APIs, scraping, and mobile
Connecting third-party APIs, scraping without getting blocked, and what it takes to ship a native app.
Do you support APIs?
Yes — especially well-documented ones. For newer or niche APIs, point your assistant at the documentation URL and ask it to read the docs before it writes any code.
Never paste an API key into chat
Floot collects third-party keys through a one-time secure link instead, and only the environment variable names ever come back to the AI. If your assistant asks you to paste a secret into the conversation, ask it to request the credential properly instead. See Connecting external services.
How should I do web scraping with Floot?
Use a dedicated scraping service such as ScrapingBee and have your Floot app call it. Running scrapers directly from a serverless backend is fragile and gets blocked quickly. The service's key goes in through the same secure-link flow as any other credential, so your AI never sees it.
Can Floot build native mobile apps?
Yes. Floot wraps your project as real iOS and Android apps you can install on a device and submit to the App Store or Google Play. Every plan includes app builds — 2 a month on Free, 12 on Pro, unlimited on Power — and Floot does the building; you just need the developer accounts. See Creating mobile apps.
App builds start on floot.com
Open your project on floot.com, click Publish, switch on Publish mobile app and publish. On Free and Pro, the switch starts off each time, so a publish without it updates only the website. Your assistant can start a build itself only once an Apple or Google Play account is connected to the project. If you are out of app builds for the month, the publish still goes out for the web and tells you the app build was skipped. Once mobile has been published once, your assistant can edit the native config — Info.plist keys and the Android manifest — on its own.
To publish to the stores, see Publish to TestFlight and Google Play. For things like a share-sheet target or code that runs in the background, see Native app features. If you just want one-tap access without an app store, add the project to a home screen or desktop instead.
React Native and Expo are not supported
A Floot project is a web app that Floot wraps for iOS and Android, so React Native and Expo packages cannot be installed. Ask for the web or native-plugin equivalent instead — your assistant knows them.
Can Floot build a Windows or Mac desktop app?
Not as an .exe or desktop installer. A published Floot app installs on a computer from Chrome or Edge instead: it opens in its own window, gets a Start menu entry, and shares the same backend, sign-in and database as the website and the mobile apps. See Add your app to a home screen or desktop.
Can my app sell subscriptions or in-app purchases?
Floot has no in-app purchase system of its own. For subscriptions and purchases through the App Store and Google Play, ask your assistant to add a purchases plugin such as RevenueCat, which is added like any other native plugin — see Native plugins. For checkout on the web, ask for Stripe. Whether your app has to use Apple's or Google's own billing is their policy to confirm, not Floot's.
Does the mobile app work offline?
The app's screens are packaged inside the app, so it opens with no connection. Anything that talks to your backend needs a connection, unless you ask your assistant to build offline behavior, such as saving changes on the device and sending them later.
Can my app run background work or realtime updates?
Yes to both. Background jobs and WebSocket-based realtime are built in on every plan; scheduled cron jobs, and delayed or recurring jobs, run while the project owner is on a paid plan — see What's built in.
You do not have to wire any of it up by hand. Your assistant can provision the database, email-and-password sign-in, Sign in with Google, Sign in with Microsoft, and push notifications for you in one step — the secrets are generated server-side, so there is nothing for you to copy.