Low-Code: Who and How?

Low-Code: Who and How?

Application and software development is increasingly becoming accessible and manageable by professionals beyond traditional developers, platforms that offer low-code development allow fast and easy application building, by significantly reducing the need to code to deliver an application, allowing both technical and non-technical team members to collaborate and work on the application together.

This article will cover who can make use of low-code development and how to use it to push innovative solutions across different industries.

What is Low-Code?

Low-code is an approach that is used for software development, it enables developers to build applications with minimal code writing while also allowing customization for complex applications, these platforms provide an interface where components are dragged-and-dropped within the workspace to have a visual representation of the application and offering pre-built templates leading to a fast and efficient development process.

One of the key features of low-code is automation, the repetitive coding jobs are done automatically allowing a speedy delivery time of the application, another important feature is the pre-built integration capabilities that connects external systems to the developed project including databases and APIs, as well as third-party services.

Scalability is another key advantage of low-code platforms, as they support deployment across both cloud and on-premises environments, allowing applications to grow seamlessly with business needs.

The most used low-code platforms are OutSystems -used for enterprise-grade applications and offers strong security and scalability, Mendix – Provides multi-cloud deployment and allows developers to utilize AI when creating the application, Appian – Is focused on business process management and automation, Google AppSheet – used for mobile and web apps, these platforms provide different level of complexity, scalability, and focus on certain industries.

Who can Low-Code?

Low-code developing is not restricted to developers with technical background only, these platforms are designed to allow users from different professional backgrounds to easily develop applications. Starting off with citizen developers, which are business users that barely have coding experience can use low-code platforms for automating workflows and to build simple applications. Professional developers will be able to make use of low-code platforms to build and integrate applications quickly with the ability to maintain the flexibility of coding. IT teams can leverage this approach to expedite initiatives in digital transformation, and optimize, refine, and enhance development. Thanks to the ease of use offered by low-code development platforms, startups and entrepreneurs can rapidly build MVPs, significantly reducing time-to-market.

Industries Benefiting from Low-Code

Large companies and organizations can have low-code application for internal use purposesand rapid application deployment. As low-code is very useful when it comes to automation, security, and smooth integrations, it works well for industries such as Telecom, finance, and healthcare.

Telecom companies can use low-code for network automation and IoT integration, and when used in finance, companies can make use of the platform to quickly onboard customers, detect frauds and manage compliance, as for the healthcare industry, patient management, scheduling of appointments, and record keeping is done easily with low-code application development.

How Low-Code Works

Developing through low-code platforms happens through first defining the requirements, then designing the app visually, followed by adding business logic and connecting data sources, then testing and iteration commences before finally deploying and maintaining the delivered application.

When it comes to building an application through low-code platforms, there are multiple core components that allow seamless and efficient development.

Starting off with the visual development interface, drag-and-drop of elements and components such buttons, forms, and workflow is done instead of writing code, allowing developers to visualize the application as it is being built through the graphical user interface (GUI), the GUI is used to design application interface and logic.

Pre-built components are another feature that is used in low-code development, forms, dashboard, data tables, and other common features are available in the platform and ready to use, allowing developers to configure the pages instead of building the pages from scratch.

Low-code platforms also provide the users with reusable modules, for common business functions templates and modules can be reused in different applications.

With the drag-and-drop feature workflows are done visually, the workflows define how the data flows and how the application operates and reacts to user input. For advanced behavior some low-code platforms offer rule-based systems, other platforms use simple scripting.

The use of data integration tools allow developers to connect their systems with external databases, APIs, CRMs and ERPs, the data mapping is done visually as well as synchronizing the data.

One-click deployment is one of the low-code features that stand out the most, with a single click the application is deployed either on cloud, on-premises, or hybrid environments.

Benefits of Low-Code

Low-code development is powerful and comes with many advantages.One Key benefit include faster development, with the help of pre-built components and the drag-and-drop feature quick development is ensured. Cost efficiency is an advantage that should be considered when developing an application, low-code reduces the need to manually code, therefore, large development teams are not required, hence, minimizing cost for software development and maintenance.

Improved collaboration is another benefit, low-code allows technical and non-technical teams contributions to the development of the application. Other important advantages are flexibility and scalability, automation and efficiency, enhanced security, easier iteration and updates. 

Challenges and Considerations

While low-code development comes with numerous benefits, it also comes with challenges that should be considered when choosing to develop through a low-code platform. Limited customization may come up as an issue if developers want to build a unique and complex functioning application.

Vendor lock-in is another risk that should be considered because of the difficulty to migrate applications to other environments. Rigid user interface is a disadvantage as customization of the user interface is restricted.

To conclude, developing through low-code platforms enables fast, efficient, and collaborative software developing experience. With the core components such as the drag-and-drop of elements, visual development environment, pre-built component, both technical and non-technical users can contribute to building an application.

Low-code development allows users from different professional backgrounds build an application. The platform is ideal for different industries such as telecom, finance, and healthcare. Low-code development offers many advantages including speed, efficiency, cost savings and many more, however, the limitations such as customization restrictions should be considered when developing through a low-code platform.