No-code or Low-code Apps

KIIT E-CELL
4 min readFeb 12, 2022

How are they going to affect the web developers or designers?

When we open the ‘Medium’ app on our mobile phones to check out the recent stories, the lucidity of the app makes it feel surreal. The user-friendly features and the outlook which the app comprises, force us to spend more time on it. Well, that’s because the developers and designers have brainstormed & put in their hard work to make it look that way. But a sudden surge of a new automation trend is slowly taking over the app development market i.e., the no-code/low-code development tools.

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A new kind of platform that provides even non-programmers to build exciting apps, without having any prior knowledge about coding. OutSystems, Zoho Creator, Google app Builder, and the list goes on when we jump into the pool of such communities which gives a semi-opportunistic way of creating apps; especially in the entrepreneurial communities where websites play a major role in the expansion of their company (speaking of communities, have you read our blog on Entrepreneurial Communities?).

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But those have proven to be detrimental from the web developer’s perspective. According to IT Research Firm Forrester, in 2019 the usage of low-code applications went just over one-third of developers and by the end of 2020, it surged to about 50% of the developers.

So are we moving into a future without web developers and designers? “No, it isn’t the future of code”, said Stiehm, the CTO of Coveros, an Agile & DevOps Consultancy. But that doesn’t rule out the fact that using that platform, makes the software available 10 times faster as compared to a normal programmer. The amount of time consumed is very little, for which it is intriguing for the developers too. Stiehm also stated that low-code cannot be thought of as a complete replacement for the web developers or the designers, because when the complexity of the solution increases, low-code breaks down.

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Low-code platforms do have more problems which makes it more complacent because when we try to connect the app with the wider network of the world, it shows issues that make it harder for the person using it. This is where the developers take the driving seat as they know what needs to be done to make it a global app, which can be used by anyone in the world around. But still, statistics show that around 2024, 65% of app development will happen in low-code platforms, according to Gartner, an IT service management company.

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Developers consider an app as a piece of art that they create after many failures. But, if the tool makes the masterpiece easier, faster, and more precise, what’s the difficulty in using it? Well, it’s a global truth that a painter uses a brush and not the other way round, so it’s hard to think of such platforms taking over the development market just like that.

Low-code’s main application areas are business process or workflow applications, web and mobile interfaces, and customer-centric applications currently. However, it has quickly become a standard practice for rapid application development, which can be demonstrated by relating to scenarios related to the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, experts believe that low-code will eventually expand to a wider range of areas, such as the reengineering of technology stacks and ecosystems.

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Industry professionals expect the destiny of low-code will see persevered company adoption, in particular for instant improvement and specific enterprise needs. Organizations will, however, continue to practice traditional application development, which requires advanced application functions, data management, and deployment in a specific architecture or environment.

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KIIT E-CELL

The Entrepreneurship Cell of KIIT-DU aims to foster entrepreneurship culture amongst students and assists budding entrepreneurs with the necessary resources.