Choosing AWS front-end web and mobile services

Are you developing an app for web or mobile? This will guide your choices in design and tooling. Answers to the business requirements questions will guide and inform your decision about the development framework you may want to use. If you are developing:

• a web app, consider the frontend JavaScript framework you will be using. Common examples are React, Next.js, Vue, Angular, Astro, and Svelte.
• a mobile app, your choice of framework will depend on which mobile operating system you developing for – including popular choices such as Android, iOS, or Unity.

Your choice of framework is important, but it’s worth noting that it might actually not be a choice. In many cases, your business requirements will indicate that you need to develop for both. For example, if your app is designed to host an online store, you’ll likely want customers to be able to access it with a mobile app and on the web.
 

To keep your app’s asset delivery times quick, you’ll want to host your static assets close to your users. Consider using AWS Amplify Hosting, a fully managed hosting service, powered by Amazon CloudFront with hundreds of points of presence globally, for static and server-side rendered apps. 

AWS Amplify Hosting supports:

• Client-side rendered (single-page application), including frameworks such as React, Angular, and Vue
• Server-side rendered (SSR), where supported frameworks include Next, Nuxt, and Gatsby
• Static site generators (SSGs), including solutions such as Gatsby, Eleventy, Hugo, VuePress, and Jekyll

You’ll probably design an application programming interface (API) to allow users to query data for your app on AWS. You can use GraphQL or REST. The key differences between these two approaches are:

• GraphQL is an API query language that defines specifications of how a client application should request data from a remote server. For frontend development, AWS AppSync supports GraphQL.
• REST enables client applications to exchange data with a server using HTTP verbs, which is the standard communication protocol of the internet. For frontend development, AWS Amplify, Amazon API Gateway, and AWS Lambda together support REST.

GraphQL speeds up application development by providing a single endpoint to query and update data from multiple databases, microservices, and APIs. It can improve your performance by making fewer network requests to query data from the backend and reduces the amount of data sent to web and mobile clients.
 

Another key consideration is how your client will communicate with your server—and how quickly. Consider how often your client will request or need data, and how fresh that data needs to be. You are looking at one of two common scenarios for how you'll communicate:

• In real time – If you need real-time or near-real-time communication, such as with a chat app or a dashboard for monitoring IoT device health, consider using the following. Keep in mind that these options require more battery life and memory usage, so they’ll probably increase your cost. This kind of communication can include:
  
  • Constantly active WebSockets
  • Very frequent timed polling
• Not in real time – If it doesn’t significantly degrade usability for your users to refresh their view manually, or if you need new data loaded only on application or view entry, consider a simple unidirectional communication model.
  

Your choice will help guide you when you start looking at the capabilities of each AWS frontend web and mobile service.

Consider what kind of database best supports your use case. If you have flexibility in choosing your database, consider what native integrations exist with AWS services. For example, both AWS Amplify and AWS AppSync natively support integration with Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Aurora Serverless. Read Choosing an AWS database service for more information about the database options that AWS offers.

Your database selection might not be an option. If this is the case, consider how to connect your existing database to the AWS services for building and deploying your app.  

What happens to your app when your users are offline? Do you want users to still be able to access their data? If so, you might want to build offline support for the app and asynchronous data loading into the app to help users get what they need in near-real time. Amplify DataStore, for example, provides a persistent on-device storage engine to support offline access.  

Where will your users be located when they use your app? You might need to consider where your app users will need to access their data. If you plan to support users globally or in a specific locale, that information will help you plan your latency and your required points of presence.

In addition, you might consider adding geospatial data and location functionality to your app. You can use Amazon Location Service, for example, to add capabilities to your app such as maps, points of interest, geocoding, routing, geofences, and tracking.

When building apps on AWS, you can use a serverless approach or containers approach. Overall, building serverless-first helps you harness more efficiency in the cloud, while a containers approach gives you more control. This guide focuses on a serverless development strategy.

Your development strategy might not be initially a choice if it’s already determined in your business requirements. If you’re planning to use a containers approach, see Containers at AWS for resources.