Building features, testing new functionality, and publishing it live to your users works differently in custom-coded marketplace than in no-code marketplaces. If you're a no-code or a low-code founder who is interested in learning how to use custom development to build your Sharetribe marketplace, this article is for you. We go through the practical basics of starting custom development with Sharetribe, so that you can understand the process better, whether you're looking to hire a developer or customize your marketplace yourself.
Start developing in the Development environment
During the development phase, nothing changes in your Test marketplace (and live marketplace, if you have one). You can continue operating your marketplace normally, while at the same time making code changes and testing in your Dev environment.
You don't need to make any changes to your subscription plan during the development phase, since the development environment is available in all plans, including Build. An upgrade to the Extend plan is only necessary when you're ready to publish your code changes to your live marketplace.
If you end up making changes to your marketplace configuration in your Test or Live environment, remember to copy the changes to your Dev environment to ensure your custom development always happens against the most recent version of your no-code marketplace.
Download and install the Sharetribe Web Template
When you start customizing your marketplace with code, you start by downloading the code of Sharetribe Web Template and installing it on your local computer from GitHub. The Template powers the user interface of the marketplace you built without coding.
After you have installed it and connected it to your Sharetribe account, you notice that it retains all the configurations that you made without code. The marketplace that you're running on your local computer looks just the way the marketplace you built without coding does.
You can continue making no-code changes in Console, and notice how the marketplace you're running locally adopts them, as soon as you've copied them to your Dev environment.
Start customizing the Template
In addition to no-code changes, you can now make modifications to the codebase of the Template. When you deploy these modifications to your server, you notice that the functionality of your Dev marketplace changes accordingly.
What if I want to build a mobile app?
It's not mandatory to use Sharetribe Web Template as a basis when building a Sharetribe-powered marketplace with custom code. You can also build a new frontend codebase from scratch and connect it to Sharetribe's hosted backend.
One example of a situation where you might want to do this is when you're building a mobile app instead of a website. If that's something you're looking to do, you might also want to take a look at a mobile app template created by a third party.
Publish changes to your live marketplace
When your code changes are ready to go live, it's time to publish them to your live marketplace. Taking your changes live happens in the following steps:
Set up hosting for your custom-coded frontend codebase
Upgrade your subscription plan to Extend
Switch your Test and Live environment to custom code mode
Adopt a new workflow with Test, Dev, and Live environments
Set up frontend hosting
Hosting your frontend code means that you need to make it available on the web via a web server. This makes it possible for users to visit and use your custom-coded marketplace at your domain. You can find technical guides on how to host your marketplace front end using Render or Heroku in our developer documentation.
You’ll want to host three instances of your custom-code marketplace on your own server: development environment, test environment, and live environment.
Upgrade to the Extend plan
Before you publish a code-customized version of your marketplace to your real users, you need to upgrade your plan to Extend.
The Extend plan gives you access to the Marketplace API in your Live environment, which allows you to connect your self-hosted frontend to your Sharetribe account.
Learn more about the Extend plan on Sharetribe's pricing page.
Upgrade to the Extend plan in Console, by navigating to “Organization settings” and Manage subscription" in the sidebar navigation.
If you don’t have a live marketplace yet, and your marketplace frontend is custom coded, make sure you select the Dev environment as the source for your new Live environment.
Switch your Test and Live environment to custom code mode
After you have upgraded your subscription to Extend, you need to switch both your Test and Live environment from No-code mode to a Custom code mode.
You can do this in your hosting mode settings.
Custom code mode enables you to connect your environment to your self-hosted frontend application. Sharetribe continues to host your backend when you are in custom code mode.
Adopt a new workflow: copy changes from Test to Dev to Live
Your new hosting setup enables you to adopt a workflow where you can continue building and testing new features with both no-code and code tools before publishing them live.
This new workflow goes like this:
Test code changes in the Dev environment. The Dev environment is connected to your development frontend application, where changes are coded and tested. For accurate testing, the Dev application has the same no-code configurations as your Live marketplace. Tested and approved coding changes are then copied to Test and Live environments in Console.
Test no-code changes in the Test environment. The Test environment is connected to your test frontend application, where no-code settings are configured and tested. For accurate testing, the Test application has the same working code as the Live application. No-code changes are copied to Dev and Live environments in Console.
Copy Dev and Test changes to the Live environment. The Live environment is connected to your live frontend application, where no-code and code changes are released after testing in Test and/or Dev. We don't recommend making direct changes in the Live environment.
Next steps
Ready to start customizing? Try the low-code tutorial or visit the developer documentation to learn more about coding on Sharetribe.
If you’re like most Sharetribe founders, you are not a developer and need to hire a developer to use custom code. Consider hiring a Sharetribe Expert via the Expert Marketplace. Every developer in the Expert Marketplace is vetted for their technical expertise and professionalism.