thing it lacks is “polish”. There is a lot of work to get things that would have been simple to add in flutter to work in Defold. I have to say if I were to do a similar app I would most likely not pick Defold (even though i love the engine).
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Not to hijack or anything but the pokedex doesn’t run on my desktop, tested in chrome and safari. A bunch of suspicious errors in the console 
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Yeah, it is super outdated (people use the iOS and Android versions so I don’t pay attention to the HTML5 one). I found it super annoying to dev for html5 as even if Build HTML works fine the Bundle -> HTML5 might not work and you get no information on what’s wrong. So I kind of just stopped updating the HTML5 version.
Which engine/system would you recommend for these mobile “UI heavy” app?
Well, if you want to develop a traditional application then I think I’d recommend a native app (ie Java/Kotlin for Android, ObjC/Swift for iOS etc). Or maybe one of these new fancy frameworks such as React Native or Flutter.
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Flutter is cool. Xamarin is still a valid option, but I probably wouldn’t mess with it, instead I’d use probably Kotlin and SwiftUI for native part and have some cross-platform module with shared code.
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why do not we have any simple non game apps yet?
something.cool.lj, if you are still searching a game engine which can make games as well as some business apps(clock, calender), you can directly check out the website of Corona sdk game engine.
as an old corona sdk programmer, check_url: https://coronalabs.com/blog/2013/10/09/a-look-inside-a-sample-corona-powered-business-app/
do not worry about the language. it’s main language is the lua language. if you do not any about lua, the engine lets you to code in native languages.
but we are sorry. the defold community do not make at least one app(calender, clock, video) yet.
and i will hope that defod engine will make sample app… i am waiting for that…
thank you
Defold is a game engine. You may be able to use it to create apps, but that is not why Defold was created. I cannot stress this enough. If you want to create utility apps then use something else.
By focusing all our efforts on the creation of a game engine with a limited but not limiting feature set we are able to maintain a small and performant engine core. If we add the functionality needed to create mobile apps, not games, or add a lot of high level functions all our efforts quickly go out the window and we end up with a bloated engine.
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do you scold to me?
please be patient as a defolder. okey?
and also, i am a customer of defold company.
do not remember that CUSTOMER IS THE KING.
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I do not. I am simply stating a fact.
You say: “why do not we have any simple non game apps yet?” and “i will hope that defod engine will make sample app… i am waiting for that…”
I am explaining why. Defold is a game engine. We will not focus our efforts to create a tool that appeals to app creators. We target game developers that value a small, performant, cross platform game engine that is perfect for the creation of 2D and 2.5D games.
You are using a free product. And while we value the feedback of our users we also reserve the right to not always agree with our users.
I understand that you have prior experience with Corona and you are used to things being in a certain way. But that doesn’t mean that all other game engines must be like Corona. All engines are different. Chose the tool that is right for you. If you want to create apps then do not use Defold. If you want to create games, then please by all means take Defold for a spin!
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okey okey, i am sorry. i did a false.
okey. i am proud to be a defolder.
thank you britzl.
can you give me sorry?
I was developing a to-do app in Defold, using Playfab as a backend and only Defold’s GUI as a frontend. I never released it, because while searching a market I found a million of similar, better apps, but it was a pleasure and I think Defold is good for making an app, but you must take care of the backend (if you think about something requiring web services) 
And nowadays there are plenty of amazing GUI assets like Gooey and Druid for Defold, that allows to make a responsive, beautiful UI.
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that is right