Marketplace
How does the Mendix Marketplace speed up development?
Mendix is integrated with the Mendix Marketplace, which contains components built by both Mendix and the Mendix community to help developers build applications faster. Developers can:
- Source components from the community
- Get support to solve their use cases
- Collaborate and share knowledge with other developers in the community
In the Public Marketplace, users can find content created and supported by Mendix, components supplied by the community, and partner offerings. With over 1,500 components available (modules, widgets, connectors, services, starter apps, and solutions), everyone can contribute to the Marketplace and enrich the use cases in the catalog.
The Private Marketplace lets companies privately share company content with other platform users. It is controlled and curated by administrators, which means the content adheres to specific company guidelines. Developers can easily find the available company-approved reusable components, including starter apps.
The Marketplace is fully integrated into Mendix Studio Pro. Developers can directly search for reusable components and load them into the project model with a single click of the “Download” button.
For more information, see Marketplace Overview in the Marketplace Guide.
What types of reusable components are available in the Mendix Marketplace?
The Mendix Marketplace offers a rich repository of reusable components that can significantly accelerate development productivity. These components are shared in the Mendix community as open-source components or commercial products.
Starter apps
Sample projects that have certain capabilities in place to provide a basis for developers to start building a new app. Developers can use company starter apps that already have some features configured.
For example, it may include company branding or a list of certain integrated components. Apart from company-specific templates, various community templates are available in the Marketplace.
Services (incl. connectors)
Services usually include APIs that users can interact with by configuring a connection in the app’s module. In the Marketplace, developers can find free connectors to the external services (e.g. a large variety of AWS connectors ) or find the offerings of the external services supported by our partners.
Widgets
A Mendix widget is a part of the app’s user interface (UI) that enables functionality and interaction.
Mendix provides several dozen widgets out of the box, and additional widgets are available from the Mendix Marketplace. Explore a full overview of Mendix-supported widgets.
In addition to the widgets provided by Mendix, any developer can build additional custom widgets and upload these to the Marketplace.
Modules
A module is a self-contained application component that can be reused in multiple applications.
The modules available in the Mendix Marketplace can be added to an app to provide new functionality with accompanying domain models and security options. These Marketplace modules function similarly to the modules developers create for the apps themselves.
How can we maximize the reuse of components and lower development costs and time?
Organizations can set up their own Private Marketplace to ensure their developers can access company-owned content. This means only company members can see and use it. It is possible to filter such products directly in Studio Pro.
As an example, if a company shares a library of pre-built, reusable components via Private Marketplace, this organization can ensure consistency in the user experience and functionality across different applications.
Alternatively, they can be shared as a company starter template so that every application uses the same basis containing company branding, styling, various required modules or widgets, configurations, and other features to help developers make applications consistent within a company.
Encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing among developers by fostering a community around marketplace components and app development using public/private spaces in Community. Developers can exchange ideas, ask questions, and share experiences related to using marketplace components.
Also, admins can set content groups that a certain team can collaborate on, update and work on assigned Marketplace content to improve the available resources within the company and publicly. Read more about the Private Marketplace.
How do we govern the use of marketplace components?
Curated Private Marketplace. Admins can be in control of a private marketplace and curate what content is being published internally and what is accessible to all developers.
This way, companies can encourage developers to share quality content with rich documentation, versioning information, and usage guidelines to help other colleagues kick start their development easily.
For more information, see the Private Marketplace guide.
Recommend public content. Some organizations have established governance policies and guidelines including specific rules of use of marketplace components.
To translate those policies into the platform, we enable companies to specify such criteria for selected public Marketplace components and ensure that developers know which content is recommended for usage by their Company Admin.
How can I trust the content that’s offered in the Marketplace?
Mendix offers platform-supported content that regularly undergoes security checks. There is also a dedicated partner program, where Mendix Partners sign a contract to ensure they provide quality content with regular updates and support to their users.
The Mendix Marketplace is driven by contributions from members of the community who share the connectors, modules, and apps they have built with the Mendix platform.
Each product has a product details page, created upon upload to the Public or Private Marketplace using this flow, where users can check the description and documentation, release notes, and version information compatible with the used Mendix Studio Pro version.
It is possible to download a product, perform various security company checks, and label content as recommended.
In addition, reviews and ratings provided by other users of the marketplace components indicate if a component is reliable and effective in a specific use case or if it has some issues or drawbacks to consider.
