ArcGIS Web AppBuilder Roadmap for Retirement

[Jianxia]

ArcGIS Web AppBuilder is retiring, and we want to share the timelines and details with you.

• The developer edition will retire in July 2024, coinciding with the retirement of ArcGIS API for JavaScript version 3.x.  
• The final release of ArcGIS Web AppBuilder, as part of ArcGIS Enterprise, is planned for the first half of 2025. This version will be supported according to the ArcGIS Enterprise product lifecycle. ArcGIS Web AppBuilder as part of Enterprise is considered deprecated as of the retirement announcement. 
• ArcGIS Web AppBuilder in ArcGIS Online will retire in the fourth quarter of 2025.  

See the ArcGIS blog post for more information. While your ArcGIS Web AppBuilder apps that you have built will continue to work, Esri’s recommended path for taking advantage of new capabilities in ArcGIS as well as for staying abreast of the changes in browser technology is to migrate applications to ArcGIS Experience Builder. We also published a similar post in the ArcGIS Experience Builder community.

It has been an incredible nine-year since the first beta launched in 2014. We thank you for your support and encouragement! We hope that you will be with us on the journey of ArcGIS Experience Builder.

[BrianLeroux]

Some sad times ahead. WAB was/is fantastic.

@Jianxia Do you plan to have Experience Builder brought to the same level of functionality that WAB has? Is seems to be missing quite a bit. Even the things listed as available in experience builder do not have the same level of functionality that WAB does.

[Anonymous User]

Granted we have two years yet, but with ExB still missing key widgets and tools, I can't move many of our apps to it. And more frustrating is Esri removing tools and widgets from ExB into their own "instant" apps. I don't want a bunch of separate apps. WAB was nice because it offered so many tools and functions in one app. Now we have to move to ExB  that is missing things, or separate apps and then be expected to embed and integrate a bunch of separate apps into one ExB app. What a mess.

[JohnCodd]

Good Points!  What in the World was I thinking!  @Jianxia  Please bring ExB to full and complete parity with WAB.  Thank you, paying Esri community, for bringing this to my attention!  

[Thomas1]

@Anonymous User totally agree. And WAB app configuration was quick and easy, for example all layers in the map/app have attribute table. In ExB tables as to be added one be one manually. 

We are in same situation as you and so many others, we have to wait for more widgets and URL parameter before we can move to ExB.

[Jianxia]

Thank you all for your feedback! @BrianLeroux @JohnCodd You are right that parity is not just about widgets but also functionality in each widget. For example, in WAB, we can show the legend inside the Layer List widget and view each layer in the Attribute Table through the layer context menu. These options are not yet there in the Map Layers widget in ExB. We are aware of them and working to bring them into the parity. In the upcoming June release, we plan to add these two options in Map Layers.

@Anonymous User @Thomas1 ,The Near Me widget (beta) is planned to be available in the upcoming June release in Experience Builder so you can use it to work with other widgets. Currently  the capability of Public Notification and District Lookup widgets are available in Instant apps as the Public Notification and Zone Lookup templates.  Could you please let us know which templates from Instant apps you'd like to see available in Experience Builder to meet your specific workflows? 

[Anonymous User]

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[Brian_Wilson]

If I worked remotely I could take away the Public Notification widget but I work right here and all my co-workers know where to find me.They would take turns occupying my guest chair until I gave the WABDE apps back to them.

So, we can't switch to ExB until I have a substitute. I guess I could start writing one now, it could be ready by then. 🙂 I'm not sharing it if you make me do that 😛

[Jianxia]

@Anonymous User , thanks for sharing with us. For the Zone Lookup app, I passed your comments to the Instant Apps team.

@Brian_Wilson understand. Thanks for letting us know.

[LearnThenShare_JC]

When was Experience Builder launched? 

The user community - the paying customers - have the clients.  Esri needs to stop pulling the rug from underneath their paying customers just for the next dollar!  We understand technology changes quickly, but existing tools and functionality - widgets, customization, application development - should not be yanked around as if there were no established production applications in use by tens of thousand if not hundreds of thousands or millions of end users.  That is not advancement, that is destruction.  Full Parity should be the Priority.  If ExB is built on the next best platform then it should have full parity and the flexibility to let the paying customer decide if there should be one app or many apps.  This one size fits few mentality is a very low standard and a sign of tunnel vision.  Is 100% Parity Promised?  Thank you!

[MollyWalkner_1]

@Jianxia 

Thanks for your responses to user concerns with ExB. My department has recently started trying to migrate WAB to ExB and have run into some of the same issues as @Anonymous User. We would really like to see both Zone LookUp and  Public Notification widgets available in ExB. The Instant Apps just don't allow for the level of customization that we need to be able to migrate away from WAB. Please, keep adding more widgets to ExB!

[Anonymous User]

...

[JuanManuelCruzHerrera]

Totalmente de acuerdo @Anonymous User es absurdo es que hasta las Instants App con mucha menor desarrollo y no dándole todo la importancia que podrían tener son mejores para muchos casos. Yo he tenido que crear 3 Apps para un Gobierno Local hace 2 semanas y al final de tanta fristación que da el Experience las cree con Ints App y van perfectas, mientras que para algo tan absurdo como ver los adjuntos el Experience es un dolor de muelas hay que pensar que se hacen aplicaciones para personas que NO saben nada de esto sino una respuesta a su problema inmediata y no entiendo porque no trabajan más en la vertiente de las Inst App