Pros & Cons of Low Code/No Code Platforms

Low-code development is a way to build mobile and desktop applications with minimal hand coding (typing code manually). Also, you don’t need a vast knowledge of programming languages.

Typing source code takes time. Before you can start creating any application, you need to test coding in a non-production setting.

Low-code development platforms have intuitive user interfaces or drag and drop tools, making it far quicker to develop and test an application. They also remove the need for tedious coding. No-code app builders, a subset of low-code products, allow anyone to build apps, even if they can't code at all.

Some low code development tools give you the option of adding layers of code, but only if and when you choose.

Rapid Development Time: According to Forester, low code development platforms make software development ten times faster than using the traditional method. Speeding the development lifecycle is one of this technology's most crucial benefits. It can take only 2-3 days to create enterprise apps - much faster than traditional hand-coding. These platforms include in-built templates, drag and drop functions, and business process data models which accelerate development time.

Business Agility: In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, a business needs to adapt and respond effectively to market shifts and potential opportunities. Using a traditional development approach to create applications is too tedious. Rapid application development tools help prepare systems to meet an almost endless set of requirements more rapidly with little risk. With sophisticated low-code app builder, companies can harness business process management, machine learning, robotic process automation faster.
Less coding: Low-code requires less coding, making it less laborious and error-prone. Pre-built components and off-the-shelf features speed up your development team’s efforts. Developers save time as there is no need to write and rewrite boilerplate code.
Cloud-Hosting: Flexibility is a strong benefit of low-code platforms. Businesses can deliver full-stack solutions in weeks and sometimes even days. Low-code solutions are ideal for cloud hosting, which itself helps to make agile software delivery faster.

Democratize Application Development: The Low-code approach enables citizen developers to contribute to application delivery. Most citizen developers don't have a programmer's experience to code an entire application by hand, but have the necessary business knowledge to create functional applications to speed up business processes.
Outstanding User Experiences: Low-code development platforms come with pre-built UI patterns, screen templates with prepared layouts, styles, components, logic, and widgets. These features provide the building blocks to create outstanding user experiences and intuitive user interfaces. All of these features have been specifically prepared and tested. They integrate easily with each other and work well across a range of devices.
Increased Productivity: The pre-built elements of low-code development platforms allow developers to save valuable time on the development process because they don’t need to hand code. By using low-code platforms, technical and business teams can build more applications faster. They don't have to spend unnecessary time on small tasks and can instead focus on creating more complex and relevant projects.

Pros of Low Code Development

Low Code Can Mitigate Shadow IT: According to Gartner, demand for applications is growing 5x faster than an IT department's ability to deliver them. If users don't get what they want right away, there's a good chance they'll adopt a third-party solution, which is known as shadow IT. One way for an IT department to avoid Shadow IT involvement is to have IT sanctioned low-code development platforms that allow business users to build their own solutions without troubling IT while the (IT) department controls the data and user access.

Accomplish More with Existing Skills: Web development is constantly changing and requires new skills. Many companies are finding that they face a skills gap. Hiring highly skilled developers when they have to work with outdated applications and systems is not affordable. Low-code development bridges the skills gap in an innovative way: It brings current skills to the existing workforce. For example, the IT leaders of one company used a low-code tool to turn COBOL programmers into web application developers.

Cross-Platform Functionality: With low-code development, you can build an application once and deploy it across a range of devices. Because of its cross-platform functionality and 1-click deployments, new features and updates can be created just once for all application instances. The result is providing an equally outstanding user experience across desktop, mobile, and tablet.

Low-code also has its flaws, but there are ways to overcome them. A list of requirements and goals is helpful when checking out low-code platforms.

Disadvantages of Low-Code Development:

Developer Angry Over the Cons of Low-Code Development | Alpha Software

Low Code Can Promote Shadow IT: There are situations where leaders of IT departments discover that an individual or department is using an unapproved low-code development tool. This wastes resources, and creates security risks. How can you solve this problem? Look out for warning signs, such as your helpdesk receiving requests for unfamiliar software. It's also crucial that you try to understand what issues a department is facing.

Vendor Lock-In: Vendor lock-in is one of the biggest fears surrounding low-code development platforms. Many assume that they are locked in to the vendor they choose. However, this varies from vendor to vendor. Some vendors produce clean, standardized code that works everywhere. This makes it easier to maintain an application within their platform. However, an application can be maintained outside of their platform. Other vendors generate convoluted code that makes it nearly impossible to maintain an application outside of their platform. Other vendors don't allow you to make changes to your applications once you stop using their tool.

Customization: When creating custom software, the only limitations developers may face are hardware and native language capabilities. Low-code development platforms are more constrained. A business may not get the exact functionality they want or need. With some low-code solutions, the user interface and flow may be limited. On the other hand, customization options vary between platforms. Some offer limited customization choices, while others give you access to the underlying code. With some, you can create applications that meet your needs; with others, you can't. Before you choose a platform, you should know the limits of your customization options.

Low-Code Development Platform Defined:

A low-code development platform requires minimal coding skills. It relies on simple logic-driven visual interfaces or drag-and-drop functionalities. Thanks to these intuitive low-coding tools, business users and professional programmers can create applications of varying complexity. Here are some essential features of low-code platforms:

Out-Of-The-Box Functionality: Low-code development platforms typically include the modules you need to build an app. Pre-built components can also be reused to build other applications.

Low-Code Vs No-Code in Creating Web and Mobile Apps: Low-code development platforms use visual declarative techniques instead of traditional programming. However, they require coding skills to complete integration with other systems. No-code, on the other hand, uses drag-and-drop tools that appeal to a broader audience without programming knowledge. This is achieved through workflow templates and element libraries

What is Best to Use for Web Vs Mobile apps? Low-code development platforms are best for building standalone web and mobile apps, as well as portals that will need to integrate with other systems and multiple data sources. In fact, low-code can be used for just about any application. Low-code web and mobile apps should only be used for front-end use cases.

Microsoft PowerApps (Low-Code)

PowerApps is icrosoft's low-code development platform, its main advantage is its integration with Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Flow, and Microsoft BI, making it easier to get data into and out of any of the Office365 applications your organization uses daily. It is also relatively quick to build a simple application from scratch. All you need to do is follow the instructions. However, PowerApp’s multiple menus can make this quite challenging at first.

Appy Pie (No-Code)

Appy Pie is a web-based app development platform that makes it easy to build apps with a drag-and-drop interface, no coding knowledge required. Many small businesses have found that it is easy to create basic applications. Appy Pie allows users to add features to customize apps like contact forms or schedulers.

Alpha TransForm (No-Code)

Alpha TransForm is an app maker for developers and business users alike. It enables the creation of applications that fit into enterprise workflows and digitize any work process for smartphones and tablets, such as compliance and auditing and reporting, inventory tracking... and more. It allows citizen and professional developers to build apps in hours and days, rather than weeks. Other features include data capture of business and field information, data collection in remote areas without Wi-Fi or a cell signal.

Alpha Anywhere (Low-Code)

Alpha Anywhere low-code software provides developers with a single platform to develop web, desktop, and mobile business applications. It is the ideal platform for citizen developers who have specific business needs and developers who have the technical knowledge to work in tandem to produce custom apps that integrate with company workflows, data sources, applications, and legacy systems. Alpha Anywhere allows developers to get their work done easily whether it involves server code, HTML, Java, or CSS.