What are the pros of low-code/no-code, and how it can profit your IT business?

All of us have been hearing quite a lot about low-code/no-code platforms lately. Code-free platforms promise to make software development as easy as using Word or PowerPoint. So that, the average business user can push projects forward without the extra cost (money and time) of an engineering team.

Maksym Prokhorov CEO & Co-founder at PLATMA

Unlike no-code platforms, low-code still requires specific programming skills but promises to speed up software development by allowing developers to work with pre-written code components.

And Platma combines all the advantages of low and no code. The platform offers ready-to-use software solutions with the help of which digital transformation of Small and Medium businesses can be done quickly and easily. So, let’s go deep into the pros of low-code/no-code, and how it can profit your business.

Codeless development is increasingly in demand

Low-code/no-code tools minimize coding effort and simplify customization

No-code means creating sites, applications, and services without code by modeling in a graphical interface or assembling a product using a constructor.

While low-code is a method of developing digital solutions, in which it is possible to use ready-made blocks, so manually write code of any complexity and in any programming language.

According to Gartner, by 2024, 65% of developed applications will be low-code

Back in 2017, I participated in performance benchmarking of traditional development (using Java) and low-code/no-code projects based on models. The results were impressive: when using the low-code/no-code method, performance increased by 5–7 times. A survey conducted by No-Code Census in 2020 showed a 4.6x increase in productivity compared to traditional programming.

With low-code/no-code developers are not needed. But it is not exactly true

Even though the first low-code/no-code solutions existed at the dawn of the 2000s, the demand for them has grown in the last couple of years. With the outflow of experienced IT specialists abroad, interest in low-code/no-code development and demand for such solutions has sharply increased.

Low-code technologies can not only reduce the crisis in the personnel market in the IT segment but also accelerate the migration of businesses to domestic software.

The barrier to entry into the developer profession is high, and not everyone can do it quickly and on their own. LCNC platforms have a low barrier to entry. This allows you to understand their capabilities in a short time and implement simple but well-developed solutions using automated interfaces, forms, a constructor, and drag-n-drop. To master these tools is within the power of a beginner who does not have special education.

Low-code/no-code: Platform fragmentation

The low-code/no-code area is quite complex and includes numerous solutions, platforms, and sub-markets. For example, there are sub-markets focused on large, medium, and small enterprises. Low-code/no-code enterprise platforms provide high scalability, performance, security, and integration with enterprise applications. They are usually more expensive than others. Below is the Gartner Magic Quadrant for enterprise low-code platforms:

Gartner defines a low-code platform (LCAP) as follows: “It is a platform that supports rapid application development, one-step deployment, execution, and control using high-level declarative programming abstractions such as model-based and metadata-based programming languages.”

G2 offers a similar overview for small businesses. The platform market for small businesses and corporations is similar. Some small business platform providers are not as well known and popular in large corporations. Similarly, SMBs are generally reluctant to buy enterprise platforms primarily because of their price and complexity.

Not surprisingly, many low-code platforms are business process management platforms. BPM has long supported Model-driven Development, where you need to draw diagrams that explain how software should work before building it. This scheme is similar to the process approach of BPM, in which, to define a business process, it is necessary to arrange the blocks that represent sub-processes in the correct order. (BPMN is the most popular process mapping standard supported by most BPM platforms.) Therefore, process-oriented solutions are quite popular. Examples of low-code/no-code platforms for BPM are Appian, Pega, and Outsystems.

A few years ago, some visionaries said that very soon programmers would not be needed, IT specialists would die out, and developers would become an auxiliary specialty. Everything will be done by robots and neural networks.

Years have passed. And without people, without specialists, nothing happens. Even if robots or neural networks will help write code in the future, someone should teach them this, and most importantly, set such a task. Again, such tasks should be set by a competent person deeply versed in the topic.

I can’t say that with the development of technology, the role of people has decreased. On the contrary, the part of creative people, who know how to solve problems, and who know how to achieve results, is only increasing.

Want to know more? Visit Platma and give your opinion in the comments.