What is No Code?
A no-code development platform is a tool for building websites without coding; a popular and promising alternative to traditional software development for non-technical business users hoping to build their own full-fledged applications.
If you are a small business that lacks the budget to hire a software developer or outsource to a software development house, no-code platforms move the power of innovation into the hands of your entire organization.
No-Code Development Pros and Cons.
Pros:
Better agility.Most development is done via a drag-and-drop interface, built visually with pre-built modules. This means building apps is a lot faster. Testing is generally automated, which further cuts down on development time.
Reduced cost.Developers are expensive. No-code solutions give you a way to bypass that, taking away a lot of the overhead that comes with requiring a skilled team of developers on staff all the time. You can build apps faster and cheaper in the long run.
Increased productivity.Since apps can be built at a much faster pace, IT staff aren’t overloaded with requests from every other department, and there are fewer people waiting for work to be done. What used to take weeks or months can now be completed in hours or days.
Easily changeable.The problem with traditional hand coding is that you can’t really change a functionality or feature at the drop of a hat, especially if you’re coding in a language foreign to you. With no code, you can. If you need to change something, you simply implement new logic, and can have your change ready in a matter of hours.
Cons:
Rigid templates limit what you can build.When it comes to building out the different features of a website, no-code development platforms provide various templates and components that can be configured to meet a set of use cases. However, as soon as you encounter that inevitable edge case required by your app, all of a sudden you don’t have the building blocks out-of-the-box to implement that specific piece of business logic required.
Security issues arise from lack of control.Unlike custom development, control over your website is something that will always be sacrificed when embarking on the no-code path. Having no control or say over your technology stack is one thing, but not knowing your app inside and out can lead to a number of risks in itself around security and reliability.
You don’t own your source code.Should you eventually decide to make the move away from your no-code development platform, you are bound to quickly run into the issue of vendor lock-in. This is generally accompanied by an inability to switch providers or substantial costs to do so. Any chance at properly maintaining your website in the future rests with your dependence on the original vendor.