Skip to main content
Development

What is Apex in Salesforce?

Apex is Salesforce's proprietary, strongly-typed programming language used to execute custom business logic on the Lightning Platform.

Clientell AI, the AI Salesforce admin, helps with Apex in a sandbox: it writes and tests the code, and shows it to you before anything deploys. See Apex and query generation

Try it in Clientell AI

“Write a Apex example for my Account object, test it in a sandbox, and show me the code before anything deploys.”

Clientell reads your org first, drafts every change, and changes nothing until you approve. Platform deployments include rollback. How security works.

Start the 14-day free trial, no card

Term Context

Category

Development

10 terms in this category

Related Terms

5

connected concepts

Glossary

66

total definitions

How does Apex work in Salesforce?

Apex runs on Salesforce's multi-tenant servers and is syntactically similar to Java, making it accessible to developers with object-oriented experience. It supports triggers that fire before or after DML operations, batch processing for large data volumes, scheduled jobs, and REST/SOAP web service callouts. Apex executes in a governed environment where CPU time, heap size, and query limits are strictly enforced to protect shared infrastructure.

Because Apex code deploys through metadata and requires unit-test coverage of at least 75%, it encourages disciplined development practices. Common use cases include complex validations that span multiple objects, integration orchestration with external systems, and custom API endpoints exposed via @RestResource. Clientell AI can generate and deploy Apex triggers and classes directly inside your org, drastically reducing the time between requirement and production-ready code.

Questions people ask

What is Apex in Salesforce?

Salesforce's own programming language, similar to Java, for writing custom logic that runs on the Salesforce servers.

Do I need to know Java to learn Apex?

No, but Java skills help. Apex syntax is close to Java, so the learning curve is short for Java developers.

How much test coverage does Apex need?

At least 75% of Apex code must be covered by tests to deploy to production.

When should I use Apex instead of Flow?

Use Flow first for most automation. Use Apex when you need complex logic, heavy data volumes or things Flow cannot do.

Related Salesforce Terms

5 terms

Visualforce

Development

Visualforce is a tag-based markup language that lets developers build custom user interfaces hosted natively on the Salesforce platform.

Lightning Web Components (LWC)

Development

Lightning Web Components is Salesforce's modern UI framework built on native web standards like Web Components, Shadow DOM, and ES modules.

SOQL

Development

SOQL (Salesforce Object Query Language) is the query language that reads records from Salesforce objects, much like SQL SELECT. Apex allows 100 SOQL queries per synchronous transaction and 200 per asynchronous one.

SOSL

Development

SOSL (Salesforce Object Search Language) is a text-search language that looks across several objects in one call and returns a list of lists. Apex allows 20 SOSL queries per transaction, separate from the SOQL limit.

Sandbox

Administration

A Sandbox is an isolated copy of your Salesforce production org used for development, testing, and training without risking live data.

What should I read next?

AI Salesforce AdminSalesforce Services

More in Development

View all →

Visualforce

Visualforce is a tag-based markup language that lets developers build custom user interfaces hosted natively on the Salesforce platform.

Lightning Web Components (LWC)

Lightning Web Components is Salesforce's modern UI framework built on native web standards like Web Components, Shadow DOM, and ES modules.

SOQL

SOQL (Salesforce Object Query Language) is the query language that reads records from Salesforce objects, much like SQL SELECT. Apex allows 100 SOQL queries per synchronous transaction and 200 per asynchronous one.

SOSL

SOSL (Salesforce Object Search Language) is a text-search language that looks across several objects in one call and returns a list of lists. Apex allows 20 SOSL queries per transaction, separate from the SOQL limit.

Getting Started

Try this on your own org

Start the 14-day free trial, no card. Clientell scans read-only first and changes nothing until you approve.

Start free trialBook a demo

14-day free trial  ·  No credit card required

SOC 2
HIPAA
GDPR
Salesforce Partner