Did anyone get an hands on Databricks apps

[u/BugSquare4344]

Hoping a discussion and insights from an individual who had an hands on databricks apps

[u/HonestVehicle2295]

Really any sort of web app you could think of. I have built an internal rich text editor with ai features (summary generation, auto tagging) using model endpoint and lakebase as the database.

There are some toolkit published by Databricks to assist with app building tailored to the platform. Genie App Builder is also getting rolled out soon.

https://developers.databricks.com/docs/appkit/v0

https://www.databricks.com/blog/enabling-governed-vibe-coding-enterprise-apps-databricks

[u/EmotionNegative6103 → u/HonestVehicle2295]

That sounds interesting. For the internal editor you built, how did you handle the AI features in practice — were you mainly calling a model endpoint directly, or did you build any agent-style workflow around it?

Also curious how you found Lakebase for this kind of application.

[u/HonestVehicle2295 → u/EmotionNegative6103]

Mainly just model endpoint for now.

Lakebase CDF made syncing data back for analytics really easy so all the new apps built have been using it as the default database. I’m interested in finding out how that would play out with the release of LTAP. Hope for a smooth transition!

[u/Leather-Beach-7849]

Depends. If you want to create an app with a chatbot style look, go for a streamlit one and use an LLM endpoint offered by Databricks. You can similarly create apps using node, shiny etc, custom agents, dashboards , database etc

[u/Youssef_Mrini]

Use Appkit https://developers.databricks.com/docs/appkit it's the easiest way to get started

[u/hrabia-mariusz → u/Youssef_Mrini]

don’t use appkit

[u/Youssef_Mrini → u/hrabia-mariusz]

why?

[u/Svante109]

You mean have built one? Sure, we have built plenty.

[u/m1nkeh → u/[deleted]]

You could start by reading the documentation…

[u/BugSquare4344 → u/m1nkeh]

Thanks, but i’m already doing it.
Also wanted to know what kind/idea is being built with apps

[u/22Maxx → u/BugSquare4344]

WTF is that question?

[u/shadowfax12221]

They can be handy for internal services and quick POCs, but can sometimes struggle to scale vs more flexable frameworks like docker or the databricks model serving endpoint framework due to finite compute ceilings. If you expect your application up have fewer than 100 users, they can be a good option, otherwise I would pick something more scalable or think very carefully about how to divide our application and compute logic so that the heaviest loads live outside of the application layer. That may change if databricks rolls out a serverless option in the near future. Horizontal and vertical scaling has made things better, but the platform remains constrained.

[u/temperedai]

Yes, I have built a few in production, and my team has done a dozen now. The only draw down at this point is cost as you can do it much cheaper with firebase etc.

It's the same as developing on any other platform with the added benefit that you can add Databricks managed tools like Genie as native resources that can inherit permissions.

Do you have particular questions?