C-Level

Compare LowCode from the CEO, CIO and CFO perspectives!

LowCode for your company

Digital transformation is the buzzword nowadays, but what does that mean and why do LowCode vendors claim their products should be part of your digital transformation strategy?

In essence it all comes down to one thing: LowCode aims to speed up your application delivery! I can hear you thinking, where have I heard that before? Yes, you're right, you did hear that before. For example it is embedded in the term RAD "Rapid Application Development".

So yes, LowCode is essentially a marketing term invented by Gartner. You can segment marketing messages of ICT products into "quality" or "quantity" improvers. LowCode clearly aims to improve the quantity of apps you can deliver. Speed, rapid or high productivity, all the same. A good question though, is what about quality or sustainability, and at what price? On this website we aim to help you to answer these questions.

Typecasting C-Level

IT is not our core business.

IT is a hygiene factor.

IT is a motivator.

We can transform our business to make money from our IT.

When citizens take over we can fire our CIO and IT department.

"So, LowCode platforms are just RAD platforms?"

No, it is worse! They're just development platforms, rapid or not.

Just like its RAD predecessors, LowCode development platforms claim to be simple, in the sense that they are simple enough that you don't need formal IT education or training in order to use them. Give every excel wizard LowCode and your applications will be created in no time at all, away goes your IT backlog. Glory! We have just formalized our shadow IT.

Ok, we are exaggerating right now, but this is what we see in 80 per cent of the companies using LowCode . Instead of LowCode offering a solution to ever-growing IT backlogs, it slows them down even further after an initial good start. Yes, when they started, it did look like a good idea, and indeed applications were created really rapidly. When the LowCode applications become more complex, however, companies tend to run into leaky abstractions and architectural design failures. When management expectations are not met and no good answers are found as to why, this is the point when the proverbial hits the fan.

Getting your LowCode strategy to work has to do purely with how you organize your IT teams around your chosen LowCode platform. If you really believe that citizen developers can build sustainable, low-maintenance IT architectures and applications, then it is best that you leave this website by pushing the goodbye button. We offer a similar answer if you are suffering under the illusion that experienced developers without years of experience in the ERP business can build a ERP system.

Goodbye!

Citizen development? Fine, but don't expect too much!

You're still here? Good, in that case you would probably like to know what is the best innovation strategy for your company. What platform can you provide to your IT department that will motivate your developers? Of course, it has to do with where your developers come from: are you a SAP-oriented company, or are you a Java company? Maybe you are an ISV or Microsoft-focused company? What platforms fits you best? Other very important questions from your CFO's perspective are: what does a LowCode platform cost, and what is its ROI in the long run? Our developers and advisors have done their best to give you their five cents. If you want to discuss these choices further, you are very welcome to contact us directly or through our community pages. We can also recommend trusted advisors in the development field for your country and your language.

Best Platforms for Citizen Developers

Mendix

Without compromising professional development, Mendix is the best for citizen development

Mendix

Betty Blocks

Great platform if you know nothing about coding and you believe in the promises of no code.

Betty Blocks

Power Apps

Microsoft unleashed Excel formula-based LowCoding in their power apps strategy. Great, when you love Excel!

Power Apps

Best Platforms for Professional Developers

WaveMaker

The best choice to support the experienced JAVA developer. WaveMaker is the only platform that can use your high-end S/4 HANA system as their database back-end. A HUGE benefit for SAP companies wanting to get a high ROI on their S/4 HANA investment. WaveMaker is the most open platform.

WaveMaker

Mendix

Great for SAP companies that believe in citizen development without compromising professional development. Mendix is tightly connected to SAP S/4 HANA with principal propagation in place, while still giving Java developers an easy way to professionally extend Mendix.

Mendix

OutSystems

Great platform when you have a build-before-buy strategy. OutSystems is very stable, Microsoft-based platform. However, sit your CFO down when you tell them the licence fees. Your CIO will tell you OutSystems cannot natively integrate with SAP S/4 HANA and has a strategy of build-your-own ERP. (Don't buy SAP)

OutSystems

Best Platforms for Experienced Developers

WaveMaker

The best platform for experienced developers, and your CFO will love the pricing model! Your CIO will like the fact that they are not locked in at all. WaveMaker has its roots in VMware and is your best choice if you want control over code. Just don't expect citizens to adopt WaveMaker!

WaveMaker

OutSystems

Great platform, especially if you are a Microsoft-minded company, although your CFO will probably not like the cost. Your CIO will worry about lock-in, although OutSystems will try to reassure them that there is no lock in. (They are right, there is lock in.)

OutSystems

Flutter

Your CFO will love it, as it's free! However your CIO might tell you it is best for mobile only. And they are right! It is the most promising platform for the future, backed up by Google, but web development and database management are not fully mature yet.

Flutter

Mobile developers seem to have more problems with LowCode than web developers. Why? Because LowCode platforms seem to have more trouble keeping leaky abstractions out of mobile development. When bugs enter the development cycle, developers want control over the code and that is where LowCode platforms have issues. For mobile development, Flutter and WaveMaker are the only platforms where developers are in full control.

Some recommendations from our experienced developers

As general advice, we would like to recommend that you try platforms before you buy. Don't waste time on a demo by the vendor; everything will work and everything is possible until it isn't!

Make sure your developers can play around with the platforms for some time - a few weeks is not enough. Make sure your platform has a large enough community so that solutions to platform problems can be found easily .

Let developers tell you which one they like the best, as they are the ones who need to work with the tool. Don't use LowCode platforms for complex mobile apps, as they are far more complex than web apps when you encounter bugs. Developers want control over the code.

General recommendations

Try before you buy.

Don't use LowCode for complex mobile apps.

The more open the better.

Check the developer community.

More expensive is NOT always better.

Do LowCode experts dislike LowCode?

No, we don't. We actually see enormous benefits with platforms that speed up your app delivery, while also giving a development framework, with open technologies that support open standards and with open source, and most importantly, that it fits your company. What we do dislike are marketing chatter that makes false promises of what LowCode can do. Therefore our trusted advisors will give you an unbiased view. All of them have extensive experience in both LowCode and traditional development, some of them on multiple platforms. They can be experienced as a LowCode platform customer or an ISV (Independent Software Vendor). To get you started on which is the best platform, we have digested our knowledge into the LowCode selection tool. Check it out.

LowCode Advisor