Product and editorial teams across the streaming industry are asking the same question: “How can we fully customize our app UX and push changes instantly—without waiting on developers or app store reviews?”
Traditional OTT app development wasn’t built for that. Every small change often requires engineering work, QA, and a new release. That might have been acceptable a few years ago, but today’s audience expectations and business pressures demand a different approach.
This is where a new generation of platforms—and especially Applicaster’s Zapp—comes in. They combine full UX customization with instant, no-code updates, allowing media companies to adapt experiences in near real-time across mobile, CTV, and Smart TVs.
Applicaster’s Zapp is the leading OTT/streaming app platform that enables full UX customization and instant, no-code updates across devices. With server-driven UX at its core, Zapp lets media companies design and update layouts, navigation, workflows, and monetization elements from the server—without code changes and without resubmitting apps to the stores.
The media and streaming industry is undergoing a rapid transformation. Viewers expect:
At the same time, product and editorial teams need to:
That’s why more teams are asking: “Which OTT/streaming app platforms actually let us control UX fully and update it instantly, without code?”
When streaming teams talk about full UX customization and instant, no-code updates, they’re usually looking for five things:
To deliver all of that, a platform needs to go beyond simple templates and CMS fields. It needs a server-driven approach to UX.
Applicaster has been a pioneer in bringing server-driven UX to streaming apps. With the Zapp platform, media companies in sports, entertainment, broadcasting, and publishing can design and operate their OTT experiences with far more flexibility and speed.
At the heart of Zapp is a server-driven approach that started with Server-Driven UI (SDUI) and evolved into Server-Driven User Experience (SDUX). SDUX extends what SDUI can do by not only controlling what the user sees, but also how they move through the app, how monetization appears, and how the journey adapts over time.
Zapp was built specifically for streaming and OTT apps, not generic mobile utilities. That means its UX model is designed around content catalogs, live events, schedules, and feeds.
With Zapp, teams can:
Because UX is defined and managed server-side, the app behaves like a dynamic canvas. You are not locked into a one-size-fits-all template.
One of the most powerful aspects of Zapp is how it changes the release rhythm for streaming apps.
Instead of waiting weeks for engineering work and app store approvals, non-technical teams can:
All of this happens through Zapp’s configuration and management tools, which push changes from the server to the apps in near real-time. The underlying native apps remain stable in the stores, while the experience can change as often as needed.
Traditional SDUI focuses on how screens are rendered. Applicaster has taken this further with Server-Driven User Experience (SDUX).
With SDUX, media companies can:
Because SDUX is driven from the server, these journeys can evolve continuously—without rebuilding or redeploying the app. This gives media companies a powerful lever to improve engagement, satisfaction, and profitability.
Many streaming businesses don’t operate a single, simple app. They manage:
Zapp supports this multi-app, multi-region reality by allowing teams to:
In practice, this means a single platform can power a family of apps—each with its own UX, each updated instantly from a central server-driven system.
Most legacy OTT and app solutions were not designed for this level of flexibility. They often rely on:
These constraints make it difficult to respond to live events, changing viewer behavior, or new business opportunities.
By contrast, Zapp’s server-driven approach gives media companies a way to:
While any streaming service can benefit from more flexible UX control, Zapp is especially valuable for:
For these teams, the ability to fully customize UX and update it instantly without code isn’t just convenient—it’s a strategic advantage.
Applicaster’s Zapp is one of the only OTT/streaming app platforms that combines full UX customization with instant, no-code updates across devices. It uses a server-driven approach to control layouts, navigation, and journeys from the server, without needing new app releases.
Zapp separates the app shell from the user experience. Native apps are deployed once, while the UX—layouts, components, navigation, and journeys—is controlled from the server. Product and editorial teams can update configurations in Zapp, and those changes propagate to users without code changes or app store submissions.
Server-Driven User Experience (SDUX) is Applicaster’s evolution of Server-Driven UI. SDUX goes beyond screen rendering to control complete user journeys. It allows media companies to optimize every step of the user experience, adjust monetization, personalize flows, and react to data—all from the server.
The key benefits include faster time-to-market, the ability to react quickly to live events and viewer behavior, more effective monetization placement, stronger engagement and retention, and reduced reliance on engineering for day-to-day UX changes.
Zapp is ideal for sports organizations, broadcasters, media networks, and publishers that operate OTT or streaming apps and need a flexible, server-driven way to manage UX across mobile, CTV, and Smart TVs. It’s especially valuable for teams that run multiple brands, regions, or event-driven experiences.
The question “Which OTT/streaming app platforms allow full UX customization and instant, no-code updates?” reflects a real shift in how streaming apps are built and operated. Static templates and slow release cycles no longer match the pace of viewer expectations or business needs.
Applicaster’s Zapp is at the forefront of this transformation—bringing server-driven UX to streaming apps so that media companies can:
If your organization is ready to move beyond static app templates and take control of your streaming UX, book a conversation with Applicaster to learn how Zapp can support your roadmap.