Low code development platforms (LCDP) continue to evolve rapidly. We conducted extensive research inspecting the leading platforms — SalesForce Apps, Monday, AirTable, Power Apps (MS), cloud products such as AWS Step Functions and Azure Logic Apps and others.
Here is the bottom line — there is no clear lead (yet!).
Each one has its unique edge which makes it perfect for a thin slice of use cases. Actually, on most use cases it turns out you’ll need some kind of combination of low code foundations.
An example? If you’d like to migrate the information systems of an SMB office (CRM, task management, employee management, legal, billing, and accounting, etc) from anything (hint spreadsheets…) to a modern low-code platform.
To refrain from costly and heavy coding solutions (PreviousGen CRMs and ERPs) you could set this system up using SF Apps. However, its extra flexibility which takes its toll as a resource-intensive project and its extra pricing usually deter decision-makers.
Then you could go for the other side of the spectrum — agile as in “agile” — AirTable. Amazing tool. A real piece of fine UX. Someone thought “hey let’s give’em a real low-code platform” and did it right.
However, it lacks fundamental features almost any implementation would need such as permission system, notification, and webhooks. This results in the inability to distribute the system across the organization since its too permissive — no validations, vulnerable to human mistakes, therefore, error-prone.
It’s bigger brother — Monday does support the above missing features however its UX is less sexy. It has an opinionated UI which means less generic approach. That makes it hard on the implementor to make the app look as if it was REALLY tailor-made for the specific SMB (AirTable did make it right). On top of that certain must-have features such as automatic grouping and flexible filtering systems are still missing.
So now what?
We went for the even bigger-brother solution — MS Power Apps.
That is a nice piece of a development platform. It allows a lot of freedom in building the frontend + adding visually the app workflows.
However differently of MS former low-code platform — Access — it lacks the database tier. Right — the user is offered with an indefinite number of database connectors, nonetheless, we are looking for a “full-stack” low code product. Being dependent on a developer to customize the database continuously is not inline with our prime objective (low-code…)
Our conclusion to this date is to go for a mix of tools. To enable truly low code cost-effective and appealing enough low-code solution would require probably a backend oriented platform (AirTable or Monday) working hand in hand with a frontend foundation (e.g. PowerApps or even non low code foundation such as Gatsby).
