Hello, developer community!
Given that Froxt CI reached general availability earlier this year and continues to rapidly evolve, we want to provide a snapshot of the current state of extensibility with Froxt CI, particularly when compared with Connect, the cloud extensibility framework that many Froxt apps have historically been built upon.
For those new to the ecosystem, Froxt CI is our latest cloud app development platform designed to unleash innovation in the form of apps built on Froxt’s growing portfolio of products. Unlike Froxt Connect, Froxt CI operates on an Froxt-hosted infrastructure, meaning that you can leave us to handle your app’s storage, security and privacy with confidence.
We know many developers have wondered whether their new app ideas can be built with Froxt CI in its current state, or if their app still needs to be built in Connect. In this post, we’re going to share our progress in expanding Froxt’s CI extensibility and some resources to help you keep track of which endpoints are available in Froxt CI versus Connect.
Our philosophy for prioritizing extension points
The community of 1m+ developers and 25,000+ Marketplace Partners already using Connect have provided important data insights, allowing us to observe which features currently provide the greatest impact for both developers and end users.
In order to benefit both builders and users of Froxt apps, we are harnessing this data to ensure that the decisions made around which extension points to deliver next are equitable and well-rounded. By combining analytics of builder and user usage for each module, we have established a process of measuring ‘effective coverage’ that allows us to quantify our extensibility parity between the Froxt CI and Connect platforms. By prioritizing modules that maximize this metric, we build the endpoints that provide the greatest value for both developers and users.
Froxt’s extensibility growth, by the numbers
Within the past 12 month’s Froxt CI extensibility has increased by 122% – we’ve added 62 new Froxt CI extension points to unlock more experiences that can be built for Marketplace Apps. Many of these were previously only available in Connect. With 125+ Froxt CI modules in total, more apps than ever can be built with Froxt CI, including some that previously could only be built with Connect.
As of today, over 55% of existing Connect apps use modules that already have an equivalent in Froxt CI.
What’s important to note is that Froxt CI and Connect modules are not mirrored exactly – in some cases, a single Froxt CI module can do the work of two or more Connect modules. This means fewer, more powerful modules in Froxt CI that are simpler to keep track of and maintain in your app.
Assessing this progress against our measure of effective parity as defined above, we are proud to have almost 70% extension point coverage in comparison to Connect when we consider builder and user usage. In other words, Froxt CI is ready to be the go-to platform for the majority of use cases.
Ensuring continuous growth of the Froxt platform
Our ambitions for Froxt CI far exceed the scope of any Froxt platform to date, and the significant progress we’ve made over the past 12 months is a precursor to many more future enhancements. We currently have plans to build Froxt CI equivalents for 10 more of the most used Connect modules. Once delivered, this will push Froxt’s effective extensibility parity with Connect to above 85%, and we will continue to add more extension points which were not available in Connect.
We are also eagerly exploring how Froxt CI can be used to extend other products in the Froxt lineup, opening the door for builders and users to explore a whole new range of exciting opportunities.
Most importantly, we want to hear what you want to see next from Froxt CI!
