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Low-code and no-code: What’s the difference?

By See all articles from the author: Erik Skarstein Sandnes
3. July 2020
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As more and more enterprises start to realize the potential of visual application development, the terms “low-code” and “no-code” have become a part of the tech vocabulary. However, these two terms are not interchangeable, and professionals should use caution when evaluating platforms.

Low-code is the original term, coined by John Rymer in Forrester research in 2016. A low-code application development platform provides a development environment (IDE) to create applications through visual modelling and model-driven engineering rather than traditional hand-coding.

Low-code vendors can be (roughly) divided in two categories based on their target developers:

  • Low-code for application development and delivery (AD&D) professionals, and
  • Low-code for citizen developers – often referred to as “no-code”

The distinction between these two types of platforms is not “how much code” it is possible or necessary to write, but whether the target developer has some tech/developer background or is a citizen developer.

This distinction also makes the functionality and feature-set of the two types of low-code platforms more clear:

No-code platforms (“low-code for citizen developers”):

  • Focus on ease of application development
  • Targets simpler applications for smaller groups of users, often competing with solutions based on spreadsheets
  • Are often front-end focused with limited capabilities for back-end development
  • Focus on single-purpose apps for business departments rather than becoming an integrated part of the enterprise IT architecture

Low-code platforms (“low-code for AD&D professionals”):

  • Focus on functional completeness, advanced features, and scalable architectures
  • Targets core enterprise-wide applications and complex application scenarios
  • Offer full-stack visual development
  • Must have enterprise-grade capabilities (security, scalability, performance, governance, etc.)
  • Offer superior integration capabilities
  • Deliver a platform for enterprise application development rather than single-purpose applications

Is it possible to be confused by the naming of these two directions? Yes! The truth is that there are no-code platforms that require some level of coding, whereas some low-code platforms are completely codeless. Further, some no-code platforms rely on code generators to produce the running applications, whereas some low-code platforms rely entirely on metadata interpretation.

Regardless of their differences, both types of low-code/no-code platforms aim to increase the speed of development, enable more people to participate in application development, and empower those who develop applications with better tools. “No-code” is just another term for “low-code for citizen developers”, and when you choose your application development platform – remember to consider who your target “low-code developers” are.

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The two paths to low-code
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At the heart of low-code is “model-driven development” – visual modelling of applications rather than traditional hand-coding. However, there are two fundamentally different architectural approaches towards how the visual model should be made into a running application.

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The evolution of enterprise application development
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The nature of software development is continuing to evolve – as it has since its birth. Low-code platforms are disrupting software development by tackling more and more complex application scenarios. As a result, there are still fewer use cases where organizations must actually hand-code the solution.

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Erik Skarstein Sandnes avatar image
Erik Skarstein Sandnes

Erik Skarstein Sandnes is Lead Technical Solution Architect at Genus. He leads a group of Solution Architects, helping customers and partners successfully utilize the power of the Genus low-code platform.

Genus AS

Strandveien 55

N-1366 Lysaker

Norway

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