It comes down to the-right-tool-for-the-job. I've used Pascal, C, C++, C#, Smalltalk and 4GL frameworks such as Clarion, Dataflex... Also entry-level systems such as MS Access. I've reviewed and use several of the BPM (Business Process Modeling) solutions. Today, I can do anything I want with C# and .NET. I can do it 3x faster with Smalltalk, if I want to develop highly customized solutions. I can do a quick-and-dirty database, list and reporting app with Access. This is ok if you want to train the users and limit the number of deployments. Access is an upgrade from using Excel spreadsheets. Access apps are obsolete every time Microsoft introduces their next version of MS-Office. Some of the BPM systems are highly productive with business process flow and integrating with legacy systems. But, you can't really build highly customized apps or mobile or web solutions without conforming to their limitations. I took a look at the DevExpress XAF website and some of their videos. It looks great for a .NET shop and in-house apps. I don't think it's appropriate for building public scale apps that may be used by thousands of users via the Internet. For that, a solution like Meteor is better. I conclude with "use-the-right-tool-for-the-job." With software, if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problems looks like a nail. There is no one framework for all projects. Another issue to consider, if you do use a framework or system such as DevExpress XAF, make sure you have all the source code so you don't go down in flames if the vendor goes of in a direction not compatible with your objectives, or goes out of business. We built an ecommerce system for large scale deployments using IBM Visual Age Smalltalk. To this day, we can easily support the system and upgrade to the latest SOAP or REST or ??? features with minimal time, cost and pain. IBM sold this development tool to Instantiations so support and upgrades continue. All the source code to the entire development environment is included. Our experience with Microsoft development tools and platforms is a lot of pain and re-development every time MS jumps to a new paradigm and makes the old obsolete. I believe programmers are more productive today, but I can't see the need for good developers going away soon. The bigger challenge is the cheap developers over-seas that we have to compete with, if we're based in 1st world countries.

The database engine is the foundation of an entire software project. Best your select the right horse to ride at the outset. Developer time savings, code re-use and saving objects or graph-nodes with simple code (no transforming your objects or nodes into rows-and-columns or a structure required by the persistence engine) pay for the minimal license costs. If you checked-out the performance comparisons, you'll realize you can get away with a fraction of the hardware / server costs for this kind of database. Check how VelocityDb on a $1,000 Costco PC compares against $1 million+ hardware with Oracle. It may be worth your while to get a price quote for your specific business case and revenue model, so you can make an informed decision. I've been in software since 1981 and have reviewed many, many data persistence schemes. This one has saved me time, money and mis-steps. But, I don't know the specifics of your project.

Android is the sleeper when it comes to public awareness. I'm waiting for my new Samsung Note 4 which is a Smartphone having specs better than my laptop of three years ago. It's 2x the hardware, in every category, compared to the iPhone 6 Plus. I can run a Bluetooth keyboard, use the pen-stylus or my finger on the screen and use MS Office compatible apps and Chrome based apps... Syncs better to my PC than my iPhone ever did. With BlueStack or Andy, I can run the 1 Million+ Android apps on my PC or Mac. With Android out-selling iOS 2-to-1, this may be the next frontier. My wife, in her day-to-day work, uses her tablet more than her laptop. Just saying. Maybe, in a year or two, it will be Windows vs MacOS vs Android. After all, Android is Linux with a consumer GUI. Current digital cameras, Internet of Things, and mobile devices are mostly embedding Android.

What you need is a mature, full-featured, hi-performance object database management system ("ODBMS"). Most of the No-SQL options are missing features for what you want to accomplish. SQL databases are a poor solution for modeling graph data structures (or any highly complex db schema). Checkout the top performing database in this comparision of leading database systems: http://velocitydb.com/Compare.aspx[^] The features of VelocityDb are available in stand-alone or server versions: http://velocitydb.com/Features.aspx No-SQL databases just don't have such rich feature sets. And the open source VelocityGraph add-on link is at top of the home page: www.VelocityDb.com I've been using VelocityDb after many years with Versant and after looking at heavy-weight ODBMS systems such as Gemstone. I'm very happy with VelocityDb. My class hierarchy IS the database schema. Update your classes in your code, you've just updated your db schema.