>Hi there, I'd like to know if anybody tried Lianja and if yes your opinion about it
>
>thank you Alessio

Hi Alessio,

I've been following Lianja for nearly 3 years now. Disclosure: I'm also a Lianja MVP.

In my day job and with my clients, we are moving to Lianja. Here are my takeaways:

1) it's not a simple "port your program and run it." It's a whole different mindset, in terms of writing an app that can run on the desktop in app mode, in the desktop in a browser, on a tablet and on smartphone.

2) True, you can import VFP forms, but of course they won't have a responsive UI (check it out in Wikipedia if you're not sure what that means: it's an important concept, for apps, and even for websites these days). I do not suggest doing that. In fact, I don't answer questions on the Lianja forum (or elsewhere) about doing that, as I can't afford to support the past (something I've been teaching for 14 years now). As a WWII vet who was under fire most of the time he was in Europe told me, "I learned early that it was harder to hit a moving target, so I kept moving."

3) Instead, take the opportunity to learn the Lianja UI concept. If there is something you can't figure out how to accomplish in the Lianja style, ask on the forum. That doesn't mean "make it look like it does in my VFP app," but rather means "accomplish the same result in the Lianja UI style." My experience is that the user ends up with a superior UX (user experience) when the transformation is made to the Lianja style (which is based on the Single Page Application -- SPA -- responsive UI style seen in modern apps). The big difference in using Lianja vs. using jquery and backbone and wiring it yourself is that you don't have to learn (and write) any of that: it's all done for you. You can add what you want into it (e.g., you can now create a jquery/jquery-mobile container and put it in a grid cell), but for the most part, you won't have to.

4) The price of Lianja is peanuts, if you have customers. $5K/year gets an ISV license with all version updates, with free distribution of the Lianja Cloud Server and Lianja SQL Server, so long as it is only running your code. And, of course, you can (if you want) charge your customer for the LCS and LSS. Both run on Windows or Linux (CentOS is used internally in Lianja development and deployment, it's free, it's the Community version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux). Or you can get the APaaS license for $1295/year and have your customers by the LCS and LSS directly from Lianja.

Notice that I did not mention getting the Professional Edition, in which you can only develop desktop apps (but have free runtime for desktop apps): that is not where the world of business software is going.

I look at every product that I see mentioned, and have seen none that have so reasonable a pricing schedule, considering the ability to distribute the Cloud Server and the SQL Server for free. You can set up clustered Cloud Servers and Clustered SQL Servers, with no server licensing at all (if you are using CentOS).

5) Features are continuing to be added. If you have a question about "when will X be in the product" check out the roadmap. The roadmap does not faithfully reflect when features will be added: they are constantly being pulled in early, but it will give you an idea by when it will arrive at the latest.

If you have further questions, I would suggest you ask them on the Lianja Forum. Here is OK, too: I check both quite often.

Good luck in your choice, whatever it is,

Hank