According to Gartner, the low-code application development technologies and platform market will grow by 20% in 2023. In fact, low-code application development is projected to comprise over 65% of app development activity by 2024. Indeed, low-code solutions are proving immensely viable for application development and opening avenues for business users to contribute more to development initiatives than ever. To that end, let’s explore the top reasons to adopt the low-code approach.

Benefits of Low-code Application Development

High Speed of Development and Faster Go-To-Market 

The best part of low-code application development is that the development time cuts off from months to days. It helps you to launch the application in the market quickly, get user feedback, work on the potential bugs, and add new features and functionalities that suit the market and customer needs.

Reduced Application Bugs

As the low-code platform deals with limited code development, it leads to reduced possibilities of bugs. As a result, the development time gets reduced manifold.

Increased Productivity

Low-code app development involves various tools that simplify the development lifecycle. For example, monitoring and alerting capabilities notify about the risk or failure of a process, suggest rerouting the process to prevent delays, execute remedy workflows to reduce IT spending, and maintain Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

Multiple Deployment

The deployment of a single application on one platform is a complex task in itself. However, a low-code app development platform allows for building applications for multiple platforms at the same time. Delivery of such responsive apps bodes well for businesses’ omnichannel endeavors and enhancing user experience.

Lower Development Cost

Due to rapid development, lower resource requirements, and shorter time to market, the cost of low-code app development gets reduced significantly. 

Reduced Maintenance Burden

Low-code platforms relieve the pain of software updates and maintenance. There are fewer integration issues to be managed as the components are pretested, standardized, and ready-made as compared to the conventional development framework. As such, low-code development platforms allow developers to focus on tasks that create value for business and spend less time on software maintenance.

Challenges of Low-code Application Development

It is easier and quicker to launch applications with low-code development platforms. But they may not be sufficient for all the business needs. To that end, it is imperative to know the downsides of choosing a low-code platform.

Security Concerns

The security of the underlying data is one of the most critical issues with the adoption of low-code development platforms. Many platform providers do offer enterprise-grade security controls in top-tier packages. But security still remains a primary concern. In a 2022 survey, 32% of the respondents outlined problems related to governance, 26% said that they didn’t know how to check for vulnerabilities, and 25% talked about the lack of visibility into development on the part of security teams.

Limited Freedom

Most vendors provide long-term packages and do not allow businesses to move the code from one low-code platform to another. For the same reason, it is important to understand vendor policies before partnering with them. 

Training Requirement

Low-code platforms have a unique interface that requires specialized user training, especially for non-technical users. This might turn out to be cost and time-intensive and beyond a point, makes it counterproductive to the entire low-code value proposition.

Lack of Flexibility and Limited Customization

Low-code environments claim that there is no need to write code, but it is not always true. When there is a need for extensive customization, development expertise is required due to the lack of flexibility and customization options in the platform. Here, partnering with a reliable development expert is prudent to achieve your software and business goals.

Limited Integration Options

Low-code platforms focus on operational efficiency but hinder many integration options for users. Most low-code platform providers do not allow custom integrations for third-party systems. On the other hand, the custom development platform allows businesses to integrate with in-house or third-party systems seamlessly.

Governance

Developing applications on low-code platforms might pose governance issues due to their stand-alone nature. Besides, the data quality levels and unmanaged data formats can spread widely across the platform. On the contrary, choosing a reliable software development partner allows you to consider the identity and technology of the user to ensure successful governance.

The Future of Low-Code App Development (and How an Expert Partner Can Help)

As low-code solutions are crucial to speed up delivery and reduce business costs, they’re bound to proliferate in the near future. With intuitive interfaces and low entry barriers, they bridge the gap between citizen developers and full-fledged coders to some extent.

However, it is important to note that these platforms have numerous limitations when it comes to driving sophisticated development initiatives. The pre-defined templates could constrain development and make it challenging to accommodate any specification changes if they aren’t supported by the platform.

So, many complex functionalities will still require skilled developers who can understand the functions and requirements of applications at the code level and solve critical business problems.

Thus, it’s viable to choose the right low-code partner to guide you through the plethora of application development issues, analyze your business needs, and help you map the development journey to achieve your business goals. At Sagacity, we have extensive experience in developing digital B2B and B2C technologies and helping businesses realize innovation in their digital transformation journey.

Looking to ease the way of developing best-in-class applications for your business and leverage the low-code app development platforms? Get in touch with us today!