What is No-Code and Low-Code Development?

What is No-Code Development?

No-code development allows users to build digital products, apps, websites, and more through visual modeling tools and configurations without any programming or coding skills. Applications such as form-based data input, simple reporting, dashboard, and lightweight back-office automation are easier to create using no-code tools as compared to Excel access applications with VBA.

Reasons to Use No-Code Development

• Reasonable use of company resources

• Effortless app customization

• Accelerated application development and delivery

• Support of digital transformation

• High-level security

• No-code development allows developers to make changes easily

• It is easy to drag and drop the functionality of the applications

• It allows developers to work efficiently without any risk.

Advantages:

• No-code development platforms help in reducing cost issues

• Reduces burden and requires fewer efforts

• It is easy for developers to create applications

• Changes and updates of the applications are done easily and quickly

• Reduces the number of developers and requires small team

Disadvantages:

• Applications developed by no-code have issues while sorting the data

• No-code is poorly scalable compared to others; it offers limited possibilities to integrate into the private cloud

• The functioning of the application is a little unclear in no-code development

• Limited options to build the applications and single function

Use cases:

Site builders:

This category is widely known for no-code applications. A few popular products like WordPress, Ghost, etc., use no-code technology for building websites without any need for programming expertise.

• Internal tooling - Airtable and retool

• E-commerce builders - It’s hard to imagine how challenging it was to build an online store a few decades ago. Thanks to no-code technology, various platforms such as Shopify, Volusion, BigCartel, etc., make it easy to get your store online.

• Mobile app builders - Example: Thunkable, perry.io, BuildFire, etc.

• Rapid builders - Rapid builders empower companies to express themselves more quickly. Example: Kodika, Play, Pineapple, Glidde, Pory, etc.

Business Automation

• Marketing Automation: This category uses no-code technology to automate monotonous marketing-related tasks such as email marketing, social media posting, and even ad campaigns. Products like Funnel.io or ActiveCampaign can seamlessly connect your ad platforms, such as Google and Facebook ads, with a no-code interface.

• Chatbots: A chatbot is an application used in messaging apps for connecting to users in the same manner as a human does. There are many no-code platforms that let you build AI chatbots for your website without writing any code.

• Business Process Management (BPM)

• Algorithm trading builders

• For building components of a data pipeline

Some of the Top Platforms for No-Code Development

bAppy Pie

(https://www.appypie.com/)
Features:

• Appy Pie is a mobile application builder released for IOS, Android and Windows

• Popular among both tech and non-tech users

• Intuitive interface

• Provides best development and comfortable access to the applications developed

AppSheet

(https://about.appsheet.com/home/)
Features:

• One of the fastest development platforms to build apps and automate work

• Using AppSheet you can build applications based on data sources such as Google Sheets, Excel, Cloud, SQL, SalesForce, and other similar connectors

• It captures data in the form of images, signatures, barcodes, and NFC. The data is automatically synced to the cloud or the user can opt manually.

• Can build applications faster by using templates

Airtable

(https://www.airtable.com/)
Features

• Airtable is a cloud-based company for developing applications

• It integrates with all apps and services

• Used to manage work, track and organize inventories, and much more

• Airtable provides good customization and integration for applications, which is a major benefit to choose

Microsoft Power Apps

(https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/
Features:

• Microsoft power apps is a great tool when you are in need of business applications

• It’s quick and easy to design and develop

• It allows you to connect to Office 365, Dynamics 365, Azure, and many other apps for building end-to-end business solutions

• Major benefit is data storage and data integration

.bubble

(https://bubble.io/)
Features:

• The best platform to build web apps without writing any code

• Provides a drag-and-drop interface to create interactive, multi-user apps for desktop and mobile web browsers

• Robust and scalable infrastructure

• Major benefit of choosing is the speed of development and easy application updates

Low-Code:

Organizations spend millions to develop legacy applications that take months to develop. Instead, using low-code, the same applications can be developed in a few days with less cost. Low-code, as the name suggests, requires drastically fewer lines of code to produce the same result as traditional programming language. Using low-code technology, you can implement custom logic under an already abstracted layer without even thinking about the underlying complexity. Low-code empowers you to build custom solutions ten times faster with a wide range of functionalities like the intuitive visual builder, ready-to-use code snippets, form and report templates, and pre-built integrations.

Reasons to Use Low-Code:

• Build apps faster

• Deliver greater quality and consistency

• Reduces development costs

• Focus on business requirements

Advantages:

• Fast to get started

• Super productive - With minimal effort, you can develop featured applications

• Scalable

• Extensible

• Rich functionality with less code

• You need not be an expert programmer to use low-code

Disadvantages:

• Limited integration

• Gets locked up in a low-code platform and it’s difficult to integrate a custom code into the application

• Security issues and there are chances of getting hacked

• Customization is limited

Use Cases:

• LC SaaS solutions: Using the low-code SaaS platform, business users and IT can collaborate to create applications with advanced user interface, integration, data, workflow, and business logic so that business results can be delivered in record time. Examples: CircleCI, Wayscript, mabl.

• Databricks: Databricks, the data and AI company, has acquired low-code technology to expand its platform to citizen data scientists

• Data engineering

• Rebuilding legacy applications to modern mobile applications using low-code

• Used for building innovation apps

Some of the Top Platforms for Low-Code Development

Visual LANSA

(https://lansa.com/products/visual-lansa/)
Features:

• Reduced complexity for application development

• Improves data integrity

• High-quality application development with minimal coding

• Easy to integrate

• Reduces development time thereby enhancing developer’s efficiency

Zoho Creator

(https://www.zoho.com/creator/)
Features:

• Can develop custom applications with minimal coding experience

• Intuitive drag-and-drop interface

• Development is quick, easy, and secure

• Helps in building business applications by automating processes or workflows

• Easy to integrate with external applications

• Zoho is ISO 27001/27017/27018 certified and SOC 2 compliant

Mendix

(https://www.mendix.com/)
Features:

• Great visual interface and IDEs provided to meet business needs quickly and efficiently

• Best platform to build smart applications by connecting to Artificial Intelligence services

• Helps in delivering end-to-end process automation

• Helps in building impact-driven apps in less time

• Very easy to use and can be deployed in a single click

• Provides fully customizable experience

Quickbase

(https://www.quickbase.com/)
Features:

• Reduced IT complexity and costs

• Uses pre-built application connectors to integrate with popular cloud based solutions while supporting advanced security features

• Automate tasks and workflows

Salesforce

(https://www.salesforce.com/in)
Features:

• Known as the world’s #1 CRM for automation applications

• Supports simple object access protocol environment as well as representational state transfer protocols

• Scalable and flexible

• Easy to design and implement with great speed and high ROI

Conclusion:

The difference between low-code and no-code development comes down to the reason behind their naming. Low-code requires users to do some level of coding and is mostly used by professional developers and programmers. No-code targets non-technical users and is truly a drag and drop process. Additionally, low-code is commonly used to create apps that run critical business processes or for apps in portals that likely require integration with other systems and data sources. On the other hand, no-code is commonly used for tactical apps to handle simple functions. Generally speaking, no-code platforms are typically a type of low-code. Even though everything will be becoming automated, we still need coders in the software industry. I can say that no-code will not replace code fully in the future but it will work more closely with developers and non-developers alike in the near future.