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Web design & development

Custom web development in Dubai, for the logic a template cannot carry

Most sites do not need custom development. The ones that do usually know it already: a search that has to filter on twelve fields, a catalogue serving two different buyers, a portal behind a login, a price that has to be calculated rather than listed. That is what this is for.

  • +220% organic traffic, Arabland property platform
  • 90 PageSpeed on a WebGL build
  • 4 custom platforms published as case studies

Tell us what you need

A senior person reads this and replies within one working day. No call centre, no drip sequence.

Partners & recognition

The stack we work in, the clients we keep

The platforms we build and run campaigns in, and the clients whose numbers we publish with their names on. HubSpot is the one partnership we claim; the rest are tools we use, not badges.

  • German Medical Center
  • The Reformery Clinic
  • Alma Laser
  • Roxana Aesthetics Clinic
  • Lamel
  • Dotline Studios

The problem

Custom is not a badge. It is a decision with a bill attached

Half the agencies in this city will build you something custom because the invoice is larger. The honest question is narrower: what does this site have to do that a well-built WordPress or Shopify install cannot?

Four answers that genuinely justify it

  1. The data has a shape

    A property portal filtering on price, area, bedrooms, developer, handover date and payment plan is not a blog with extra fields. Arabland needed listing search, a map of the city and a mortgage calculator that agreed with the listing — that is a data model decision, and getting it wrong is not something front-end work rescues later.

  2. Two buyers, one catalogue

    Bafco sells a single office chair to one person and a full fit-out to a procurement team. Same products, two entirely different journeys, one inventory. A template picks one of those buyers and quietly loses the other.

  3. Something has to talk to something else

    A CRM, an ERP, a booking system, a payment gateway, a listings feed. Integrations are where projects actually run late, because the other system was documented optimistically and nobody checked before the estimate went out.

  4. The interface is the product

    Concept Plus needed a scroll-scrubbed WebGL sequence across six business divisions. There is no plugin for that. It still holds a PageSpeed of 90, which is the part most agencies skip when they sell you something bespoke.

What is included

What a custom build actually includes

Priced as a scope, not as a day rate. Everything below is in the estimate before work starts, so there is nothing to discover halfway through.

Discovery and data modelling

The entities, their relationships and the queries the site will actually run. This is the step that decides whether the search is fast in year three, and it happens before anyone opens a design tool. Output is a written model you own.

Front end

Built as components against a performance budget agreed up front. We work in Astro and React depending on how much of the page is genuinely interactive — a catalogue page that ships a megabyte of JavaScript to render text is a choice, not a requirement.

Back end and APIs

Node or PHP against a relational database, or a headless CMS where editors need to be independent of us. Endpoints documented, rate-limited and versioned, so the mobile app someone commissions next year does not force a rewrite.

Integrations

CRM, ERP, payment, booking, listings feeds. Each one gets a written contract of what it sends and what it expects, plus a failure mode. Systems go down; the site should degrade rather than break.

Admin and editing

Whoever maintains this after us has to be able to. That means an editing interface built around how they actually work, not a raw database view with the fields exposed.

Performance budget

A number, set at the start, treated as a constraint rather than an aspiration. Our last four builds hold PageSpeed 90, 91, 95 and 97 — on a property portal, a clinic, a furniture store and a medical centre, all image-heavy categories.

Accessibility

Keyboard paths, focus states, contrast and labelled form fields, tested rather than assumed. In a market with a large non-native-English audience this is also a comprehension issue, not only a compliance one.

Handover

Repository, environment variables, deployment pipeline, the data model document and a recorded walkthrough. You can take all of it to another agency the week after launch. That is the point.

Technology

What we build it with

Chosen for what the project needs and who maintains it afterwards. There is no house framework we push regardless of fit.

Front end

Rendering strategy follows how interactive the page really is.

  • Astro
  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Vue
  • Tailwind CSS
  • GSAP
  • Three.js
  • WebGL

Back end

Relational unless there is a reason not to be.

  • Node.js
  • PHP 8
  • Laravel
  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • Redis
  • REST
  • GraphQL

Headless CMS

Where editors must not depend on a developer.

  • Storyblok
  • Sanity
  • Strapi
  • WordPress REST
  • HubSpot CMS

Hosting and delivery

Edge-first, because the audience is not only in the UAE.

  • Cloudflare Pages
  • Cloudflare Workers
  • Vercel
  • AWS
  • Netlify
  • Docker

Integrations

The ones we are asked for most in this market.

  • HubSpot
  • Salesforce
  • Zoho
  • Stripe
  • Telr
  • Network International
  • Property Finder feeds
  • Bayut feeds
  • SAP
  • Microsoft Dynamics

How we work

How a custom project actually runs

Four stages, each with a decision at the end of it. You can stop after any of them and still own everything produced so far.

Deciding what to build

Two to three weeks. We map the entities, the journeys and the integrations, then write the estimate against that document rather than against a conversation. Most of the arguments that would happen in month four happen here instead, on paper, cheaply.

  • Data model and entity relationships
  • User journeys per audience
  • Integration contracts and failure modes
  • Performance budget agreed
  • Fixed-scope estimate

Shipping in vertical slices

One working journey at a time, end to end, on a staging URL you can open whenever you want. Not a design phase followed by a silent development phase followed by a reveal — that model is how projects get to launch week with a surprise in them.

  • Fortnightly working builds
  • Staging environment from week one
  • Component library as it emerges
  • Integration work started early, not last

Breaking it before the public does

Load, devices, browsers, keyboard, screen reader, and the failure modes for every external system. Content entered by your team, not lorem ipsum, because real content is where layouts fall over.

  • Cross-browser and device matrix
  • Accessibility pass
  • Load testing on the heaviest query
  • Integration failure simulation
  • Performance measured against the budget

The part most estimates leave out

Migration, redirects, analytics, search console, and thirty days of monitoring with us watching rather than you reporting. Then a decision about whether you want ongoing maintenance or a clean handover.

  • Redirect map built and verified
  • Analytics and conversion tracking live
  • Thirty days of post-launch monitoring
  • Full handover pack, whatever happens next

Why us

Why clients pick us for the hard builds

Not because we are the cheapest. Usually because a previous build did not survive contact with real traffic or real content.

A performance budget, set before the first component

PageSpeed 90, 91, 95 and 97 on our last four builds. One of those carries a scroll-scrubbed WebGL sequence. Most agencies treat speed as something to attempt after launch, which is why it never happens.

We say no to custom when it is not warranted

If a Shopify theme with two app integrations does the job, that is what we will recommend, and we will say so in the first meeting rather than the fourth. It costs us the larger invoice and it is still the right advice.

The data model comes before the design

Arabland filters listings on price, area, bedrooms, developer and payment plan and is still fast. That is a modelling decision made in week two, not a front-end trick applied in month five.

Built for whoever maintains it next

Repository, pipeline, documented model, recorded walkthrough. Clients who leave us can take the whole thing with them. It has happened, and it should be possible.

Start a projectTell us what the site has to do and we will tell you honestly whether it needs custom development.

Industries

Proven results across sectors

Every number below is the count of case studies we have actually published in that sector, and the best result among them. Nothing is a counter.

Selected work

Websites we have built

Client stories

What clients say

On camera and in writing — swipe through the founders and teams we’ve helped design, build and grow.

In their words

★★★★★
GMC is thrilled to extend our heartfelt appreciation to Adnika! Collaborating with Ehsan and his team has consistently been an absolute delight. Ehsan's dedication and commitment have ensured that German Medical Center remains an exceedingly satisfied and happy client, especially regarding their Hubspot Onboarding, Digital Marketing, Website Development, Content Creation and Social Media Marketing. Adnika is indeed the Best Digital and Growth Marketing Agency in UAE!
German Medical CenterDubai, UAE
★★★★★
Adnika provided us with their Inbound Sales and Marketing solutions through Hubspot. They helped us generate more qualified leads for our sales team, drive website traffic, increase customer engagement, and grow our customer base. Adnika is a reliable partner that has always taken our specific goals and needs seriously.
Ómar Thor ÓmarssonCMO, Meniga
★★★★★
Adnika has helped us plan, implement and optimize ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. Adnika is truly committed to Performance Marketing. They provided us with a fantastic dashboard with detailed KPIs that helped us track the campaigns’ performance in real time. Adnika also gave us helpful and dedicated support during the whole project, and the campaigns turned out to be a great success. We highly recommend working with Adnika's growth experts.
Christer PihlqvistKapi Marketing
★★★★★
We really enjoyed working with Adnika’s team. Not only are they talented, but they all take the time to understand whom they're working with, what they're trying to accomplish, and how to help the business achieve its goals. The quality of work we've experienced has made a huge difference for us and helped drive new business.
Ola BringleMarketing Advertising
★★★★★
Adnika helped Sea Technology with setting up new digital channels, such as Google Search Ads, to attract more customers and leverage our brand. We are very satisfied with the results and we will continue with the implementation of lead generation, marketing automation, and performance marketing.
Bengt LundquistSeatech
★★★★★
Working with the Adnika team has been a real pleasure! Extremely friendly, Ehsan and Elin are always available with prompt replies, valuable insights, patience, a problem-solving attitude, and high knowledge. Super easy to work with them. I highly recommend the Adnika team to help your business!
Magnus BruhnPharmaceuticals
★★★★★
I am an artist, but I also manage a collective of DJs. In order to promote our services to our clients, we needed Inbound solutions that could attract the right traffic and promote the brand. Adnika built and designed our Inbound processes as well as create and manage campaigns on social media and Google Ads which helped us attract many more customers. I’m very happy!
Denise LopezXOXO Agency
★★★★★
We've been using Adnika growth marketing solutions only for a few months. They are highly professional, competent, experienced, and creative. Get ready to get to work with this agency. They will come alongside you as a business owner and feel your pain and joy! Get ready to transform your business.
Pierre-Alexande RauxTelecommunications

Questions

Custom web development, answered plainly

The questions that come up in the first call, including the one about money.

AED 60,000 to AED 350,000 covers most of what we are asked to build. The number moves on the number of integrations, whether the data has to be migrated from a live system, and how much of the interface is genuinely bespoke rather than assembled. Anything quoted before those are known is a guess. We scope first, then price, and the scope document is yours whether or not you proceed. These are market ranges rather than a fixed rate card — the proposal carries the real figure.

Because the parts a template gives you free — the data model, the admin interface, the search, the security patching — all have to be designed and then maintained. That is worth paying for when the logic is genuinely yours, and a waste when it is not. The scoping stage exists to tell you which of those two you are.

WordPress gives you a content model, an editor, a plugin ecosystem and a patching cadence, and asks you to work within them. Custom development means those are yours to define, and yours to maintain. If your requirements fit inside WordPress, using it is not a compromise — it is the cheaper correct answer.

Often, yes. We start with a paid audit of the repository, the data and the deployment setup, and give you a written verdict: extend, refactor or rebuild. Sometimes the answer is rebuild, and we would rather say that after reading the code than promise otherwise before.

Scoping is two to three weeks. Build is typically three to six months depending on how many external systems are involved. Integrations are the usual reason a project runs long, which is why we write the contract for each one during scoping rather than discovering it in month three.

Yes, and it is usually the better plan. We build in vertical slices, so a single complete journey can go live while the rest is still in progress. It gets you real user behaviour months earlier than a single launch date.

You do, from the first commit. The repository is yours, the environment variables are yours, the deployment pipeline is documented. There is no licence, no lock-in and no hosting arrangement you have to keep with us to keep the site running.

When editors need to work independently of developers, or the same content has to feed a site and an app, yes. This site runs Astro against Storyblok on Cloudflare Pages. Headless adds moving parts, so it needs a reason beyond being fashionable.

Right-to-left is a layout concern, not a translation concern. Mirrored components, logical CSS properties, an Arabic typeface chosen for screen, and hreflang tags that actually pair. German Medical Center runs bilingually on this basis.

You take the repository, the documentation and the pipeline, and you go. We will do a handover call with the incoming team. A relationship held together by making the exit difficult is not one worth having.

No questions match — try another search.

Next step

Tell us what it has to do.

Send the requirement in a paragraph. We will tell you whether it needs custom development or whether something cheaper does the job — before anyone quotes.

Get a quote