Low-code platforms are driving about 50% annual growth in a market populated by dozens of vendors. At present, the value of this market stands at $4 billion.
A low-code platform takes a visual development approach to deliver business applications. It enables developers to create applications visually with a minimum of hand-coding and upfront investment in setup, training, and deployment. What drives its adoption is that developers can iterate, and release applications in a fraction of the time when compared to traditional methods.
The following are the features of low-code platforms:
Visual Development - The fundamental expectation from a low-code app development platform is to offer a WYSIWYG development environment where developers can drag and drop components to design responsive user interfaces that adapt to a device’s screen resolution. Some of these platforms go so far as to offer out-of-the-box templates for commonly used layouts and screens such as dashboards. The demand for enterprise mobile apps has meant that low-code platforms have also started to offer cross-platform mobile app development with access to native mobile device features.
Simplified Integration - Virtually every business application depends on data to create a meaningful application. But data is available from disparate systems ranging from proprietary enterprise systems to APIs from external entities and everything in between. Hence, data integration consumes an inordinate amount of time and resources during enterprise application development. A Low-code Platform is expected to provide a visual approach for developers to connect to these data sources and embed data elements directly into the application. Some platforms also allow professional developers to design data models and configure business logic directly inside the low-code app.
Instant Deployment - Beyond the need to eliminate or reduce application coding, Low-code Platforms are expected to streamline and speed up the application delivery process itself. One key characteristic is the ability to instantly deploy an application with zero DevOps. Such platforms also offer a single point of control for app maintenance and updates. While other low-code app development platforms extend the capabilities to security, governance, version control, infrastructure autoscaling, and more.
A modern digital business requires CIOs to ensure that they are providing the newest offerings to users. While choosing a low-code platform, the concern for a CIO is to build applications faster. But what concerns a developer is a set of criteria that determines which low-code platform to adopt. These are -
Whether you are transforming application delivery or testing the waters with a pilot project, it is critical to choose the right business use cases and applications to achieve success with low-code platforms. Once you can identify the ideal use case, choose the low-code platform that best suits the case and delivers business value.
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