Dartvel vs Power Apps

Power Apps is how a Microsoft 365 organisation builds its own apps: canvas apps written in Power Fx, model-driven apps over Dataverse, over a thousand connectors to the systems a company already runs, and Entra ID sign-in, governance and Copilot on top. Dartvel covers the same ground from the other end. Studio builds pages, data models and functions in a browser, and what it builds is a Dart project in your repository that compiles to one server you run and to native apps you publish under your own name.

Every Power Apps user needs a licence: Premium is 20 US dollars per user per month, paid yearly. Dartvel is free to build and run, with no per-user fee.

A Power Apps app runs in Microsoft's cloud and in its player apps. A Dartvel app is a server binary on your own machine and apps built for phones, desktops, the web and TVs.

Power Fx is the Power Platform formula language. Dartvel is Dart, from the page builder down to the database.

Power Apps: Canvas and model-driven app designers, and code apps in React or Vue

Dartvel: Studio: pages, data models and records, free, served by your own binary

Power Apps: Power Fx formulas, Power Automate flows, and Dataverse plug-ins in C#

Dartvel: Frontend and backend function builders, and Dart beside them

Power Apps: Dataverse, plus over a thousand connectors and custom ones from OpenAPI

Dartvel: Data models on SQLite, Postgres or MySQL, and outbound HTTP to the hosts you declare

Dartvel: Your own accounts, passkeys, a second factor, and Microsoft, SAML or LDAP sign-in

Power Apps: Browsers, and the Power Apps players for iOS, Android and Windows

Dartvel: Web, Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux, TVs, and browser and editor extensions

Power Apps: Wrap packages a canvas app for iOS and Android; each user still needs a licence

Dartvel: Every build is your own app, in your own store listing

Dartvel: Offline data models that sync when the server is back, partial

Power Apps: Premium 20 US dollars per user per month, paid yearly; pay-as-you-go is also offered

Power Apps: An exported app imports only into another Power Apps environment

A Power Apps licence is per person using the app, and a premium connector or Dataverse makes the app premium. An app for fifty people inside the company costs a thousand US dollars a month at list price, and a site for customers is a separate product, Power Pages. A Dartvel app has no per-user charge: the cost of a thousand users is the server they use.

// a data model: its form, table and admin are generated
@DVModel()
class const _Request({
  required final String id,
  required final String title,
  final String status = 'open',
});

// Request.Form(), Request.Table() and Request.Admin()

If your company runs on Microsoft 365, Power Apps is already there: SharePoint lists, Teams, Outlook, Excel and Entra ID are connectors and sign-in you do not set up, and Dartvel reaches them only through their APIs.

Over a thousand connectors, an on-premises data gateway, data loss prevention policies, managed environments and Dataverse security roles are years of governance an IT department can switch on. Dartvel has policies and tenancy, and none of the admin centre around them.

Copilot builds a first version of an app and its tables from a description. Studio has no AI that builds an app for you.

Today, yes: Dartvel gives you one server binary, and running it is your job until Dartvel Cloud opens. Power Apps needs no server of yours at all.

Business apps built visually, in a project you own and host.

What each one gives you.

Who pays when the app gets more users.

Where Power Apps is ahead today.

Dartvel next to the tools people ask about.