Salesforce is one of the most powerful CRM platforms available, but out-of-the-box functionality doesn’t always fit unique business needs.
That’s where Salesforce development comes in, allowing companies to customize, extend, and integrate the platform using different coding languages and frameworks.
This guide breaks down the primary languages used in Salesforce development, explains their role in the ecosystem, and highlights best practices to follow when building custom solutions.
What is Salesforce development?
Salesforce development refers to the process of customizing and extending Salesforce through code-based and declarative solutions. Developers build applications that automate processes, enhance user interfaces, and integrate with external systems to create tailored business solutions.
Salesforce development generally falls into two categories:
Declarative development (no-code/low-code) – Uses tools like Flows, Process Builder, and Object Manager to configure automation and workflows without writing code.
Programmatic development (custom coding) – Uses Apex, JavaScript, SOQL, SOSL, and APIs to create advanced logic, integrations, and custom UI components.
Salesforce developers need to understand both approaches to determine when to configure vs. when to code. And understanding the languages involved with Salesforce development is a fundamental component of that.
How does Salesforce development language fit into the broader Salesforce ecosystem?
Salesforce development languages play a crucial role in extending the platform’s functionality, allowing businesses to customize workflows, build user interfaces, and integrate external systems. While Salesforce provides powerful out-of-the-box tools, many organizations require custom solutions that go beyond point-and-click configuration.
Understanding the coding languages used by Salesforce developers helps teams make informed decisions about development, scalability, and integration strategies. Each language has a specific purpose, from writing backend automation to querying databases and creating seamless user experiences.
Salesforce's multi-layered architecture relies on several technologies working together:
Backend development: Uses Apex, Salesforce’s proprietary programming language, to execute business logic, process automation, and API interactions.
Frontend development: Uses JavaScript in Salesforce, particularly Lightning Web Components (LWC), to build modern, interactive user experiences.
Data management: Uses Salesforce Object Query Language (SOQL) and Salesforce Object Search Language (SOSL) to retrieve, manipulate, and search records in Salesforce databases.
Integration development: Uses APIs and external languages like Python and Java to connect Salesforce with other business applications.
What is the Apex programming language?
Apex is Salesforce’s proprietary, strongly typed, object-oriented programming language. It is designed to execute business logic, automate workflows, and handle complex data processing within the Salesforce platform.
Being their proprietary language you can imagine that it’s deeply integrated into the Salesforce ecosystem. And the apex language in salesforce integration allows developers to extend standard functionality and create custom applications that run securely in a multi-tenant environment.
Apex is similar to Java and C#, making it familiar to developers with experience in those languages. However, it is optimized specifically for Salesforce’s cloud-based architecture, meaning it must comply with strict governor limits that regulate database operations, memory usage, and CPU processing time to maintain platform stability across all users.
What that means is that even if your fluent in Java and C#, you still need to take the time to familiarize yourself with Apex’s nuances.
How Apex fits into Salesforce development
Apex plays a central role in programmatic development and is used for:
Automating business logic: Used in triggers, batch jobs, and scheduled processes to automate complex tasks.
Enhancing system integrations: Works with REST and SOAP APIs to exchange data between Salesforce and external applications.
Extending standard functionality: Used in custom controllers for Visualforce and Lightning Components to enable advanced UI interactions.
Data processing and validation – Enforces business rules by validating and modifying records before they are committed to the database.
Key features of Apex:
Built-in governor limits: Apex is designed to work within Salesforce’s resource constraints, preventing any one tenant from overloading system resources.
Bulk processing: Apex supports bulkified operations, ensuring that large-scale record updates don’t violate limits.
Trigger-based automation: Apex triggers execute before or after record modifications, automating tasks like data validation, workflow execution, and complex calculations.
Asynchronous processing: Supports Batch Apex, Queueable Apex, and Future methods to process large data sets efficiently.
Integration capabilities: Works with REST and SOAP APIs to integrate Salesforce with third-party systems.
Working with frontend and integration technologies
Salesforce development goes beyond backend automation—frontend technologies shape the user experience, while integration technologies connect Salesforce to external applications. A well-designed system delivers intuitive user interfaces and seamless data exchange, making it easier for teams to interact with Salesforce and access the information they need in real time.
Frontend: JavaScript in Salesforce
On the frontend, developers use JavaScript in Salesforce to build responsive and interactive interfaces. The Lightning Web Component (LWC) framework provides a modern, lightweight way to create reusable components that enhance usability and performance.
While older technologies like Aura Components and Visualforce still exist, LWC has become the preferred approach for frontend customization.
Integrations: APIs and external languages
On the integration side, Salesforce applications often need to exchange data with external systems, such as ERP platforms, financial software, and customer support tools. These integrations are powered by Salesforce APIs, which allow external applications to retrieve, update, or sync data seamlessly.
Salesforce supports integrations with external systems using APIs and third-party languages:
Python and Java – Often used to exchange data between Salesforce and external databases or applications.
REST and SOAP APIs – Enable secure, programmatic interactions with Salesforce data.
GraphQL APIs – Offer optimized queries for retrieving structured data.
Building user interfaces in Salesforce
While Salesforce provides standard UI elements, developers often need to create custom interfaces tailored to business needs. This involves combining multiple programming languages to build interactive, visually appealing, and highly functional experiences for users.
Here’s a breakdown of how different languages shape Salesforce UI development
Apex: The foundation of UI logic
Apex handles server-side logic that powers UI components, such as:
Controlling data flow between UI components and the database
Defining custom business logic that influences UI behavior
Managing event-driven actions, such as field updates, button clicks, and record processing
JavaScript: Enhancing interactivity and client-side performance
JavaScript is essential for making Salesforce interfaces dynamic and responsive. It enables:
Real-time validation (e.g., form validation before submitting a record)
Asynchronous updates (fetching and displaying data without refreshing the page)
Event handling (e.g., click, hover, and input field changes that trigger UI responses)
HTML & CSS: Structuring and styling UI elements
HTML provides the structure of UI components, while CSS controls the design, layout, and responsiveness. In Salesforce, these technologies are used to:
Define the structure of Lightning components, Visualforce pages, and custom portals
Apply branding and styling to align with business requirements
Optimize UI components for different screen sizes (mobile, tablet, and desktop)
Bringing it all together: Salesforce UI frameworks
Salesforce provides three main frameworks that integrate Apex, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS into fully functional UI components:
Lightning Web Components (LWC): Uses modern JavaScript, HTML, and CSS to create fast, reusable, and modular UI components
Aura Components: An older component-based framework that combines JavaScript, Apex controllers, and UI markup
Visualforce: Uses Apex controllers, HTML, and CSS to create custom pages. Best for Salesforce Classic or generating PDFs and email templates
Data management with SOQL and SOSL
Salesforce applications rely on efficient data retrieval to power reports, dashboards, automation, and integrations. While users interact with query-driven features, developers are responsible for writing and optimizing SOQL and SOSL queries to maintain performance and scalability. Poor query design leads to slow execution times, governor limit violations, and inefficient data handling.
SOQL vs. SOSL: Understanding the difference
Both Salesforce Object Query Language (SOQL) and Salesforce Object Search Language (SOSL) retrieve data from Salesforce, but they serve different purposes.
The purpose of SOQL:
Used to retrieve specific fields from a single object or related objects.
Ideal for queries that require filters, sorting, and relationships (parent-child queries).
Syntax is similar to SQL (SELECT Name, Industry FROM Account WHERE Industry = 'Technology').
The purpose of SOSL:
Used for full-text searches across multiple objects.
Ideal when searching for records where field names are unknown or data is spread across objects.
More flexible but returns limited fields and doesn't support complex filtering.
Best practices for efficient queries
Use indexed fields in SOQL queries to speed up search results.
Limit the number of records returned to avoid governor limit violations.
Avoid SOQL queries inside loops—query once, store results in collections, and process efficiently.
Use SOSL only when searching across multiple objects, as it is optimized for broad searches.
Select only the necessary fields instead of using SELECT *, which consumes more resources.
Monitor query performance using debug logs to detect inefficient queries.
Best practices for Salesforce development
Following best practices in Salesforce development helps teams build scalable, secure, and high-performing solutions that evolve with business needs. Without a structured approach, applications become hard to maintain, inefficient, and prone to performance issues.
Developers who follow best practices create solutions that run smoothly, comply with Salesforce limits, and remain adaptable over time.
For a detailed breakdown of essential Salesforce development best practices, check out the full guide to best practices in Salesforce development.
Here’s a couple of the fundamental best practices to follow:
Write bulkified Apex code to handle large data volumes efficiently.
Follow security best practices, including CRUD, FLS, and Sharing Rules.
Use version control (Git) and CI/CD pipelines for structured deployments.
Leverage declarative tools whenever possible to reduce custom coding.
Learning pathways for Salesforce developers
If you’re here because you want to become a Salesforce developer, that's great.
Becoming a Salesforce developer requires mastering key technologies, best practices, and hands-on experience. Whether starting from scratch or expanding existing skills, understand the common Salesforce development services and follow a structured learning path that incorporates the relevant languages with best practices and hands on experience.
For a detailed breakdown of training options, check out this post on Salesforce development training.
If you're here because you are trying to develop your own Salesforce instance to integrate with your business, then have you considered utilizing a developer partner to build what you need and then train you on how to use it?
At DevSquad, we deploy expert teams to learn and understand what you are looking to gain from Salesforce and then translate that into a fully functioning, scalable instance. When it’s ready, we’ll then train you on what we’ve made and how to manage it. That way it is yours, truly yours.
And if you want to keep us around, were good with that as well.
Ready to build a custom Salesforce instance for your business? Learn more about our Salesforce development process.
