The low-code development platforms (LCDP) are changing the way how software is delivered by using visual application modeling with minimal coding. The speed of delivery, lower cost and overall increased productivity have contributed to popularity of these tools with estimated market size reaching over US$25 billion by 2022. In this post, I’d like to share three insights gained while managing products implemented using these tools.

Product features

While your stakeholders are excited about fast product delivery using the low-code platforms, they need to fully understand what this tool can do without coding and what needs to be custom developed. Out of the box, these tools will not be able to address all functionalities and use cases that need to be implemented. Customization of the existing objects and the UI look-and-feel can be limited.

License cost

Make sure you have a full understanding of the licensing model. While some usage may be included with the number of user licenses, you also need to account for elements such as API traffic or number of objects being used. Proper exploration of scaling scenarios will minimize hidden costs surprise once you start using the platform. Remember that migrating to other low-code platforms usually means recreating existing work from scratch.

Citizen development

The LCDP has potential to bring application development closer to business departments to directly solve their business problems or experiment, and freeing up software development departments for other projects. In order for this idea to be successful, there must be clear understanding that some coding is still required, which may limit non-technical staff to use only stock elements and out of the box customization options. The other considerations must include proper training, easy to use data model and some centralized oversight for deployment, maintenance and support.

The benefit of delivering solutions fast, and overall contribution of the low-code development platforms to the speed of digital transformation is undeniable. However, the adoption of these tools requires full understanding what can be implemented off the shelf, what requires custom coding, and what is possible to achieve using the custom code.