For decades, there have been only two routes for businesses to take on their way to application development:
Buy apps ready-made from an external vendor or
Build and customize them from scratch using skilled developers and programmers.
But today, we're seeing the rise and growing sophistication of low-code or no-code development alternatives that bring the power of application development to users across the business.
What is low-code?
Low-code is a visual approach to software development that enables faster delivery of applications through minimal hand-coding. The graphical user interface and the drag-and-drop features of a low-code platform automate aspects of the development process, eliminating dependencies on traditional computer programming approaches. Low-code platforms democratize app development, particularly for citizen developers. i.e. business users with little formal coding experience, such as business analysts or project managers.
What is no-code?
No-code is a method that benefits from a similar user experience as low-code but goes the extra mile by allowing non-technical business users to develop applications without having to write even a single line of code.
Low-code vs. no-code?
Low-code and no-code are powerful application development approaches that enable people with no coding or little coding knowledge to build and deploy app faster. Both low-code and no-code goals are to empower non-technical users to create custom solutions, freeing up technical resources for more complex projects.
No-code platforms are the most straightforward of the two. You may develop basic yet functioning apps using a visual-based, drag-and-drop no-code architecture. you probably won't be able to rework legacy systems here, more will you be able to accelerate it very effectively, and integration capabilities are limited. Rather, this style of development is best suited to assisting teams with specialized demands that are circumscribed in scope.
No-code platforms' benefits of convenience and ease are also their drawbacks. The capacity to alter it is restricted to non-existent because so much of its architecture is established by those who created it.
Why have no-code systems been able to survive for as far as they have if their features are sparse? The reason is that they're simple to use even if you don't have any coding experience and skill, especially if you do not want (or simply cannot) wait for your internal IT staff to build anything for you.
Low-Code solutions, on the other hand, are more adaptable - a kind of halfway place between no-code and complete human coding. Low-Code systems, like their no-code counterparts, can be graphical, with drag-and-drop features. They're also open, expandable, and enable for coding or programming, providing designers with the best of both worlds situation in which the development pace may be enhanced without having to duplicate fundamental code over and over. Low-code platforms also provide scalable designs, open APIs for renewability, and implementation flexibility in the cloud or on-premises.
Rick and some important security concerns of using the no-code and low-code?
Low visibility into low-code/no-code applications
Using a platform that was developed by an external party always comes with visibility concerns. You're consuming the software and therefore don't know about the source code, or associated vulnerabilities for potentially the level of testing and rigour the platform has undergone.
Insecure code
Dovetailing from the visibility concerns is the possibility of insecure code. Low-code and no-code platforms still have code; they've just abstracted the coding and allowed the end user instead to use pre-provided code functionality. This is great since it saves the non-developer from needing to author the code themselves. Where it gets problematic is when the code that is used is insecure and is extrapolated across organizations and applications through the low-code and no-code platforms.
Out-of-control shadow IT
Since low-code and no-code platforms allow applications to be quickly created, even by those without development backgrounds, it also can lead to rampant shadow IT. Shadow IT occurs when business units and staff create applications and expose them both internally within the organization or externally to the world. These applications could house sensitive organizational, customer or regulated data, which could have a slew of implications for the organization if those applications were compromised in a data breach.
Business disruption
From a business continuity perspective, reliance on low-code and no-code platforms delivered as a service could disrupt business if that platform experiences an outage. It is important for organizations to establish service level agreements (SLAs) for business-critical applications, including low-code and no-code platforms.
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