Sadly because of that my boss sold it as platform for non dev tech people to monitor production hardware (like weaving machines) using nodered and modbus, it's a shitty idea to do it in node red, it kinda works tho, but it's error prone, slow(to respond) and just writing some simple specific software for it would have solved the use case of the customer in a way better way, but it's great for conferences/workshops/presentations to just link up a node to a SMS /IM Provider to have some kind of wow effect
It depends a lot on what you consider “Low Code” and what your target is. Corporate users tend to look at Mendix, OutSystems, etc. because they are typically looking at building end—to-end solutions, and those give you front-end, APIs and ORMs (or, rather, abstract all of those away).
Most OSS or IoT folk will immediately point to Node-Red or n8n.io, which look similar but are actually quite different in focus (n8n is geared at hooking up third-party services at a higher level).
And then you have all the Web Automation stuff that has been with us forever since Yahoo Pipes went down.
I tried a bit OutSystems and its learning curve is incredibly steep for what they claim to be. It all starts with a specialized Eclipse based environment to install and to learn and only goes downhill from there. I don't know any business user able to use it, and for a regular programmer it's just another language/environment to learn. Not sure why it's a thing.
I interviewed as a developer for a company that used outsystems. They said they had a lot of technology challenges, but were going to stick with outsystems. Their flagship app is rated less than 2.5 stars on Google Play, and needless to say, I did not pursue that position.
[Disclaimer: OutSystems employee here] I'm sad you find the experience bad. Eclipse or VSStudio integrations is part of our focus on being able to extend the platform to the max, but the need for it is only required when you are at a very specific use case.
Hey...I'm a developer advocate at OutSystems, and just wanted to note that since earlier this year, our development tool, Service Studio, is available for both Mac and Windows.
Also happy to answer any questions anyone might have.
Bubble.io is fantastic for making business applications. We find performance can often be an issue and typically transfer processing activities to external infra (incl. serverless functions)
If you draw the line and add all efforts up, is it worthy? I mean, it might be great to quickly draw the frontend, but if for the backend you must jump through a bunch of proprietary hoops, can you still feel some advantage to the entire package?
I've been using Bubble for a few years for a side project. I always thought I'd use it just for the MVP phase but haven't had a need to move off it yet. The big downside is speed - the home page takes 2.5 seconds to load even after doing all the recommended optimizations (Cloudflare, fewer plugins, fewer styles, etc).
Elementor for Wordpress is a pretty good page-builder.
It has a huge number of interface widgets and customization options while remaining very easy to use. You can pull off very distinct design styles with it quite easily. The markup it generates from what I've seen is decent.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not into Wordpress, and I'll take custom HTML + CSS + JS pretty much any day, but I've seen Elementor being used in production at scale and I can see it working for many businesses, especially if they're already into Wordpress.
As for platforms allowing more complicated logic, I've evaluated a few. I built a prototype in Microsoft PowerApps for a large enterprise, and ditched it in favor of a custom web app. We are now analyzing requirements and potentially building a real production app for that same customer, but the app is infinitely simpler (it's just a permissioned interface to read/write a centralized Excel sheet).
I've studied the market a bit (Appian, AppSheet, Bubble, PowerApps, etc.) and my impression is that they are quite complex for what they offer. The original promise was to replace developers and reap huge time savings but I'm skeptical on both counts - specialists need to operate these tools to get good results (so instead of a C# dev, you now have an Appian dev), and from what I've seen only the most boilerplate-y app features can be built significantly faster (and even then, I'm not sure if the difference is massive compared to a batteries-included framework).
The main use case I see for them is as small features or business applications within a larger integrated stack. Retool's approach which seems really centered on this use case and offers loads of database integrations out of the box, but while I hear good things here on HN I would still need to see results with my own eyes in production.
Despite my skepticism low-code is a topic I always keep an eye on, so I wanted to share my two cents and see what other HNers have to say.
No code, or low code. I dont care as long as it is not "any thing you want that is not a straightup feature requires LOTS of ugly code".
Hasura allows me to create a schema and then use it in a type safe manner in the front end (through GraphQL). This is a game changer to me: very little code in the model/controller layer.
I'm an experienced web developer but I'm happy that we chose Webflow for the website of our mobile app. It allows my non-technical colleagues to make basic changes to the website, like copy changes or moving blocks around. But Webflow doesn't abstract away the underlying web technologies (just makes it visual) so it's still easy for me to go in and make more "complicated" changes. It's not a panacea but I think they are striking a nice balance between ease-of-use and extensibility.
Their CMS is trash though. Treasure throve of bugs and issues, especially if you sync your stuff to it. Not to mention 10k limit across all projects even on Enterprise plan, non negotiable.
Saltcorn [1] is worth a look. The back-end is Postgres, so integrations are simple. It seems to work how my mind works, it's fun to use, and I don't feel limited or locked in because the data and model are in Postgres.
If you allow for Low Code as well (what I understood from your parentheses), https://apibakery.com produces an API backend with CRUD operations, as an Django or Node server.
You can then use it as is (no code) or add business logic (low code).
I can vouch for Odoo and its Builder module. Odoo itself is open source, but there's a paid support model. We implemented an open source version for one of my clients and for business/production/inventory/accounting I'd say it's second to none. The free modules cover maybe 90% of common business cases, and the 10% left can be handled by duplicating one of the free modules and customizing it in Builder. Odoo is actively updated by large team in Belgium if I remember correctly, and their paid support is quite good. Odoo is Python atop Postgres, and uses a simple HTML/CSS/js for the frontend. Quite customizable, and can be a no-code solution if one uses Builder, which covers most use cases.
Having shipped an Odoo project this year, how is the developer experience for you?
It seems like Odoo forces developers into time consuming and frustrating workflows (for example using xpath + upgrade modules + possibly reload the server) that make developing for it a pain.
Or I might be missing something?
In development mode with inotify you get python hot code reloading. In development mode the XML (with a handful of exceptions regarding menus, and ir.actions) will be read from disk on refresh.
I do wish there was hot code reloading for the views (xml), but realistically if you’re making an app of any complexity the views in the backend are the small part and likely not where you are spending the majority of your time.
Website stuff is absolutely 100% stuck in the past at the moment, imho.
Maybe have a look at https://strapi.io/ and https://directus.io/. They are really easy to setup so yo can spend an afternoon trying out both and see if you like them.
I have used Retool to create a (well-received) PoC of an internal-facing admin app. I was pretty impressed, even though it had some rough edges.
Setting up UIs was relatively painless thanks to many out-of-the-box integrations, and it was surprisingly easy to implement auth/error handling/component dependencies.
The thing I liked the most is that it's not really a "no code" - you need to be technical to build good apps in this tool. However, that's where the power comes from - it simplifies the mundane development tasks and lets you focus on something more high level.
I wish the team would make it easier to consume your own, custom API however.
I've really fallen for Adalo. Before I could only run tech teams, but now I'm one of the best developers I've met for building mature MVPs.
Adalo feels to me like the most 'pure' no code experience, where it's not just a typical dev environment with a graphical visualization, but instead a tool built around functionality.
I feel like Bubble, Outsystems, etc, is built with a traditional development environment in mind, and just replaces code with snippets, while Adalo is more about extending the functionality of design software like Adobe XD all the way through to the app store and the first 50K users.
I've trained people on Adalo well and it's remarkable the progress a smart, committed person can make in just a few days.
[Disclaimer: OutSystems employee here] I think OutSystems as any of the other players in this market do the opposite of thinking in the "traditional development". If we did, non of these players would be here today.
Our focus is exactly the opposite: breaking from traditional development: focus on productivity, focus in what matters.
Now, OutSystems has a specific way of looking into the problem, others players have different ways. And that's ok. We are probably focusing in different use cases.
For OutSystems we are all for building critical apps, that are able to sustain the pace of change of the business
It's not NoCode, but it's "little UI" code, meant to create BI applications when Excel is a bit too little. It's based on the observable runtime. The website and onboarding is still pretty crude.
All of them, until you want to do something that's not a good match for whatever the platform is designed for.
If you need fine grained control over the presentation and behaviour of a system then you have to specify those things in detail exhaustive detail using a suitably expressive platform which we typically refer to as a "programming language".
well, you can also write plugins for most, and/or when you reach that stage where a platform like HCB is just not expressive enough - we have an ejection mechanism that will allow you to just export a react app (but then you lose all the collaborative / builder advantages and it'll be a little more expensive as a one-off) - nobody needed yet so not converted our POC to functioning feature.
Newsy takes an unused domain name and turn it into a content-aggregator (i.e. Reddit clone) with lots of features built in including membership, automated newsletters, HTTPS, using GMail for your domain etc.
I built Newsy because I had close to 50 unused domain names but had no time to develop them.
Newsy lets me quickly build sites for my domains and make use of them while waiting for (hopefully) one day that I turn them into a product.
> Newsy takes an unused domain name and turn it into a content-aggregator (i.e. Reddit clone)
Who would want this though? I can't picture a reason to want to do this, it just sounds like the spam that shows up in searches sometimes that I instantly back out of
> I built Newsy
Ah
Maybe I'm picturing something more spammy than it is but I don't think I'd ever want to use this, I'd rather the domain didn't resolve
e: I felt harsh posting this, but having seen one of the sites you are actually rehosting the content you aggregate too, it's worse than I pictured haha. This is spam.
I think that LowCode makes more sense than NoCode, because sooner or later you will run into a requirement that requires a bit of code, but the LowCode tools I have used can be used without writing any real code. You only need simple expressions ('a.b.c > 1') in JavaScript. An understanding of either SQL or REST/HTTP/JSON can't be avoided though, if you want to access external data.
I have some experience using Retool and UI Bakery. Both are quite similar and get the job done. The resulting UIs are never beautiful, but they are good enough to implement most requirements, and development is super-fast. I think I'd prefer Retool, but maybe that's just because I am more used to it.
We made https://www.kalipsostudio.com/ a low code app to generate Android/iOS/Win/Win CE/Win Mobile (They are still out there lol). Our focus is with mobile native apps not Web/server/backend apps. It's manly used for logistics, erp interface, shop floor, military, mobile sales, etc... you don't need to learn a new language but we assume that you know your way with SQL.
https://www.harmonycb.com/ - it's currently used to build the whole UI for a number of startups where the backend/business logic is behind restful endpoints
it's also not 100% nocode, you can add javascript to do endpoint translation work, and small frontend logic that would be painful in some kind if ITTT system
onboarding and help is still somewhat lacking - but if you hit us up on twitter @harmony__cb or @MattTheMrM we can set up an onboarding call / chat about your use case
It's for games (not sure if that's what you meant) but our startup makes Construct 3, a NoCode platform for developing games: https://www.construct.net
Oh thanks I was looking for it recently and I couldn't remember the name. I remember using it a few years ago with my daughter, she was able to create something simple, playable and enjoyable in an hour or so, using cut-out photos of her family. I remember the scrolling was very smooth and the final result was nothing to be ashamed of. Thank you for giving us hours of fun! I'll download it today and see what's changed since.
EDIT: OK so it was Construct 2, the next iteration seems so much more powerful. The pricing is reasonable, both for individuals and businesses, thank you also for that.
I've been a Drupal developer for 15 years and started using it for it's low code abilities. In my opinion it still is an amazing low code platform which is extremely versatile. If you really need to customize, it's all there under the hood to hook into, override and extend.
If you need to handle translations, users, permissions, revisions... and want to provide a good editor experience for building landing pages, (web)forms, etc. Drupal can be a good CMS. It won't be easy to start though.
Is Drupal a generic "no-code" solution? I don't think so. Drupal is a CMS and makes sense to use it if you want a website and manage its content.
I was waiting for someone to mention this as I scrolled from the top to bottom... I have been implementing Drupal consistently since v4.0 and despite it's increasing footprint, I haven't seen anything it really can't do as a CMS and web app platform.
No code on Drupal isn't exactly pretty, it requires a lot of CSS work to look good, but out of the box it's reliable and quite secure and robust. I've also implemented it in some of the most secure settings without problems over years. The ke to stability is scanning code prior to deployment for outbound requests, not building/adding what isn't needed or used, applying updates on time, and designing and maintaining a secure architecture (zero trust if data value warrants it).
I have built a lot of cool and mission critical things and sites with Drupal, and I'm very thankful for finding it years ago. v7.X is still my fave, the modules were so much more thought out and available for it, and still are. One of the best aspects of building with it is that the community never really turned into a money factory for modules like Wordpress did. As far as downsides, the hardest thing is debating other developers on why it should be used over other frameworks or instead of a custom app without burning up valuable project time. As a testament to Drupal's reach, it's implemented on many key web sites to this day, all you have to do is google it.
It allows you to easily integrate with any backend and have a smoother learning curve. Also it is easily extensible by code, so you will never be stuck in feature limitations
Co-founder of Reflect here: Thanks for the mention!
I think a lot of people think of "no-code" tools as something exclusively for non-developers; things like Webflow and Bubble for creating apps. I don't think that's ever really been the case, Zapier being a great example of that, but there's been a lot more tools coming to market in the past couple years that actually work well as a way to replace tedious code-based workflows. i.e. Use Retool instead of building UIs for internal apps, use Reflect to build automated tests instead of Selenium, etc.
Yeah I'm a dev but was a team of one embedded within a sales and marketing org at a a medium-large size startup with a mandate to automate and find growth hacks for sales + marketing, and I was able to use Zapier with its Salesforce integration, google sheets integration, Twilio integration, Marketo integration to do a lot of work that I wouldn't have had time to build, support, and do maintenance on if I'd built a full backend application.
All of what I did with Zapier could have been implemented with a database, a bunch of scripting, and cronjobs, but using Zapier saved oodles of time and meant I was outsourcing the maintenance to their API integrators rather than to myself.
I was able to do so much with triggers and webhooks I can only imagine what is possible now with their more recent code blocks feature and adding better environment variables.
sounds interesting! we’ve seen the same pattern across dozens of customers and are building a business on top of it. would love to chat if you’re down: juan [at] sayprimer.com
I'm looking out for no-code low-code tool for side project that can help me with speed.
How did you land at Retool or what should be the general criteria?
I write a fair percentage of LookML as a ratio of my total Looker data dashboard creation time. (It's maybe low-code or "somewhat easy code", but it seems pretty far from no-code to me. I'm still a fan.)
I'd add Betty Blocks to the app builder section; and add a category for electronics laboratory automation and add 'Labview' for that category, there are many others as well.
I would add to this list no-code web automation and scrapers. I am founder of https://automatio.co, but there other great tools like SimpleScraper, Axiom.ai, Browsers.ai etc
Kit55, https://stack55.com is great - It is a low-code alternative to website generators that heavily rely on the command line, like Hugo, Jekyll, Gatsby, etc.
The app simply takes HTML files and assembles complete pages in your file system.
The app watches for changes in your project and will build your pages accordingly. The pages you write have now access to a templating system, basically Jinja2 so you can reference other HTML files from your pages (to include a common header, menus...), and you can use variables, macros, etc.
The app comes also with a small local webserver, so you can easily access your built pages. It also supports hot-reload, so when you make a change in a file, all pages that depend on it will be rebuilt and your browser will be refreshed.
137 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 187 ms ] threadMost OSS or IoT folk will immediately point to Node-Red or n8n.io, which look similar but are actually quite different in focus (n8n is geared at hooking up third-party services at a higher level).
And then you have all the Web Automation stuff that has been with us forever since Yahoo Pipes went down.
I'd advice you to take another look. For example take a look at this tutorial (https://www.outsystems.com/training/courses/124/reactive-ui-...) and see everything you can build with OutSystems.... without Eclipse :)
Also happy to answer any questions anyone might have.
scaling may be different but very efficient approach to getting to reasonable scale (perhaps 1000s of users)
It has a huge number of interface widgets and customization options while remaining very easy to use. You can pull off very distinct design styles with it quite easily. The markup it generates from what I've seen is decent.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not into Wordpress, and I'll take custom HTML + CSS + JS pretty much any day, but I've seen Elementor being used in production at scale and I can see it working for many businesses, especially if they're already into Wordpress.
As for platforms allowing more complicated logic, I've evaluated a few. I built a prototype in Microsoft PowerApps for a large enterprise, and ditched it in favor of a custom web app. We are now analyzing requirements and potentially building a real production app for that same customer, but the app is infinitely simpler (it's just a permissioned interface to read/write a centralized Excel sheet).
I've studied the market a bit (Appian, AppSheet, Bubble, PowerApps, etc.) and my impression is that they are quite complex for what they offer. The original promise was to replace developers and reap huge time savings but I'm skeptical on both counts - specialists need to operate these tools to get good results (so instead of a C# dev, you now have an Appian dev), and from what I've seen only the most boilerplate-y app features can be built significantly faster (and even then, I'm not sure if the difference is massive compared to a batteries-included framework).
The main use case I see for them is as small features or business applications within a larger integrated stack. Retool's approach which seems really centered on this use case and offers loads of database integrations out of the box, but while I hear good things here on HN I would still need to see results with my own eyes in production.
Despite my skepticism low-code is a topic I always keep an eye on, so I wanted to share my two cents and see what other HNers have to say.
Hasura allows me to create a schema and then use it in a type safe manner in the front end (through GraphQL). This is a game changer to me: very little code in the model/controller layer.
[1] https://saltcorn.com/
You can then use it as is (no code) or add business logic (low code).
Having shipped an Odoo project this year, how is the developer experience for you?
It seems like Odoo forces developers into time consuming and frustrating workflows (for example using xpath + upgrade modules + possibly reload the server) that make developing for it a pain. Or I might be missing something?
In development mode with inotify you get python hot code reloading. In development mode the XML (with a handful of exceptions regarding menus, and ir.actions) will be read from disk on refresh.
At work we use Dockerized Odoo based on a [Doodba](https://github.com/Tecnativa/doodba). We use [click-odoo](https://github.com/acsone/click-odoo) to manage module upgrades (amongst other things). Dev workflow is largely managed through [invoke](https://www.pyinvoke.org/) tasks.
I do wish there was hot code reloading for the views (xml), but realistically if you’re making an app of any complexity the views in the backend are the small part and likely not where you are spending the majority of your time.
Website stuff is absolutely 100% stuck in the past at the moment, imho.
Basic 1st project setup things didn’t work, etc.
Setting up UIs was relatively painless thanks to many out-of-the-box integrations, and it was surprisingly easy to implement auth/error handling/component dependencies.
The thing I liked the most is that it's not really a "no code" - you need to be technical to build good apps in this tool. However, that's where the power comes from - it simplifies the mundane development tasks and lets you focus on something more high level.
I wish the team would make it easier to consume your own, custom API however.
Adalo feels to me like the most 'pure' no code experience, where it's not just a typical dev environment with a graphical visualization, but instead a tool built around functionality.
I feel like Bubble, Outsystems, etc, is built with a traditional development environment in mind, and just replaces code with snippets, while Adalo is more about extending the functionality of design software like Adobe XD all the way through to the app store and the first 50K users.
I've trained people on Adalo well and it's remarkable the progress a smart, committed person can make in just a few days.
Our focus is exactly the opposite: breaking from traditional development: focus on productivity, focus in what matters.
Now, OutSystems has a specific way of looking into the problem, others players have different ways. And that's ok. We are probably focusing in different use cases.
For OutSystems we are all for building critical apps, that are able to sustain the pace of change of the business
It's not NoCode, but it's "little UI" code, meant to create BI applications when Excel is a bit too little. It's based on the observable runtime. The website and onboarding is still pretty crude.
If you need fine grained control over the presentation and behaviour of a system then you have to specify those things in detail exhaustive detail using a suitably expressive platform which we typically refer to as a "programming language".
https://frappeframework.com/
https://www.newsy.co
Newsy takes an unused domain name and turn it into a content-aggregator (i.e. Reddit clone) with lots of features built in including membership, automated newsletters, HTTPS, using GMail for your domain etc.
I built Newsy because I had close to 50 unused domain names but had no time to develop them.
Newsy lets me quickly build sites for my domains and make use of them while waiting for (hopefully) one day that I turn them into a product.
Who would want this though? I can't picture a reason to want to do this, it just sounds like the spam that shows up in searches sometimes that I instantly back out of
> I built Newsy
Ah
Maybe I'm picturing something more spammy than it is but I don't think I'd ever want to use this, I'd rather the domain didn't resolve
e: I felt harsh posting this, but having seen one of the sites you are actually rehosting the content you aggregate too, it's worse than I pictured haha. This is spam.
I have some experience using Retool and UI Bakery. Both are quite similar and get the job done. The resulting UIs are never beautiful, but they are good enough to implement most requirements, and development is super-fast. I think I'd prefer Retool, but maybe that's just because I am more used to it.
Check out makerpad.co for some courses which amount to design patterns.
EDIT: OK so it was Construct 2, the next iteration seems so much more powerful. The pricing is reasonable, both for individuals and businesses, thank you also for that.
I've been a Drupal developer for 15 years and started using it for it's low code abilities. In my opinion it still is an amazing low code platform which is extremely versatile. If you really need to customize, it's all there under the hood to hook into, override and extend.
Is Drupal a generic "no-code" solution? I don't think so. Drupal is a CMS and makes sense to use it if you want a website and manage its content.
No code on Drupal isn't exactly pretty, it requires a lot of CSS work to look good, but out of the box it's reliable and quite secure and robust. I've also implemented it in some of the most secure settings without problems over years. The ke to stability is scanning code prior to deployment for outbound requests, not building/adding what isn't needed or used, applying updates on time, and designing and maintaining a secure architecture (zero trust if data value warrants it).
I have built a lot of cool and mission critical things and sites with Drupal, and I'm very thankful for finding it years ago. v7.X is still my fave, the modules were so much more thought out and available for it, and still are. One of the best aspects of building with it is that the community never really turned into a money factory for modules like Wordpress did. As far as downsides, the hardest thing is debating other developers on why it should be used over other frameworks or instead of a custom app without burning up valuable project time. As a testament to Drupal's reach, it's implemented on many key web sites to this day, all you have to do is google it.
It allows you to easily integrate with any backend and have a smoother learning curve. Also it is easily extensible by code, so you will never be stuck in feature limitations
Full disclosure: I’m the founder ;D
1) BPM tools: build workflows & business processes. Tools like Appian, Pega, kissflow, etc
2) Form builders: jotform, typeform, etc
3) automation: Zapier, integromat, etc
4) Frontend builder - Consumer apps -> bubble, adalo, etc - Internal apps -> Retool, DronaHQ, Appsmith
5) App builder - Build core business apps (including backend, microservices , etc) - Outsystems, Mendix
6) Field force apps -> prontoforms, fulcrum, etc
7) Extension builder -> extension.dev
8) Test automation -> reflect.run
Disclaimer: I am part of DronaHQ.
I think a lot of people think of "no-code" tools as something exclusively for non-developers; things like Webflow and Bubble for creating apps. I don't think that's ever really been the case, Zapier being a great example of that, but there's been a lot more tools coming to market in the past couple years that actually work well as a way to replace tedious code-based workflows. i.e. Use Retool instead of building UIs for internal apps, use Reflect to build automated tests instead of Selenium, etc.
All of what I did with Zapier could have been implemented with a database, a bunch of scripting, and cronjobs, but using Zapier saved oodles of time and meant I was outsourcing the maintenance to their API integrators rather than to myself.
I was able to do so much with triggers and webhooks I can only imagine what is possible now with their more recent code blocks feature and adding better environment variables.
https://www.google.com/search?q=reflect+no+code
Surprised I haven't come across one yet...
Not sure where it would fit in, but Looker adoption is crazy. It's deeper though: no-code data modeling
WordPress, Squarespace and Wix... As their userbases dwarf all other systems mentioned
9) Online DB tools -> Quickbase, Airtable, Knack, etc 10) Website builder -> webflow, softr, etc
The app simply takes HTML files and assembles complete pages in your file system.
The app watches for changes in your project and will build your pages accordingly. The pages you write have now access to a templating system, basically Jinja2 so you can reference other HTML files from your pages (to include a common header, menus...), and you can use variables, macros, etc.
The app comes also with a small local webserver, so you can easily access your built pages. It also supports hot-reload, so when you make a change in a file, all pages that depend on it will be rebuilt and your browser will be refreshed.
Full disclosure: I’m the founder