When to Choose No-Code/Low-Code
- You need a quick MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
- Budget and time are limited.
- The project scope is straightforward and does not demand advanced customization.
- The tool will never become business-critical
- High performance is not required.
- Cloud costs play a minor role.
- The application can be redone in a few days or very few weeks.
When to opt for Bespoke Development
- Your business requires unique features and workflows.
- Long-term scalability and control are priorities.
- There are demanding Non-Functional-Requirements.
- The application is or will be business-critical.
- Lowering runtime and cloud costs with performance optimizations.
- The application size will be large or become part of a service landscape or a more significant workflow.
Of course, your specific project details and scope will be much more complex, and the bullet points should reflect that. But if only one of the facts listed for Bespoke Development applies, you should consider a tailor-made software solution in comparison. One attribute alone can put elevated risk on your project and invalidate budget thoughts.
Evaluate your business needs carefully—what works for a startup testing an idea may not suit an established company aiming for a long-term competitive edge.
Low-Code / No-Code Solutions
Low-Code / No-Code platforms have come a long way in the last decade. Marketing promises access to personalized software solutions without the hassle of discussing with the IT department or developers to deliver the software that matters. But does that reflect in daily business and for the entire lifecycle of a software solution?
Low-Code and No-Code platforms allow for rapid prototyping and deployment and can initially bring up an application in days to weeks. By reducing the reliance on developer resources, a business department can quickly translate its knowledge into an application that supports daily operations. This allows them to create solutions without needing to transfer knowledge or articulate their logical requirements to an IT department or software company. The need for coding expertise is very low.
Drag-and-drop interfaces and prebuilt templates can simplify the application creation process with a flat learning curve. However, there is still a curve and a tendency to hide and decentralize learning efforts.
Most platforms have a good catalog of supported connectivity to external systems (e.g., CRMs or databases) or allow for adding additional widgets and connectivity; naturally, this sets higher requirements on the user to have technical or coding expertise.
Using Low-Code / No-Code platforms for non-critical tools can free up IT teams by building and maintaining them outside IT teams. Many platforms offer scaling solutions for growing businesses (with limitations compared to bespoke solutions).
The platform handles infrastructure, security, and updates, reducing operational burden.
Low-Code application development will be responsible for more than 65% of application development activity. (Gartner)
75% of large enterprises will use at least four low-code development tools for IT application development and citizen development initiatives. (Gartner)
We currently identify more than 200 low-code platforms.
Deciding for a low-code or no-code platform also bears disadvantages and risks. Expressing business logic is limited to the platform’s capabilities, with advanced customization not possible or requiring workarounds that increase complexity. The prebuilt widgets often restrict creative control over the user interface, making achieving a unique, branded look challenging. Additionally, certain design elements or workflows might not align well with the platform’s inherent constraints.
The application exists solely on the platform, and the efforts used to create it are locked to the platform vendor (Vendor Lock-In). Switching to another platform or exporting data can be difficult or costly.
The application’s performance may decline as complexity increases, making it unsuitable for complex, large-scale, or high-demand applications. For resource-intensive tasks, the backend infrastructure provided by the platform can become a bottleneck. This isn’t due to a non-scalable architecture, but rather because the setup is optimized for general use cases. This applies to the entire application. The features and their orchestration are designed to meet general needs and cater to a wide range of potential customers, while a single customer’s business often has more specialized requirements.
Availability depends on the provider’s uptime, and long-term viability depends on the platform’s stability and longevity. If the platform is discontinued or its support ends, migrating to a new system may become costly and disruptive.
It’s the responsibility of the platform provider to deliver security updates and safeguard your data. Additionally, businesses in regulated industries may face compliance challenges. The built-in integrations may only support a limited number of third-party tools used by your company. Data storage on the provider’s servers can lead to concerns regarding ownership, portability, and compliance with data regulations such as GDPR or HIPAA.
Cost dynamics are another potential drawback. Subscription fees can increase dramatically with usage, number of users, or additional features, exceeding initial expectations over time, especially for growing businesses, starting with a few bucks per month for a limited number of users and usage time to billing thousands of dollars per month and application.
While Low-Code/No-Code platforms are excellent for quick results and simplicity, they may fall short for businesses with complex, highly customized, or long-term scalability needs, requiring technical workarounds or specialized expertise, reducing their accessibility for non-technical users.
Weighing these limitations against your project’s goals is critical to making the right choice. Businesses must consider factors like vendor stability, data ownership, compliance, and scalability to ensure the platform aligns with their strategic objectives and the vendor lock-in will not bite back.
Bespoke Software Solutions
Bespoke software development tailors the application to your unique business needs and workflows and offers unparalleled flexibility to design features specific to your goals. There is greater control over functionality, integrations, and updates. When discussing software development with an external company, fair contracts will ensure your ownership of the codebase and intellectual property and avoid vendor lock-in; this is also true for your internal IT department.
Also, a bespoke project allows for prototyping, setting the landmark for the organic growth of the application while persisting the control and options on integration possibilities, security needs, compliance, and brand alignment.
The application can be optimized for the exact use case, ensuring reliable performance. Performance optimization possibilities also allow for control of hosting fees, considering cloud and hyper-scaling.
There are no limitations when it comes to seamlessly integrating existing systems, databases, and APIs. The user experience is customized to fit your users, processes, and workflows, providing unique features and capabilities that set your business apart from generic off-the-shelf solutions. This approach is particularly suitable for industries with complex processes, data structures, or workflows.
Bespoke software development is perfect for businesses looking for tailored, scalable, high-performance solutions.
It is often said that bespoke development requires higher initial investment and longer development time to leverage the benefits of customization, control, and long-term adaptability. But this is a matter of the proper setup. A custom project can begin with prototyping or a limited feature set, which significantly lowers budget stress while ensuring the application remains capable of growth and future-proof and hits the spot regarding business KPIs.
A bespoke project setup must include requirements engineering. It is essential to transfer knowledge from the business department to the IT department or software company. While this may seem like an additional burden, it is often crucial for optimizing and enhancing the efficiency of the project, as well as the subsequent applications and processes within the department. Collaborating with a software company can stimulate and challenge stagnant processes, ultimately leading to better optimization for digitization.
Without the business department, the development team does not know about the substance of the business, while the business department lacks the necessary technical knowledge from the development team.
Once the initial effort is established, a software solution can be appropriately sized and divided into an optimized roadmap. This approach allows for early returns and addresses the everyday challenges of long development times, the risk of development failure, and unpredictable costs that may arise due to changes during the application’s development, usage, and lifecycle phases.
AI Code Generation
As a company with nearly two decades of expertise in AI projects, it’s essential to address the role of AI-driven code generators in software development. These tools are a form of Low-Code development, as they reduce the amount of manual coding required. Many promising projects aim to lower the need for writing boilerplate code by hand. However, it’s important to note that these tools are not yet suitable for helping inexperienced developers produce high-quality software. Instead, they are best used to support experienced developers. Exploring these options would warrant its dedicated blog post or multiple posts.
Closing Thoughts
Reality bites. Low-Code and No-Code are not new trends; in fact, they predate the platforms commonly discussed today. Even before these platforms existed, there was a strong demand for tools and self-service solutions in daily work for business departments. These were the glory days of Microsoft Access or Microsoft Excel (the latter still going strong). Feeling cozy in an accessible and intuitive application, one could help oneself and co-workers without waiting for a company to adopt a software solution?
While some developers in the community may disagree, coding is not art; it is a craft. You have to learn your tools, know your material, and grasp how they behave in various situations. Software engineering is developed through years or even decades of experience. It is about mastering a new foreign language with all the vocabulary and grammar, as well as idioms and subtext.
Low-Code/No-Code platforms provide predefined cards with phrases you can use without knowing the language. But don’t expect always to be able to write a correct, reasonable paragraph or get the expected answer.
To write a software program is not typing code into an editor; it is about analyzing and optimizing logic. This is why complexity will not decrease using a Low-Code or No-Code platform. Issues can’t be clicked away. They are still there, although you work on a higher level of abstraction. On the contrary, they get hidden and can’t be seen in time.
Over the past few decades, we have participated in several bespoke software projects that originated from Excel spreadsheets as an alleged fast track or a sheer mass of those. This phenomenon, we call the “Excel Syndrome,” presents several challenges:
- It promotes the independence of dependent data.
- Dependencies remain hidden, obscuring the underlying structure; even a Word document has better options for structuring data.
- It fragments logic and loses context, making it difficult to reconstruct the original intent.
- Backward compatibility is absolute nonsense.
- Users often fail to realize these issues and scale the application to a high mess. Months or years later, someone may wonder why a business-critical application fails in multiple ways.
Low-Code/No-Code Platforms shine in several situations. They can help build a prototype to test processes or new data or to foster communication with software development during requirement engineering. They can help with or automatize tasks of low complexity, like form-to-mail. And there are many of those tasks. But beware that these tasks should also be of low criticality. Also, using such a platform can be a budget option if you do not need high availability, scalability, performance, regular backups, and everything else that defines enterprise software.
It’s essential to make a well-informed decision rather than simply opting for the seemingly easier route.
The problem is that people talk about Low-Code / No-Code as a general solution. Its value is that it is actually a highly specific solution.
Perfect Fit
Having worked in enterprise software for three decades, I recognize off-the-shelf products as a significant advantage for many projects. They eliminate the need to reinvent the wheel and can offer tremendous value—provided they align with the specific requirements and context of the project. However, no two projects are the same, and every initiative deserves a thoughtful evaluation of the available options to ensure the best fit. Sometimes, a single tool might address the need perfectly, delivering excellent results. But more often than not, it takes a combination of tools to create a tailored solution to your unique objectives to achieve success truly.
Let’s find the best solution for a perfect fit together.
Author © 2025: Thorsten Viel – www.linkedin.com/in/tviel/
