Migrating from Appflow?
Let's talk honestly about what's happening and what your options are.
⚠️ The elephant in the room
Ionic announced they're shutting down Appflow. Your apps will keep working until December 31, 2027, but no new features, no new customers, no updates.
If you're reading this, you're probably looking for where to go next. That's what this page is about.
First, let's give credit where it's due
Ionic built something amazing. Appflow was the first platform to make live updates actually work at scale. They pioneered channels, rollbacks, native builds integration - the whole playbook.
They educated an entire generation of developers on hybrid app development. Without Ionic's work, products like Capgo wouldn't exist.
So yeah, massive respect to the Ionic team. This is a bummer for everyone.
What makes Capgo different
1. We're not shutting down (obviously important)
Capgo is a bootstrapped family business. No VC pressure to "pivot" or "maximize growth metrics." This is our livelihood, built to last decades.
- Legal entities in both US and Europe
- Dedicated infrastructure for China
We've been profitable since year one. Sustainable pricing, sustainable business.
2. Pricing that makes sense
Appflow: $499/month minimum
Capgo: $14/month to start, scales with usage
We can charge less because we're not funding massive overhead. Just a small team building great tools.
3. 100% open source (MIT/MPL-2.0)
Not just the plugin - the entire backend too:
- Plugin: github.com/Cap-go/capacitor-updater
- Backend: github.com/Cap-go/capgo
- Self-host if you want. Fork it if you need. Audit the security yourself.
This matters if you got burned by a proprietary service shutting down (looking at you, Appflow).
4. We've been doing this since 2020
4 years of live updates at scale. Billions of updates served. Every App Store policy change, every edge case, every weird device - we've seen it.
Also: we're the biggest Capacitor plugin provider after the official Capacitor team (30+ plugins). We know the ecosystem inside and out.
5. Actually human support
No chatbots. No ticket systems. No "AI assistants."
You get Martin (me!) or someone from the team. Usually within hours. Often within minutes. Yes, even on weekends (we can't help ourselves 😅).
6. Focus on one thing (and do it really well)
Appflow did live updates + CI/CD + native builds. We just do live updates.
IMO it's better to keep concerns separate anyway. Use GitHub Actions (or whatever) for CI/CD. Use Capgo for updates. Each tool does what it's best at.
🤔 What we're NOT (honesty time)
All-in-one CI/CD: We don't bundle CI/CD like Appflow did. You use your own (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, etc). But we CAN handle native builds from your CI if you want - just call our build API from your pipeline.
Documentation complexity: Basic automatic updates are well documented and clear. But Capgo offers many update modes (manual, half-manual, channel_default, etc.) - not all use cases are equally easy to understand yet. We're working on it.
How hard is migration?
TL;DR: Not hard. Most teams are up and running in under a day.
The basics:
- 1. Uninstall
@capacitor/live-updates, install@capgo/capacitor-updater - 2. Call
notifyAppReady()instead of all the Appflow sync/download/reload code - 3. Upload bundles with our CLI instead of theirs
Full migration guide: docs/upgrade/from-appflow-to-capgo
Stuck? Book a free migration call and we'll walk you through it.
What people actually say
"Migration from Appflow took 2 hours. We went from $499/month to $14/month. Same features, better docs."
— React developer, France
"I had a question at 10pm Saturday. Martin answered in 15 minutes. With actual code examples."
— Solo dev, Brazil
"Open source backend was non-negotiable for our healthcare app. Capgo was the only option that met our security requirements."
— CTO, health tech startup
"Family business = no rugpull risk. After Appflow shutting down, that stability matters."
— Mobile team lead, Germany
More testimonials:
Common questions
- Do I need to change my CI/CD setup?
- Nope. Whatever you're using now (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, etc.) keeps working. Just change the upload step to use our CLI instead of Appflow's.
- What about native builds?
- We do cloud native builds! We just don't do the full CI/CD automation pipeline. You can trigger builds through our CLI or API, but we're not trying to replace your GitHub Actions/GitLab CI workflow - we integrate with it.
- Will this save money?
- Probably a lot. Appflow starts at $499/month. We start at $14/month and scale with usage (roughly $0.001 per MAU). Most migrations save 80-95% on update costs.
- How's the reliability?
- We serve 1B+ updates/month across 750k+ devices. 99.9%+ uptime. Check real-time stats at status.capgo.app
Try it free for 14 days
No credit card. No commitment. Migrate a test app, see if it works for you.
Questions? Join our Discord or email us
Built with respect for what Ionic created. Here to help you keep shipping.