Recently, AWS announced the general availability (GA) of AWS Amplify Studio, a visual interface that simplifies front- and backend development for web and mobile applications. It extends the existing AWS Amplify service, a set of tools and features to help developers get started faster with configuring various AWS services to support their backend use cases such as user authentication, real-time data, and file storage.
The company released Amplify Studio as a preview during re:Invent 2021, and its GA release now includes some new features such as support for UI event handlers, component theming, and improvements in how developers can extend and customize generated components from code.
A key aspect of AWS Amplify is its integration with Figma, a web-based graphics editor and prototyping tool with Windows and Mac versions, and a mobile app for Android and iOS. Moreover, the integration with Figma allows designers and front-end developers to collaborate on design and development activities. For example, developers simply drag new component designs from Figma into their application in Amplify Studio to keep in sync as designs change. And lastly, the completed UI is automatically converted into JavaScript or TypeScript, providing developers complete control over the design and functionality of the application.
Source: https://aws.amazon.com/amplify/studio/
Ali Spittel, lead developer advocacy at AWS Amplify, stated in a Front-End Web & Mobile AWS blog post:
Amplify Studio was built to make developers' lives easier and smooth the designer-developer handoff. The code being easy to modify and extend is critical – there are multiple ways for developers to do so with Amplify Studio-generated components.
In addition, Steve Roberts, a senior developer advocate focused on .NET and PowerShell development on AWS, explains in an AWS news blog post on Amplify Studio what other benefits developers will have:
From within Amplify Studio, developers can also take advantage of AWS Amplify Hosting services, Amplify's fully-managed CI/CD, and hosting service for scalable web apps. This service offers a zero-configuration way to deploy the application by simply connecting a Git repository with a built-in continuous integration and deployment workflow. Deployment artifacts can be exported to tools such as the AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK), making it easy to add support for other AWS services unavailable directly within Amplify Studio.
Amazon is a latecomer with its low- and no-code offerings. In 2015 Microsoft introduced PowerApps, a part of the later branded Power Platform, to allow power-users or "citizen" developers to build custom applications solving business problems. Furthermore, in January 2020, Google acquired AppSheet, a start-up with no-code application-development tools. With their low-code and no-code offerings, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and several others like Salesforce, Mendix, and Outsystems are in a market that Forrester predicts will grow by 50% a year to more than $21 billion by 2024.
Christian Nwamba, a senior developer advocate at AWS, wrote in a dev.to blog post:
Since many software teams adopt the low-code tool, Amplify Studio is one to consider. It significantly reduces the manual development work involved in building an application interface.
Currently, AWS Amplify Studio is available in the US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (N. California), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Canada (Central), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), Europe (Paris), Europe (Stockholm), Middle East (Bahrain), and South America (São Paulo) regions.
Lastly, developers can find more details and guidance on the documentation page.