As demands for new platforms and software grow by the day, creative engineering experts continue to come up with solutions to satisfy them. And since one of the most common struggles today is that there is more demand for code than coders available on the market, it’s no surprise that a new solution has been created. “No code” allows virtually anyone, regardless of prior experience, to create an app.
But which direction should you go in? Should you give “no code” a try or rather stick to traditional development methods? Well, it all depends on what you wish to build. In this article, I will tell you what “no code” is and answer some questions that will hopefully help you make the best decision for your business.
What is this “no code” thing and how do I use it?
First of all, we should say that “no code” is a bit of a misnomer. There is code involved. You just don’t need to have someone write it for you: it’s already been written. Creating an app in this way is a bit like solving a puzzle. You select the pieces of prewritten code and put them together to build an app with the functionalities you wish it to have. The reason why I said it resembles putting together a jigsaw puzzle is also due to the fact that the whole process is rather visual. You simply select visualized features and components and put them together on a visualized flow of the app. You can use libraries of functionalities to do this, so you don’t actually need to have any technical skills or knowledge whatsoever.
Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? It sure is great if you need a solution quickly and you can’t afford to spend either time or money (or both!) on experts who will build it from scratch. However, there are some drawbacks, so let’s see if this solution is actually good for you and what you wish to build.
Are you building a commercial app?
If you answered “yes” to the above question, then “no code” is probably not the best solution for you. Why? Because you won’t own the code. One of the benefits of choosing traditional development over “no code” is that anything your developers create for you is your property, so you can make changes and improvements to it as needed.
Additionally, there are some serious security concerns when it comes to “no code” – if you don’t own the code, there’s no way of ensuring that what you’ve built is actually secure. If you want your app to process any sort of data and you want the outside world to interact with it – the safest option is still traditional development.
Generally speaking, “no code” is used by organizations to solve particular operation problems. It’s often a quick way to address a specific bottleneck where otherwise you would need people to do something manually. It is by no means a good idea to build a commercial product with this method.
Are you building an app with an intention to scale?
Even if you are building something simply to streamline some of your organization’s processes, it might still be better to go with traditional development rather than “no code”. The reason being it’s actually quite difficult to scale a product built with these premade blocks. There are still a lot of limitations when it comes to integration. Whether you’re integrating into a private cloud, third-party solutions or in-house systems, with “no code” your integration options are very limited. At this point in time, when it comes to building applications that need to function well across various departments, user target groups and markets – “no code” is rarely used or recommended.
Are you planning to collect and analyze data?
If so, again, “no code” might not be a fit. This is again due to issues with proper integration. If you can’t integrate properly with other systems, it’s difficult to store the data, making it difficult to analyze it later.
So what is “no code” good for?
It might seem, that if you can’t build a commercial app with it, and you can’t scale it, that there’s no point in using this approach in the first place. This isn’t necessarily true. “No code” is still a good solution if:
- You’re addressing a specific problem in a specific department in your company and are looking to solve it quickly and on a tight budget.
- You’re building a POC for internal purposes, which will help you convince stakeholders that a particular solution is worth investing in.
Summary
“No code” is still a relatively new solution and it is likely that a lot of the problems listed above will be addressed and solved in the future. For now, however, it seems that for purposes of building commercial, scalable, customizable applications – traditional development is still your safest bet. It will cost more and be more time-consuming, but in the end, you will have a product you can fully control and capitalize on.
If you need a team to build a solid, commercial-oriented solution, Appunite is a place where you can find some of the best engineers in the industry who always stand ready to take on a new challenge. Reach out to us, and we will help you transform your idea into a market-ready product.
