Don’t have the resources to keep a permanent team of developers on your payroll? You don’t need to–not anymore. Since the advent of low-code software development, more and more companies are freeing up their IT teams’ long to-do lists and making a way for business users to create their own apps, without any coding knowledge.
But not all low-code platforms are built the same. Some are better suited to your needs than others, even if all products seem good in a vacuum.
Before you start searching, list out what you’re looking from a low-code platform. What are the needs of your company? What is your IT team looking for? What are your business users looking for? What will integrate well with your existing tools? What won’t?
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What to Ask When Choosing Between the Best Low-Code Development Platforms?
The following features are not so much a luxury as they are a necessity. If you find a product doesn’t have these features, find something else. These are necessities. The best low-code development platforms offer these by default.
Is It on the Cloud?
This is a given. If the platform isn’t on the cloud, then you should stay far away from it.
Cloud services allow you to access the platform from anywhere and from any device, changing the nature of the vendor-customer relationship. If the low-code platform you’re looking at still insists on a server download, it makes sense to stay away. In the long run, it’ll only cause more headaches than it promises to solve.
Does It Have a Free Trial?
Although not a necessity, this does make the process of choosing a tool that much easier. With a free trial, you don’t have to make an outright purchase to try and see if the low-code platform works with your organization. You can test it out to see if the UI is easy to use, the tools are powerful, and whether it actually delivers on its promises to solve your woes.
Any software that requires a lot of (paid) training and isn’t obvious from the get-go is something you should be very wary of. Every tool has a learning curve, but if you are shelling out a lot of money to teach users how to do things that should be obvious, the low-code platform wasn’t designed well in the first place.
Time taken to train your staff into using a software is productivity lost. If the low-code tool isn’t obvious and easy to use, then it makes sense to steer clear of it.
Is It Scalable?
The software you buy should be able to grow with you. If you start with 100 users, but quickly need to add 1000 more, you should be able to do so without any interruption of service or performance. Usually, if the service is scalable, you can do this yourself with just a few short clicks. Don’t buy something that won’t adapt to your requirements in the future. It may be suitable now, but it won’t be worth it in the long run.
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