The rise of no-code and low-code

November 3, 2022

The rise of no-code and low-code

Let’s travel back to 2017, a year that brought us fidget spinners, Cryptomania, and the viral floss dance. More significantly, 2017 was also the year that Chris Wanstrath, co-founder and former CEO of GitHub said, “We think the future of coding is no coding at all.”

Since then, no-code and low-code development has been continuously breaking the technical barriers with leading enterprises quick to capitalise – pushing the boundaries of innovation and rapidly adapting to changing markets. Fast forward to 2022, and there simply aren’t enough experienced developers to meet the ever-increasing demand for software. It would appear Wanstrath’s prediction is fast becoming a reality.

Simply put, no-code and low-code tools allow users, even those with limited technical or coding skills, to build websites, web, and mobile applications. They provide visual drag-and-drop controls like Lego blocks that builders can use to put together their end product. The goal of these platforms is to decrease development time of websites and apps, producing a cost-effective end product of comparable quality to a coded one.

Our top 10 no-code and low-code tools for 2022

WordPress

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system, referred to within WordPress as Themes.

Category: No-code and low-code

Features:

  • Custom themes and functionality
  • Easily manage website content
  • Unlimited pages, posts, and products
  • Integrated news and blog posting
  • Flexible post scheduling
  • Restore deleted pages and rollback versioning
  • Website portability and vendor lock-in avoidance
  • Easily add additional website editors
  • Managed website security
  • Core upgrades and plugin updates

Pricing: Free

Code customisation and extendibility: Yes

Pros:

  • Build custom themes
  • Extensive plugin sets for advanced builds
  • Dynamic websites

Cons:

Some functionality may be limited without custom development

Webflow

Aimed at designers and marketing people, Webflow is a no-code web design tool invented for visual web design. It can be used for designing responsive websites, landing pages, ecommerce sites, blogs, and more. Beyond its use as a web design tool, it also has a content management system (CMS), as well as being a hosting platform.

Category: No-code and low-code

Features:

  • Build CSS grid–powered layouts visually
  • Add CSS filters to anything
  • CSS style preview
  • Add any code you need
  • Detects repetitive IDs within the elements of your website
  • CSS flexbox
  • Total creative control
  • 100+ responsive website templates
  • 3D transforms and animations
  • Design interactions without code
  • CMS API
  • Create CMS items with Zapier
  • Export CMS content as a CSV
  • Customisable forms. HTML/CSS sliders and carousels
  • Interactive Google Maps

Pricing: Free starter plan available | Paid plans up to $49 per month billed annually.

Code customisation and extendibility: Yes

Pros:

  • Advanced design functionality
  • Dynamic content and collections for scalability
  • Advanced interactions and animations
  • Creative freedom
  • Easy to use and customise CMS
  • Engaging CSS interactions and JavaScript animations visually
  • Code can be exported to be used with other CMS platforms such as WordPress, or ecommerce platforms such as Shopify

Cons:

  • SEO control is severely lacking
  • Sometimes limited by not allowing you to tweak code (e.g., HTML of a blog post)
  • Steep learning curve
  • Have to use a third-party form vendor if you want to export and host yourself
  • Limit of 100 static pages
  • Ecommerce is very basic and limited in scalability
  • Advanced functionality can be a challenge – even for experienced users

Wix

Wix.com Ltd. is an Israeli software company, publicly listed in the US, that provides cloud-based web development services. It allows users to create HTML5 websites and mobile sites through the use of online drag-and-drop tools.

Category: No-code and low-code

Features:

  • “Design freedom”
  • Template library
  • Advanced SEO tools
  • Mobile optimised
  • App market
  • Velo (open development platform for building advanced web applications)
  • Analytics
  • Free hosting
  • Wix Chat, eCommerce, Bookings, and Blog
  • Social tools
  • SSL certified

Pricing: US$4.50 to US$35 per month.

Code customisation and extendibility: Yes

Pros:

  • Drag-and-drop tools
  • Big template library
  • All-inclusive platform to launch a site

Cons:

  • Wix is a closed platform so you’re stuck with using its proprietary tools, which can be limiting if your site outgrows the selection of features
  • Can’t add forms to blog posts
  • Can’t switch templates once the site is live
  • Can’t access or change the HTML of your site*

* Velo by Wix lets you add a few more features, e.g., database collection, to the Wix editor if you choose.

Bravo Studio

Bravo Studio is an app builder for designers. It makes it possible to turn Figma prototypes into native iOS and Android apps instantly without writing any code. Bravo Studio uses native mobile actions/components to make your app a native app through Bravo Tags.

Category: No-code

Features:

  • Design and style – menu, sliders, top bar, modal pages, pop-ups, intro pages, transitions, reveal animations and sticky layer items
  • Components – video backgrounds, GIFs, LottieFiles, WebView, flexible text, charts, maps and location share, forms, audio, and video
  • Actions – remote actions, open phone dialog, download files, scan QR, search and filter, open URL, share dialog, and email dialog
  • Advanced – login (Firebase), payments (Stripe), OAuth, push notifications (One Signal), custom loading page, APIs, and external data sources

Pricing: Free to US$21 per month.

Code customisation and extendibility: None

Pros:

  • Pixel-perfect design
  • Seamless integration with Figma and Adobe XD
  • Connect via REST API
  • Easy binding of external data sources to the app design
  • Add Lotties, GIFs, and transitions to your app
  • Bravo Vision app allows testing and review
  • Deep links
  • Multi-language apps
  • Swipe pages
  • Scalable applications
  • Easy backend creation with Xano, Backendless and Airtable
  • Firebase integration
  • Dynamic user notifications
  • Stripe integration for payments
  • Conditional visibility
  • Great for developing proof of concept

Cons:

  • No design features – have to use Bravo Tag system (design must be done and then imported from Figma/Adobe XD)
  • One-time payments only

FlutterFlow

FlutterFlow is an online app builder that lets users easily build native cross-platform applications. FlutterFlow brings a visual builder on top of Google's Flutter, which is the most popular cross-platform developer framework. Building and iterating on cross-platform mobile apps today is expensive and slow, but with FlutterFlow, teams and individuals can use the intuitive interface and higher level abstractions to build apps 10 times faster. The company is led by former software engineers at Google who applied machine learning (ML) to improve Google Maps data.

Category: Low-code and no-code

Features:

  • API
  • Third-party integrations
  • Drag-and-drop collaboration tools
  • Graphical user interface,
  • Deployment management
  • Web/mobile app development
  • Alerts and notifications

Pricing: Free to US$42 per month.

Code customisation and extendibility: Using the custom widget editor, you can write/modify widget code or upload it directly in the UI editor.

Pros:

  • Rapid development and features getting added
  • Easy learning curve in comparison to competitor tools
  • Integrates with Firebase and APIs
  • Facilitates user authentication.
  • Code can be exported to Visual Studio
  • 50+ pre-built templates, 40+ widgets, and several third-party integrations to help you save time on your app development

Cons:

  • No access to boilerplate functions and utilities
  • Lack of local payment integration for ecommerce and subscription platforms
  • Builder somewhat buggy
  • Categorisation of components not permitted

Adalo

Adalo is an app-building software that makes the process fast, seamless and cost-effective for the creators. It allows users to create visually stunning apps by just dragging and dropping specialist design components.

Category: No-code

Features:

  • Component marketplace
  • Application templates
  • Integrations management
  • App integrations
  • Drag-and-drop builder
  • Workflow management
  • Web development
  • Version control
  • Testing management
  • Mobile development
  • Debugging
  • Access control

Pricing: Free to US$250 per month.

Code customisation and extendibility: Yes

Pros:

  • Drag-and-drop components
  • Spreadsheet-style database
  • API integration capabilities
  • Easy learning curve
  • Installable components are available on its marketplace

Cons:

  • Very limited feature set
  • Slow functionality as the app grows
  • App dimensions do not change according to screens

Retool

Retool empowers you to quickly build internal tools with rich graphical user interfaces around any sort of datastore or API.

Category: No-code

Features:

  • Build internal tools, remarkably fast
  • Complete set of powerful building blocks (tables, lists, charts, etc.)
  • Supports most data sources, including databases and APIs
  • Write JavaScript almost anywhere inside of Retool
  • React bias (if you can build it with React, you can use it in Retool)
  • Import JS libraries
  • Debug with a model browser
  • Comes with the security, reliability, and permissioning built in

Pricing: Free to US$50 per user per month.

Code customisation and extendibility: JavaScript, import any library

Pros:

  • Extensive library of components
  • Intuitive drag-and-drop interface
  • Can extend functionality with custom JavaScript components
  • Template for popular applications
  • Prebuilt connectors for popular databases and APIs
  • Customisable with custom components and JavaScript libraries
  • Offers a free plan

Cons:

  • Pricing can be expensive for large teams
  • Requires technical knowledge to use some features (needs more pre-built queries)

Draftbit

Draftbit is the pro-code native app builder, offering the most powerful and flexible way to visually create, customise, and launch native mobile apps.

Category: No-code and low-code

Features:

  • Version control
  • Testing management
  • Mobile development
  • Debugging
  • Collaboration
  • Access control

Pricing: US$79 to US$995 per month.

Code customisation and extendibility: Yes

Pros:

  • Easy to use
  • Access to full source code and it’s completely open source

Cons:

  • Ability to undo
  • State management not currently available to control the appearance of your app with logic or external data (coming soon)
  • No ability to publish multiple app versions (coming soon)

Google AppSheet

Google Cloud AppSheet is a no-code, intent-driven app development platform. Its web-based design environment runs in the Google Cloud, and it generates apps for web, iOS, and Android.

Category: No-code and low-code

Features:

  • API
  • Access controls/permissions
  • Activity tracking
  • Alerts/notifications
  • Application management
  • Authentication
  • Calendar management
  • Change management
  • Collaboration tools
  • Compatibility testing
  • Custom development – customisable branding, fields, forms, reports, and templates
  • Data – import/export, modelling, synchronisation, visualisation
  • Database support
  • Debugging
  • Deployment management
  • Design templates
  • Drag and drop
  • Feature library
  • Forms management
  • Graphical user interface
  • Integrated development environment
  • Integrations management
  • Lifecycle management
  • Mobile development
  • Offline access
  • Pre-built templates,
  • Prototype creation
  • Real-time data and reporting
  • Role-based permissions
  • Rules-based workflow,
  • Search/filter
  • Secure data storage
  • Source control
  • Task management,
  • Testing management,
  • Third-party integrations
  • Visual modelling
  • Web app development
  • Web forms
  • Web/mobile app development
  • Workflow management

Pricing: Free (or dependent on requirements).

Code customisation and extendibility: Yes

Pros:

  • Works on multiple platforms on the go
  • Easy to use
  • Great documentation and support
  • Integration with Google Sheets

Cons:

  • No ability to undo
  • Limited UI options
  • Formulas can be hard to grasp
  • App syncing is slow
  • First page load is time consuming
  • More formatting options needed to control overall theme of the app

Microsoft PowerApps

Power Apps is an application creator that enables users to build mobile- and web-based forms and apps with low or no code. The apps it enables can interact with data sources and services within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

Category: Low-code

Feature list:

  • Common Data Service (CDS) to store data
  • 200+ connectors to integrate data and systems
  • Pre-built templates
  • Drag-and-drop designer
  • Power App canvas
  • AI builder and pre-built AI components
  • Portals (for no-code-responsive websites)
  • Role-based user experience customisation
  • Pixel-perfect website development
  • Several app scenarios
  • Wide variety of controls, such as camera and location
  • Logins via authentication providers like LinkedIn and Facebook
  • Private and secure submission of information

Pricing: Based on requirements

Code customisation and extendibility: You add code components by including them in a solution and then import it into CDS. Once the components are in CDS, system administrators and system customisers can configure fields, subgrids, views, and dashboard subgrids to use in place of default components. You can add these code components to both model-driven and canvas apps. Before you start creating code components, ensure you’ve installed all the prerequisites for developing components using the Power Apps component framework.

Pros:

  • Committed no- and low-code
  • Pre-built formats
  • Vast integration capabilities
  • Connect to any data source
  • Training and peer based feedback and support via forums and communities
  • JavaScript for additional functionality

Cons:

  • Steep learning curve
  • Situational formulas are complex to figure out
  • Very limited sample set of templates and pre-built components

Everyone can use technology to accomplish extraordinary things for their organisations, but only if they have the knowledge and expertise to optimally utilise the available tools. Swipe iX combines extensive experience, talent, and project management to deliver the transformational impact of low- and no-code tools. Check out our range of low-code and no-code development services and let’s help you reach your business goals.

Jacques Fourie

Dewald Venter

UX/UI Designer & WordPress Developer

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