I often get questions like “how much is it to develop a custom system?” or “how long does it take to develop such an idea?”. Certainly, before we answer these questions, it is necessary to do a more in-depth analysis, make user interviews, understand processes and detect possible bottlenecks. In the end, for those who are not used to dealing with software development, the answers to the above questions are usually surprising, as the investment ends up being much higher than imagined.
In this article, I will share alternatives to accelerate the development of your idea, minimize expenses, and how you, the customer, should participate in the entire process. I will also tell you what to expect from this approach and give suggestions on how to avoid possible reworks.
What is low-code?
The concept of low-code has been gaining more and more prominence. Nowadays there are platforms that act as helpers in software development to accelerate the coding process and consequently reduce costs. Although there are some limitations (most of them are related to design), they are incredibly cost-effective alternatives, capable of reducing development time by up to 20 times (that is, up to 20 times more savings as well). Oracle Apex, Retool, and Appsmith are some interesting examples used by the most diverse segments around the world, from internal applications to publicly available final applications.
Unlike no-code solutions, a low-code proposes the use of programming skills, therefore it is important to involve a development team attentive to details such as security, planning, and code organization that are essential skills to avoid data inconsistencies, side effects and keep costs down. In addition, there are several pre-built integrations that improve and make it easier (much easier) to create the project, such as integrations database Google Sheets, AWS services, Payment gateways, and much more.
Limitations
When adhering to any of these solutions, we need to be aware of some limitations that these tools have. I will highlight the main ones, but it is worth doing a specific analysis of your project, together with the development team:
Components and styles
Several elements are available to be used in the project, such as tables, graphs, form elements, and many others, but they already come pre-styled and it is often not possible to customize them exactly the way we would like. In other words, when adhering to this approach, it is necessary not to expect too much when it comes to component customization.
Display on devices with different screen sizes (tablets, smartphones, etc.)
Although this alternative is included in a “limitations” section, it works very well, considering that we are talking about “low-code” development, but in this case, some things may not be possible.
Functionality limitation
It is very important to have a clear vision of what you want to develop in order to make the best decision for the low-code platform that best suits your needs. This means that if you want a feature that doesn’t exist in the current version of your chosen tool, you’ll have to wait until it’s added in a future version.
Conducting the development process
As in the traditional process, the tracking and planning of the development work remains the same, with a lot of organization, daily progress tracking, and transparent communication. The most important point to keep in mind is that the scenario is limited, but in general, it is possible to develop most projects that need to create, query, update and remove data.
Other scenarios
Many contexts do not need traditional development, considering that they end up being more costly and also take longer. When the need is to create an internal solution for your company, or even create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), low-code can definitely be the most viable path, considering that usually the most sensitive points when starting a project are cost reduction and agility in development.
Conclusion
We have seen that it is possible to drastically reduce the time and cost of developing applications through low-code, but it is necessary to align expectations before starting a project. The feasibility will depend on what you want to build, but it is generally possible to obtain solutions of great value to the user.
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