# What is Digia Studio?

**Digia Studio** is a low-code workspace for building native mobile apps with a server-driven UI (SDUI) engine. You design pages, bind data, and wire actions in the browser, while Digia ships that configuration to lightweight SDKs in real-time. This lets you deploy instant updates without waiting for app store builds.

Digia combines native performance with instant updates for copy, layouts, and experiments. It empowers developers, designers, and product managers to ship faster, from MVP to production scale.

{% embed url="<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpwtwesOI2o>" %}

### Why Digia Studio?

Traditional native development slows you down with long review cycles and rigid builds. Digia Studio decouples your UI from your binary to enable:

* **Instant Updates** – Push configuration changes through Digia Hot Reload; no app store reviews required.
* **Extend with Code** – Write custom widgets or native modules in Swift/Kotlin/Dart when you need more than the built-in library.
* **Safe Release Workflows** – Manage `dev`, `staging`, and `prod` environments with built-in versioning and rollback.
* **Design System Sync** – Share reliable components and tokens across teams to prevent UI drift.
* **Role-Based Access** – Designers own the pixels, PMs own the copy, and you own the logic.

***

### How it Works

Digia decoupled the visual layer from the underlying native code, enabling a seamless workflow from design to deployment.

{% @mermaid/diagram content="graph LR
%% Styles
classDef studio fill:#e1f5fe,stroke:#01579b,stroke-width:2px,color:#01579b;
classDef cloud fill:#fff3e0,stroke:#e65100,stroke-width:2px,color:#e65100;
classDef app fill:#e8f5e9,stroke:#1b5e20,stroke-width:2px,color:#1b5e20;

```
subgraph Studio [Digia Studio]
    direction TB
    Builder[Visual Builder]:::studio
end

subgraph Cloud [Digia Cloud]
    direction TB
    JSON[JSON Config]:::cloud
end

subgraph App [Your App]
    direction TB
    SDK[Digia SDK]:::app
    Native[Native Components]:::app
end

Builder ==>|Publishes| JSON
JSON ==>|Syncs to| SDK
SDK -.->|Renders| Native

%% Spacing hacks
linkStyle default stroke-width:2px,fill:none,stroke:gray;" %}
```

For a deep dive into the request flow and rendering engine, read the [Digia Architecture & Runtime](https://docs.digia.tech/introduction/architecture) guide.

***

### The Building Blocks

* **Server-Driven UI (SDUI)** – UI and logic ship as JSON, not compiled binaries. See [What is SDUI?](https://docs.digia.tech/introduction/what-is-sdui)
* **Pages & Components** – Pages are full screens; components are reusable pieces with their own inputs and actions.
* **Variables & Actions** – Variables store state; actions update that state, call APIs, or navigate.
* **Environments** – Each environment (dev, staging, prod) has unique access keys and release history.

***

### Who Is It For?

* **Frontend & mobile developers** – Build logic, wire APIs, and extend the runtime when needed.
* **Designers / UX engineers** – Turn design systems into live components without Xcode or Android Studio.
* **Product and growth teams** – Launch experiments or localized flows with guardrails and auditability.
* **Agencies and enterprises** – Manage multiple apps or brands from one shared workspace.

***

### Is Digia Studio right for your use case?

**Good fit when you need**

* Fast iterations on content-heavy or transactional apps
* Shared UI across iOS and Android without duplicating work
* A/B tests, merchandising, or onboarding tweaks that can’t wait for app-store review
* Hooks for custom analytics, payments, or platform SDK features

**Probably not ideal when you need**

* Always-offline apps with large local datasets
* Highly custom native rendering (AR, heavy 3D, high-frequency graphics)
* Real-time workloads that are better in handwritten code

***

### Choose your next step

* **Brand new?** Complete the [Quick Start Guide](https://docs.digia.tech/quick-start-and-setup/quick-start).
* **Need the preview app and workspace access?** Follow [Setup](https://docs.digia.tech/quick-start-and-setup/setup).
* **Want runtime details?** Read the [Digia Architecture & Runtime](https://docs.digia.tech/introduction/architecture) guide.
* **Embedding Digia in an existing app?** Visit [SDK Integration](https://docs.digia.tech/sdk-integration/sdk-integration).

***