No-code, low-code or a system built for you: how to choose

When a business decides to move some work off paper and spreadsheets into a system, there are three routes. It can assemble the system itself in a no-code tool. It can hire someone to assemble it on a low-code platform and write whatever is missing. Or it can commission a system designed and built from scratch.

Each route has its place. And each has a cost you don’t see on day one.

In short, what is what

• No-code: the system is assembled from ready-made parts — forms, tables, rules along the lines of “when this happens, do that”. No programming. Usually assembled by someone in the business.
• Low-code: the same assembly, with the option for a developer to write code where the ready-made parts fall short. Usually assembled by someone with technical skills.
• A system designed for your business: built from the ground up, around your rules. The most freedom, but also the longest road to a first version.

Where no-code and low-code are perfectly adequate

• internal forms and requests: annual leave, ordering consumables, reporting a fault in the office
• simple approvals with few exceptions
• records for a small team
• a quick test of an idea before serious money goes into it
• work that is likely to keep changing, so there is no point building it to last for years

In these cases a ready-made platform is usually both faster and cheaper. We will tell you so, even when it means less work for us.

What to check before committing to a platform

Licences as the company grows

A per-user monthly price looks small at the start. Multiply it by the number of people who will use the system in a few years, and add the modules you will need along the way.

Leaving the platform

Can you export all your data, and in what format? The logic — rules, flows, forms — usually can’t be exported and stays on the platform. If you ever leave, that part gets rebuilt from scratch.

Links to your own software

Accounting software, e-invoicing, the warehouse, the online store. Does the platform have a ready-made connection, or will you need a developer for it anyway?

Volume and speed

It works beautifully with a few hundred records and five users. Ask how it performs with tens of thousands of records and dozens of people at once, and ask to be shown.

Who maintains it

An app assembled by one enthusiast gradually becomes indispensable, and nobody else knows how it works. That is the same risk as knowledge that lives in one person’s head, just on a platform.

Where the data lives

On whose servers, and in which country? Is there data you mustn’t or don’t want to send outside the company — prices, margins, personal data?

When a system designed for your business pays off

• the work is the core of the company, and exactly what sets you apart
• the rules are complex, so the platform would be bent to its limits
• volumes are high, or speed matters
• you need reliable links to several systems
• the data has to stay with you
• the total cost of the platform over a few years overtakes the cost of building

That last point needs an honest calculation in both directions. Building isn’t free after launch either: maintenance and changes cost money too.

The combination that often makes most sense

It isn’t always either-or. Often the smartest move is to start on a platform, cheaply and quickly, to learn how the work really runs. Once it is clear what the core is, and what has stopped changing every week, that part is designed and built as a system while the rest stays on the platform.

The condition is that the exit is planned from day one: data that can be exported, and rules written down somewhere other than inside the platform itself.

Answering whether to buy off the shelf or build your own, costed both ways, is part of our IT consulting and digitalisation plan service. If you are choosing between a platform and a build, write to us — we’ll help even when the answer is the platform.