Learn AWS Amplify

What Will You Learn?

What is AWS Amplify?
What are the basics of AWS Amplify?
What are the use cases for AWS Amplify?
Where can I learn more about AWS Amplify?

The Basics

AWS Amplify is a command-line utility that generates web and mobile applications on Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers. It is written in node and requires NodeJS. I recommend using nvm to install NodeJS if you haven’t already.

Primary Use Cases

You posted your app idea on Craigslist, but no developers will work for free, so you’ll do it yourself!
You want to create a proof of concept application quickly.
You would like to evaluate several different technologies without learning the internals.

Installation

The last time I tried to learn AWS Amplify and followed its instructions, it ended in many errors. This time around, everything worked as expected. Follow the latest installation instructions for a react application.

Amplify Choices

You can build a web or mobile application when creating an AWS Amplify application. In the case of mobile applications, you can base your apps on web frameworks like React and Ionic and gain the ability to manipulate system-level APIs.

Amplify Console

Running this command opens the AWS console.

amplify console

Push

If you want to update your API, you’ll want to push up the changes with this command.

amplify push

Update

Update your API if you’ve changed your schema.

Run this command to push the changes and generate your schema.

amplify update api

Wrapping Up

AWS Amplify can get complicated when working to keep your resources in order. AWS Amplify is a great choice for learning AWS and building simple applications. It is also great for building proof of concept applications.

Since I first wrote this article, they’ve added the Amplify Studio. Check it out!