What is Power Apps?

Power Apps is Microsoft's low-code platform for building business applications without a full software-development project. It's part of the Power Platform, alongside Power Automate, Power BI, and Copilot Studio, and is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365.

What you can build

Power Apps gives you three main ways to build apps:

• Canvas apps — drag-and-drop apps with a flexible, "design anywhere" UI. You connect to data sources (SharePoint, Dataverse, SQL, Excel, third-party services), bind controls to formulas (an Excel-like expression language), and ship a mobile or web app. Good for focused, task-oriented apps: inspections, approvals, form replacements, lookup tools.
• Model-driven apps — apps generated from a Dataverse data model. Forms, views, and business processes are derived from the data; less visual flexibility, but much faster for record-management apps. Dynamics 365 apps are built on this engine.
• Power Pages — externally facing websites that authenticate guests and read/write to Dataverse. Used for partner portals, customer self-service, and event registration.

Dataverse

Dataverse is the database underneath model-driven apps and the recommended store for serious canvas apps. It provides relational tables, role-based security, audit, business rules, and rich APIs. It's not free — Dataverse usage requires Power Apps premium licensing — but it's where Microsoft is investing for any non-trivial citizen-developer scenario.

Licensing in brief

A limited set of Power Apps capabilities is included with Microsoft 365 (canvas apps against SharePoint, Excel, and other in-suite connectors, with no Dataverse). Anything premium — Dataverse, SQL connectors, custom APIs, on-premises gateways — requires a standalone Power Apps licence, per-user or per-app.

Where it fits

For Microsoft 365 customers, Power Apps is the answer to "we need a small line-of-business app, fast." It's a much lighter lift than commissioning custom software, and it integrates cleanly with Teams (you can embed an app as a tab) and Power Automate for the workflow side. The trade-off is that you're tied to Microsoft's platform and licensing model.