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News

Welcome to the Developyn News hub, your space for fresh thinking, honest commentary, and industry insights from our team. This isn’t a space for polished product announcements or case study summaries. Instead, we use it to explore the ideas shaping the future of digital technology and how businesses can use software more effectively. At Developyn, we work across a wide range of industries, and that gives us a unique perspective on what’s changing and what’s not, in the world of digital transformation. From software development best practices and emerging tech trends to the real-world challenges SMEs face when scaling digital infrastructure, we share what we’re seeing and learning every day.

Our news page also reflects the thinking behind how we work. We believe in clear, practical advice, not tech jargon. Our goal is to demystify software development and offer useful guidance to business owners, product managers, and curious minds who want to better understand how digital tools can solve real problems. You’ll also find opinions and perspectives from the team, on everything from full stack development workflows and mobile UX patterns to team collaboration and code quality. We bring a consultancy mindset to all our projects, and the same applies to our content: it’s here to inform, challenge, and spark better decisions. Whether you’re exploring bespoke software for the first time, thinking about switching to a custom website, or just want to understand how apps get made, we hope you’ll find something helpful here.

Browse the latest news articles below and get a deeper look into how we think, build, and support our clients through technology.

  • Why Developyn Builds More Than Code: Bespoke Software For The Construction Industry

    Why Developyn Builds More Than Code: Bespoke Software For The Construction Industry

    In the construction industry, success hinges on precision, coordination, and trust. At Developyn, we understand that building a digital product isn’t just about writing code, it’s about creating real-world solutions that support the people managing budgets, timelines, materials, and teams every day. That’s why our bespoke software for the construction industry and custom website development services are tailored specifically for construction companies looking to modernise and scale with confidence.

    Construction Deserves Better Than Off-the-Shelf Tools

    Most construction companies face a common frustration: generic tools that don’t fit their unique workflows. Whether it’s a CRM that doesn’t handle subcontractor relationships, or a project management tool that’s too rigid for site logistics, these platforms fall short.

    At Developyn, we believe construction companies shouldn’t have to bend to fit the software. The software should fit them. That’s where bespoke development comes in.

    What Is Bespoke Software Development?

    Bespoke software for the construction industry is built from the ground up just like your projects. Instead of forcing your team to adapt to someone else’s template, we build tools designed around your processes, your clients, and your goals.

    From scheduling systems to quoting tools, from project dashboards to mobile-friendly site checklists, we create systems that reflect how your business actually operates.

    Why Custom Websites Matter in Construction

    Your website isn’t just a digital brochure. It’s your first impression, your credibility check, and often your lead generation engine. A templated site might look fine at first glance, but it won’t communicate your craftsmanship, expertise, or capacity the way a custom site can.

    Developyn designs websites that:
    • Highlight your past projects with interactive portfolios
    • Make it easy for potential clients to request quotes
    • Integrate with your backend tools (scheduling, CRM, document uploads)
    • Look just as professional on mobile as they do on desktop
    • Reflect the strength and reliability of your brand

    A website built just for you communicates exactly what your construction business stands for, quality, precision, and professionalism.

    Real Value for Construction Teams

    Here’s what Developyn brings to the table for construction companies:
    • Custom Client Portals: Let your clients track project progress, access documents, and stay informed, all in one place.
    • Job Management Dashboards: Organise multiple projects, crews, and deadlines with a tool built specifically for your internal flow.
    • Quote Builders & Calculators: Automate and streamline estimates with custom pricing logic and branding.
    • Field-Ready Apps: Enable on-site workers to log updates, upload photos, and communicate instantly with the back office.

    All our solutions are built with the people who use them in mind, from foremen and office managers to directors and clients.

    Building for the Long Term

    Construction projects take time, planning, and skilled execution. So does building great software. At Developyn, we don’t disappear after launch. We work with you to adapt, iterate, and scale your tools as your business grows.

    Whether you’re managing residential builds or large-scale commercial developments, we create digital tools that grow with your operations, not against them.

    Let’s Build Something That Works

    You’re already an expert at building in the real world. Let us help you build the digital tools that make your job easier, your team more efficient, and your clients even more impressed. Ready to create a smarter, stronger digital foundation for your construction business?
    Contact Developyn today to start your custom software or website journey.

  • Implementing Bespoke Software Solutions in the Retail Industry: A Modern Guide

    Implementing Bespoke Software Solutions in the Retail Industry: A Modern Guide

    The retail industry is evolving faster than ever. Consumer expectations are rising, supply chains are becoming more complex, and digital transformation is no longer optional, it’s essential. Off-the-shelf software may serve as a temporary solution, but for retailers looking to scale, streamline operations, and deliver an exceptional customer experience, bespoke software solutions are the way forward.

    In this blog, we explore the benefits of bespoke software solutions in retail industry, key areas of implementation, and how Developyn can help bring your digital vision to life.

    Why Retailers Are Turning to Bespoke Software

    Retail businesses, both brick-and-mortar and online are facing increased pressure to stay competitive. Pre-packaged software often comes with limitations, hidden costs, and unnecessary features. In contrast, bespoke software solutions in the retail industry is built around your exact business model, giving you:

    • Tailored functionality that fits your workflows
    • Scalable architecture for business growth
    • Better data integration and reporting
    • Enhanced security and compliance
    • Full control over updates and integrations

    Common Retail Challenges Solved by Bespoke Software

    Implementing custom solutions can dramatically improve efficiency and customer experience. Here are some areas where bespoke software can transform retail operations:

    Inventory Management

    Custom-built inventory systems can track stock levels in real time, manage multiple warehouses, automate reordering, and provide predictive analytics for demand forecasting. Say goodbye to spreadsheets and stock discrepancies.

    Point-of-Sale (POS) Integration

    A bespoke POS system can connect seamlessly with your backend inventory, customer loyalty programs, and online store, offering a consistent shopping experience whether in-store or online.

    E-Commerce Synchronisation

    For omnichannel retailers, managing product data across multiple platforms can be a nightmare. Bespoke integrations allow your online store, CRM, inventory, and payment gateways to work together in real time.

    Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

    Understand your customers better with tailored CRM tools that track buying habits, personalise promotions, and automate communications leading to improved loyalty and repeat sales.

    Staff & Operations Management

    Custom dashboards, task management tools, and automated shift scheduling help optimise staffing and internal operations saving time and reducing overheads.

    The Implementation Process: How Developyn Makes It Simple

    At Developyn, we’ve worked with both global retailers and independent shops to deliver tailored software that transforms how they operate. Our process is transparent, collaborative, and focused on long-term results.

    Step 1: Discovery & Requirements Gathering

    We start by understanding your business, challenges, and objectives through detailed consultations and process mapping.

    Step 2: Solution Design

    Our developers and UX designers collaborate to craft an intuitive, scalable solution that aligns with your brand and workflow.

    Step 3: Development & Testing

    We use agile methodologies to deliver in iterative phases, keeping you in the loop while ensuring rapid progress and quality control.

    Step 4: Deployment & Integration

    We handle the smooth rollout of your new solution, ensuring it integrates with existing systems, tools, and third-party APIs.

    Step 5: Support & Optimisation

    Our team provides ongoing support, analytics reviews, and feature enhancements as your business evolves.

    Real Results: Why Retailers Choose Developyn

    Retailers that choose Developyn for bespoke software benefit from:

    • Faster workflows and reduced manual processes
    • Increased visibility into operations and performance
    • Improved customer satisfaction and engagement
    • Future-proof systems that grow with their business

    Whether you’re a high street chain, an eCommerce brand, or a hybrid retailer, our software solutions help you run leaner, smarter, and more profitably.

    Ready to Digitally Transform Your Retail Business?

    If you’re tired of generic tools and want a custom-built solution that truly works for your business, we’re here to help.

    Book a free consultation today and let’s discuss how bespoke software can give you the competitive edge.

  • Squarespace vs WordPress vs Custom Dev : What’s Best for Your Business?

    Squarespace vs WordPress vs Custom Dev : What’s Best for Your Business?

    Whether you’re launching a new brand, rebuilding an outdated site, or scaling your digital presence, choosing the right platform is a critical first step. Squarespace vs WordPress vs Custom Dev offer so many options, it’s easy to fall into the trap of picking something quick and easy, only to find out later it can’t keep up with your growth.

    Choosing the right platform can define your digital success. Understanding the differences between Squarespace vs WordPress vs Custom Dev is key to building a website that not only looks great today but can also scale with your business tomorrow. From ease of setup to long-term flexibility and growth potential, each option offers unique strengths, and hidden challenges. In this guide, we’ll help you navigate these choices with confidence.

    At Developyn, we specialise in creating high-performing websites that drive real business results. Whether you’re considering Squarespace vs WordPress vs Custom Dev, our team has the hands-on experience to guide you toward the platform that best fits your goals. In this post, we’ll break down the pros and cons of each approach, helping you avoid costly mistakes and build a website that’s ready for whatever’s next.

    Squarespace: Quick and Clean, but Limited

    Squarespace is often the first stop for solo founders and small businesses. It’s got some solid advantages, especially for those just getting started:

    ✅ Pros:
    • User-friendly drag-and-drop editor.
    • Sleek templates that look good out of the box.
    • Hosting, security, and basic SEO all included.
    ❌ But here’s the catch:
    • Limited customisation – what you see is pretty much what you get.
    • Lacks flexibility for unique features or business logic.
    • Not ideal for scale – businesses often find themselves boxed in as they grow.

    Our verdict: Squarespace is fine for basic brochure sites or personal portfolios, but it’s not built for growth. Most clients who start here eventually come to us when they hit its limit.

    WordPress: Flexible, Scalable, and Built to Grow

    Here’s where things get exciting. WordPress powers over 40% of the internet, and for good reason. It strikes a smart balance between flexibility and user-friendliness, especially when developed properly.

    ✅ Why we love WordPress:
    • Fully customisable – from design to functionality.
    • Massive plugin ecosystem (and we know which ones to trust).
    • Easy for your team to manage once built.
    • Scales with your business – no need to rebuild every time you grow.
    ❌ Common pitfalls (that we help you avoid):
    • Bloated templates and dodgy plugins can slow things down.
    • Poor builds create security risks and maintenance headaches.
    • DIY WordPress rarely performs well – professional setup makes all the difference.

    Our verdict: When done right, WordPress is the sweet spot for 90% of businesses. At Developyn, we don’t just install a theme and call it a day, we design, develop, and optimise every part of your site to support your goals.

    Custom Dev: Built for Your Business, Not Just a Browser

    When your business needs go beyond the ordinary, custom dev (development) is where we shine. Whether it’s a unique product, bespoke workflow, or something that just doesn’t exist off-the-shelf, our dev team can make it happen.

    ✅ Why go custom:
    • Tailored functionality that fits your exact business processes.
    • Future-proof foundations that scale with you.
    • Clean, lean, secure code with zero bloat.
    ❌ Things to consider:
    • Takes longer and costs more up front.
    • Requires clear vision and good collaboration (we help with that).
    • Needs the right development partner – you’ll want someone who gets business, not just code.

    Our verdict: If your website or app is core to how you serve your customers, custom dev gives you total control. We take you from idea to deployment, with no compromises.

    The Bottom Line: Choose for the Future, Not Just for Today

    NeedRecommended Option
    Simple, DIY siteSquarespace (starter only)
    Flexible, professional business siteWordPress (Developyn-built)
    Bespoke solution or appCustom Dev

    Choosing the right platform isn’t just about what looks nice now—it’s about picking the right foundation for your business to grow on.

    Let’s Build the Right Thing—Properly

    Whether you’re ready to scale or starting from scratch, we can help you choose (and build) the platform that truly supports your business goals. At Developyn, we don’t do cookie-cutter. We craft sites and systems that perform.

    Need a high-performing WordPress site?

    Thinking custom might be the way forward?

    Let’s chat. No hard sell – just expert advice. 👉 Talk to us

  • How Much Does a Website Really Cost in 2025?

    How Much Does a Website Really Cost in 2025?

    We get asked this all the time, how much should a website cost these days? And honestly, we get it. Between £500 quotes on Fiverr and £50k pitches from slick agencies, it’s hard to know what’s fair, or even what you’re paying for.

    So, let’s clear the fog.

    At Developyn, we believe in being straight with people. No mystery pricing. No upselling fluff you don’t need. Just honest insights about what goes into a website build in 2025 and what you should expect to pay depending on your needs.

    Whether you’re a solo founder, a small business owner, or scaling up with a bigger team, this blog’s for you.

    First Things First: What Kind of Website Are You After?

    Websites aren’t one-size-fits-all anymore (if they ever really were). Let’s look at three common types, and what they typically cost in today’s world.

    The Starter Site  

    Perfect for: freelancers, one-person brands, or micro-businesses  

    Typical cost: *£500 – £2,000*

    If you just need a clean, professional online presence, a few pages, a contact form, mobile-friendly layout, this is where you’ll land. You’re probably working with a template or a light custom design. Think: “just enough to look legit.”

    Good to know: These sites usually don’t include deep strategy, SEO, or anything too complex, but they do get you online fast without breaking the bank.

    The Growth-Focused SME Site  

    Perfect for: small to mid-sized businesses with real growth plans  

    Typical cost:*£2,000 – £8,000*

    Now we’re talking. This tier is where most of our clients live. You’ve got more content, more functionality, and you actually want the site to do something, generate leads, rank on Google, integrate with a CRM, that sort of thing.

    Custom design? Check.  

    Solid performance? Check.  

    Built with future marketing in mind? Definitely.

    At this level, the focus shifts from “just having a website” to building something that actually drives your business forward.

    The Big Guns (Custom, Scalable, Serious)  

    Perfect for: large businesses, SaaS, eCommerce, or enterprise setups  

    Typical cost: *£8,000 – £25,000+*

    This is where things get more strategic. Full discovery workshops. UX design with actual wireframes and user testing. Custom development, animations, accessibility, CMS flexibility, API integrations, the works!

    You’re not paying for pages here.  

    You’re paying for a digital system that supports your business goals, your team, and your customers. It’s a proper investment, but it can also be a game-changer.

    So…Why Does Pricing Vary So Much?

    Great question. You’re not just paying for a designer to make it look nice (although, yes, that’s part of it). 

    Here’s what else is baked into the price:

    • Strategy & Planning – Understanding your goals, users, and how your site needs to function
    • Design & UX – Custom layouts that actually convert, not just look pretty
    • Development – Clean, scalable code that works across devices and browsers
    • Content & SEO – Words that sell and structure that gets you found on Google
    • Ongoing Support – Hosting, maintenance, updates, security, and analytics

    It’s a bit like building a house. The cost depends on the materials, the size, the design, and whether you’re adding a hot tub on the roof!!

    What About Value-Based Pricing?

    Here’s the thing: websites don’t exist in a vacuum. A £5k site that brings you £50k in business isn’t “expensive”, it’s a smart investment. That’s why we price projects based on value, not just time.

    At Developyn, we don’t charge you by the hour. We charge based on what the site is worth to your business. That way, your goals and our goals stay perfectly aligned. You want results. We build with that in mind.

    So, What’s Your Website Going to Cost?

    Honestly, that depends on:

    1. What you want the site to do
    2. How much you want to customise
    3. How fast you need it
    4. And how involved you want to be

    But here’s the good news, we’re happy to chat, even if you’re just curious and not quite ready to commit.

    We offer free strategy calls where we talk through your ideas, budget, and timelines, and let you know what’s realistic (and what’s not).

    Let’s Chat – Book a Free Call https://developyn.com/contact

    Final Thoughts

    In 2025, a website isn’t just a digital brochure. It’s your brand’s front door. Your best salesperson. Your 24/7 marketing engine. Don’t treat it like a checkbox on a to-do list. Whether you’re just getting started or levelling up, you deserve a site that works for you, not just something that looks nice on launch day and collects dust after.

  • The history of Svelte

    Rich Harris, a graphics editor at the Guardian, has just finished a few days furiously coding an MVP to the first version of Svelte. Which essentially at the time was a compiler for his previous framework, Ractive.js.

    “Three and a half kilobytes” for a to-do app written with this new compiler. “Which compared to literally every other framework at the time was minescule”.

    The idea came to him after speaking to a fellow JavaScript enthuiast and organiser of the BrooklynJS monthly meetup, Jed Schmidt, who shared an idea to turn the code you write into something else. Essentially – describing compilers.

    Rich Harris eating an ice cream

    Now of course, compilers aren’t new. But over in browserland, all of the big frameworks then (and even today) run in what is known as the “Virtual DOM”, an abstraction on top of your normal HTML, CSS and JavaScript that a framework such as Angular, Vue or React uses to keep track of elements that need to be changed and updated.

    The idea is great and it works well.

    But they are heavy and require objectively more memory to operate because your browser is tracking not only the page itself, but all of this extra data the framework needs to run. The browser will need to then constantly check to see if an update needs to be made to the UI.

    Compiled code however, would allow for a developer to write code with all the benefits of using a framework, but without the downside of using a Virtual DOM. This is because it would “compile” (really, it’s a transpiler – but we’ll stick with compiler for now) the code into native HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Providing an almost immediate benefit to developers with its improved performance.

    After writing a short blog post about this “Framework-less framework”, a small community arose who all shared an interest in this fresh idea to changing how we could build for the web and the Svelte team grew into a small team of maintainers.

    Less than 18 months after Rich had written the first version of Svelte, a second version had been released to focus on small cosmectic changes. Version 2 set out to correct what maintainers viewed as mistakes that had been made in the earlier version of Svelte and to improve it cosmectically. These were changes such as using single curly braces { variable } instead of double {{ variable }} curly braces for its template syntax.

    Almost an exact year after the release of version 2, Svelte 3 was released (21st April 2019) which “tore up the rulebook” and went with the philosophy of “we have a compiler, we can essentially create our own language” and had the goal of creating the “most elegant and usable way of describing user interfaces”.

    Now – I really can’t express how much of a big deal this was.

    After using Vue.js as my primary framework for building web applications for over 4 years at that point, I learned the most important parts of Svelte in less than a day and almost haven’t looked back. At the time I was working within IKEA. We were building large applications to replace outdated BI systems with Vue and had learned a lot about some of the drawbacks it had when working with very large applications. I loved working with Vue, but my main conern was that its syntax was slightly clunky and that it could be expressed in a much simpler way (something the Vue team have addressed in the more recent version 3).

    Luckily, I was presented with the opportunity to lead a new team within IKEA to build a search-focused data repository for the entire company and picked up Svelte, along with Sapper to build it. Even though Svelte was still quite new and it hadn’t the same eco-system and support of the 3 major frameworks (Angular/React/Vue), the flexibility of Svelte made it easy and quick to build what we needed. The biggest pain we faced was that Sapper wasn’t perfect and new changes to Svelte could introduce breaking changes.

    Though we still believed it was quicker to fix breaking changes and work with Svelte than to use a different framework. Svelte 3 let us strip away all of the boilerplate of other frameworks we had used, write code quicker and even better – it was faster!

    Announced by the Svelte team in late 2020, the SvelteKit beta was built from the ashes of Sapper to be a dedicated all-in-one meta-framework for Svelte, featuring all of the bells and whistles you need to create SSR (Server Site Rendered), SPA (Single Page Application) and SSG (Static Site Generator) websites.

    Though it remained in an initial beta mode until the release of SvelteKit 1.0 in December 2022. The team had continuously iterated on it to now be a product that can be finally used in production without too much concern of breaking changes.

    Since 2022, Rich Harris and a small team of other maintainers have joined Vercel to bring working on Svelte as a fun side-project to something that can be focused on fulltime. Svelte continues to improve and is regularly voted as one of the most admired and desired frameworks to work with in Stack Overflow’s yearly developer survey.