Are no-code apps here just to build a quick MVP? Should they be used for larger businesses and enterprises looking to test out new product ideas or can they be used to build an application for the long term?
Why Use No-code Apps?
Before we discuss the viability of no-code apps, let’s look at why they have become such a popular option for startups, entrepreneurs, and businesses in the last few years. No-code apps are worth considering because they allow you to build products fast, with a better price and seamless collaboration. In short, no-code is excellent for product development because of fast speed, affordable costs, and easy collaboration:
- Speed - Prime amongst the reasons people select no-code platforms to build their new apps is the speed with which they can build both the MVP and the final solution. This speed enables them to get to market much faster, a critical tactic for startups.
- Cost - Building an app with no-code platforms is cost-effective. You save on expensive development teams or agencies because you don’t need to employ them when the platforms are so accessible to less technical people.
- Collaboration - Due to the accessible nature of no-code platforms, it means more people across the business can get involved in the development process. This means the voice of the customer has a better chance of being heard and that everyone is brought into the end product.
Are No-code Apps Scalable?
One of the chief concerns raised about using no-code apps is whether they are scalable. Will a no-code app be able to handle my requirements as we grow?
The short answer in 99% of cases is yes, no-code apps can scale with your business, but as with any development project, they need to be built properly. In this article, we will look at the elements of scaling an app and why no-code is perfect for these, but we will start with things to remember when looking to scale correctly.
Three critical best practices to consider when scaling an app, regardless of no-code use
- A well-designed database model
- Optimized logic and database queries
- Considered and functional user interface
The next concern from people is the hosting and capacity of the no-code platform to handle the increase in traffic/users. Bubble.io is a great example of how these platforms are managing the scaling nowadays.
With Bubble you can start on a hosting package that is shared with many other businesses, sharing resources and getting the economies of scale this delivers. However, as you grow you can move to superior plans that will allow more actions in a given period and they now offer clients dedicated plans on AWS.
Things That Scale With No-Code Platforms
Several factors need to be considered when you are looking to scale your app, not just the volume of actions or users that need to be managed. You need to be able to add new features quickly, test at scale, and integrate with other applications.
Scaling With New Features
A critical part of scaling an app is new feature development. For an app-based business to scale and achieve high growth they need to react to user feedback, make changes based on the market, and ultimately evolve what starts as an MVP.
This is perfect with a no-code platform that allows you to quickly test new ideas, get more people involved and roll out changes. It can be argued that no-code can scale faster in this area than traditional development.
Scaling With Testing
When using no-code platforms, much of the build is with pre-built elements. These have been rigorously tested by the platform itself. This means that less testing is needed on the app and fewer bugs are usually found.
It allows the business to focus testing on the key elements of the platform and to scale the testing operation as development speed and feature releases increase.
Scaling Through Integrations
A key element of growing modern businesses is the use of integrations. This is important when looking at scaling an app and identifying ways to increase its capabilities and reach.
No-code apps are built with integrations at their heart. This means that they can scale just as successfully as traditional development approaches, potentially even better. The platforms all have different levels of integrations, for example, Webflow relies on integration more than a tool like Bubble, but they are both built to allow a lot of integrations.
Going Native
As we can see, no-code apps are scalable and it is possible to grow your business using them, adding new features, and continuing to increase the traffic delivered. But it is important to be aware of one current limitation of no-code applications like Bubble or Webflow - they don’t allow you to build native apps - although it is on the roadmap of most major no-code platforms.
For the moment, this means that if you want to place your app natively into the android or apple store, you’d use a hybrid approach involving building the app with a non-code platform and then using a ‘wrapper’ like MobiLoud Canvas to convert it into an app for the store.
This will not be a problem for most businesses. You can still build the app and then the user can provide a link to the app on their phone’s home page, but if the goal is appearing in the apple store listing, then you will need to build that into your plans as you grow.
Linked to this is the problem of moving your app if you wanted to. With a platform like Bubble.io, the code is built into its platform, and whilst you can export any data you have and custom code you added on top, you would need to rebuild the core no-code app in a different application.
This is not as big a job as it first sounds. The hard work in building a no-code app is in design and building the idea out. Once you know exactly what the app does and looks like, recreating that in another no-code platform is a relatively simple task.
How Big Are You Looking To Scale with No-code?
Will a no-code platform support you if you want to be as big as Facebook or Twitter? No. But 99.99% of businesses are not going to grow that big.
The real limitation as apps grow in size is the volume of data that no-code platforms can handle. The performance can become a problem if you are planning to show large volumes of data on screen or your database is likely to grow to many millions.
Whilst the volume isn’t a problem by itself, it is when you are looking to update this data frequently and in real-time that you will eventually hit a performance that might not be acceptable. Again, this is a problem you only find when you’ve already scaled your app to a significant size.
No-code Is Perfect for Scale
There are many elements to ‘scaling’ - functionality, testing, and capability with other platforms. The volume of data is just one of those elements but examples exist of millions of users on no-code apps and as you grow your app, the platforms themselves are growing. By the time you get your startup to the size of Twitter, then that’s a different scale problem and a nice one to have!
If you need further proof of how you can scale and build a large successful business with no code, just look at the two biggest players in the industry, Zapier, and Bubble. In the last 12 months Bubble has raised $100M in funding and passed one million users, whilst Zapier is valued north of $5Bn - those are businesses most people would be happy to scale up to!
