Build app with zip file or url

monday Apps & Developers
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1

Hi monday team, could you please help me point the advantage from building app via uploading zip file instead of url. I need the answer to apply to our app.
Thank you.

2

Uploading a zip file instead of using a url comes with a few advantages:

  1. monday.com trusts that the app is secure in terms of location, since of course the app lives within monday.com itself and this helps with the review process.
  2. Since the app lives within monday.com itself, some users are comfortable using it because ā€˜data is out transferred outsideā€™
  3. monday.com automatically handles minor app updates for you. That is, when you upload a new minor version of your app, users are automatically transferred to the new minor update when they open the app (usually this happens when they refresh their page with the app open).
  4. You donā€™t have to worry about hosting the app and any other maintenance that may come up with hosting the app yourself since it is hosted in monday.com

These are the few points I could come up with. Others may have more

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3

Disadvantages of uploading a zip:

  • the app has to be client side only; no server side logic
  • you have to upload a new zip for any changes, triggering a new minor version; whereas if you host it, some changes can be made without monday.com even knowing :slight_smile:
  • itā€™s harder to fit into your CI/CD workflow than hosting yourself

Btw: Just do whatā€™s best for you though.

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4

@dvdsmpsn mind explaining what you mean by

Because when you upload a zip file to monday, you can still send requests to a server

5

@dvdsmpsn , @kolaai Thank you so much for the great information

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6

OK, I may have this wrong but, when uploading a zip, you are essentially publishing a static ā€œwebsiteā€ consisting of HTML, JS & CSS. All the JS will run on the client side.

If you host the app yourself, as well as the client-side stuff, you can add server-side logic, as required, in whatever language you wish.

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7

@dvdsmpsn @kolaai I have another question. Is the performance of the app different between these 2 ways? For example about loading time.
Currently, my app take 5 second for loading completely, Iā€™m using build app by url. Iā€™m looking for a way to improve it

8

Uploading an app through zip does not constrain you in any way. The constraints applied by monday.com for apps running in the iframe applies to both scenarios, that is zip upload or by url. You can liken the zip upload to FTP. Anything that happens on a server can still be accessed by the app that was uploaded using the zip process, just like the url site.

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I havenā€™t measured this so I canā€™t really tell but what I can say is that, it is likely zipped apps within monday.com could load faster as compared to those accessible by url since the zipped apps are located within monday.comā€™s servers

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