Low Code Solutions vs. Traditional Development: Which path to choose for your project?

Low code solutions have been gaining momentum in the last few years and many promote them as efficient and cost-effective solutions. Traditional development solutions, on the other hand, are famous for being the ones to use if you want a scalable product that is custom-made. Both of these approaches have a number of advantages, so in order to help you choose the right one for your business and your specific business needs, here is what you need to know.

What are low code solutions?

Low code development is a software development approach that uses pre-built templates and components. This type of development is a visual approach, relying on drag-and-drop interfaces to build websites and apps. It helps businesses to swiftly design, develop, update and launch different apps, thus adapting and responding to customer feedback.

What are traditional development solutions?

Like the name suggests, traditional development is an approach that involves creating websites and apps through manual coding. These apps are custom-built and scalable, designed and developed to suit your specific business goals. Each part of your future website or app requires custom code and your team needs to develop it from the ground up.

A comparison of low code solutions vs traditional development solutions

Speed

Low code solutions are without doubt a faster option when it comes to developing a website or an app. If you choose this approach, you can have a working website or an app in such a short amount of time that you will be surprised. Sometimes, depending on your business needs, you can have your website or an app ready in less than a month.

If you opt for traditional development, it will take a bit longer to create your app. Since everything has to be built from scratch, your development team will need more time to complete everything you envisioned. They will probably have to complete an entire product development life cycle. So if you want your site or app to be ready fast, you definitely should consider low code solutions instead of traditional ones.

Customisation

Even though low code solutions have been updated to provide your development team with incredible options to make your website or app as customisable as possible with a broad range of pre-existing templates, functionalities and features, the truth is that traditional development is the one that is fully customisable and scalable. Low code development is not the winner here.

With a traditional development method you get a website or app that can be as complex as needed, able to be scaled along with your business’ growth. While you may not be thinking about creating a complex platform at first, you still need to think about the future plans and how your business needs may change in order to choose the right development method.

Quality

Both low code and traditional development methods are famous nowadays for being able to create quality products that are bug-free. When it comes to low code development, the first important aspect to consider are integrations. Thanks to their ability for seamless and extensive integrations, low code development creates products of top quality that does not disappoint. In addition to this, live-debugging options help developers keep the website or app error-free.

Traditional development solutions offer high scalability, great performance and ability to integrate with all systems. One thing that may require extra time when compared to low code development is testing as it does require some time since there aren’t live-debugging options yet.

Maintenance

Maintenance is an important aspect to think about because once your site or app is launched, it still needs to be regularly maintained and updated. Low code apps are relatively easy to maintain, as the low-code platform will be in charge of updates. App security, maintenance and upgrades are all handled by the low-code platform and your team will spend minimal resources in the regular maintenance.

On the other hand, traditional development methods require you to have a dedicated team that will perform regular updates and maintain your custom website or app. This doesn’t mean that you will have to spend a huge amount of money each month for regular maintenance. but you just have to have someone in charge of keeping an eye on your app from time to time to ensure that everything runs smoothly.

Costs

Another important factor is cost-effectiveness. Low code solutions are usually more cost efficient when compared to traditional development ones, but it all comes down to your needs and goals. You need to factor in the cost of buying an app builder, ready-to-use templates as well as some additional plugins or licences. The more complex you want to make your website or app, the higher costs will be.

Traditional development is definitely more expensive because you get a custom-built app that will make you stand out in the market. Everything created, from design to every little feature, is tailor-made to suit your needs which requires both more time and resources than opting for ready-to-use templates. You will have a dedicated team of developers, including a manager, a lead developer and other team members working on your project full time.

The final verdict

Even though both methods, low code solutions and traditional ones have their advantages, it all comes down to what your business requirements are. If you are looking for a fast, cost-effective option, low code solutions are the right choice for you. If you are in need of custom, scalable and robust apps, you should invest in traditional development. 
In case you are still not sure what to choose, get in touch with our team and we can help you decide what is the best option for your specific needs.