How to choose the right low-code, no-code, or process automation platform

During the pandemic, there was a significant uptick in the number of low-code, no-code, and process automation platforms and other business platforms that have these capabilities as features. A recent Gartner Magic Quadrant ranks 17 low-code platforms targeting application and software development. Forrester’s Wave on low-code platforms for citizen developers ranked 12, and their report on digital process automation ranked another 13 platforms. G2 lists 85 low-code development platforms and 364 no-code development platforms.

That’s quite a long list of platforms to review, let alone run as a prototype. But chances are, your organization already has one or more platforms in place. Recent data shows that 77% of organizations are using low-code development tools, and 66% of large organizations use as many as four low-code platforms.

Companies use low- and no-code platforms to accelerate application modernization, convert spreadsheets into workflows and databases, and transform their gray work. Innovative ways to use low-code include integrating LLMs into applications, building workflows that connect field and office workers, and deploying analytics capabilities to different departments.

Process automation goes beyond application development, and implementations aim to shape business operations. “Process automation tools are essential for a company to define workflows and automate actions to drive efficiency,” says Malcolm Ross, SVP of product strategy at Appian. “It coordinates enterprise operations, streamlining workflows and incorporating innovations like generative AI.”

What you need to know before choosing a platform

If you’re searching for a platform, it’s important to consider multiple departmental needs and use cases as part of the evaluation. You may also be deciding whether to build a new application on a platform your organization has already procured, so it’s important to validate the platform’s capabilities and whether it meets operational requirements. Below are seven questions to consider when evaluating platforms for different business use cases.

Does the platform target your business type and application needs?

Does the platform support a variety of use cases?

What are the platform’s developer personas and skills?

How is the platform innovating with AI?

What are the platform’s out-of-the-box capabilities?

How steep is the learning curve?

Does the platform meet your technical, operational, and security requirements?

Does the platform target your business type and application needs?

When reviewing any development platform, consider whether the vendor targets organizations of your size, in your industry, and with similar business problems. I recommend reviewing the vendor’s website, case studies, blogs, and other resources. These easy indicators can help determine whether a platform is more likely to address the targeted use cases before you invest time in evaluating and prototyping it.

Avishai Sharlin, a division president at Amdocs, says, “When selecting a low-code or no-code platform, it’s important to understand whether vendors target SMB or large enterprise, the type of business application you are targeting, whether it’s replacing an existing application, or if there are complex requirements.”

Eoin Hincy, CEO and co-founder at Tines, suggests evaluating whether the platform solves real-world problems. He says, “It’s crucial for users to carefully evaluate a platform to ensure that it not only impresses during a demo but also meets their real-world needs and can be deployed effectively and at scale.”

Does the platform support a variety of use cases?

Another key consideration is whether the platform can support multiple use cases across different business units or departments and with tools supporting IT, security, and data governance. A low- or no-code platform that supports just one or a narrow range of use cases can add to an organization’s technical debt and consume IT resources.

“Too often, a low- or no-code solution is chosen to solve a single problem for one project or workflow, making it hard to collaborate across the organization without adding technical debt or creating shadow IT, says Debbi Roberts, SVP of product management at Quickbase. “For these tools to truly succeed, it’s important for the line-of-business and IT teams to have a tight partnership that enables business and operations teams to move fast while consuming fewer IT resources, while IT teams can feel confident they have the governance oversight needed.”

Wayson Vannatta, CIO of Nintex, says it’s important to evaluate how the organization will govern low- and no-code platforms and continuously evaluate the effectiveness of the developed use cases. “It’s one thing for employees to use the tool, but it’s another question of how they use the tool.” Vannatta recommends defining success metrics and outlining guardrails, especially when promoting a culture of citizen development.

Innovations from citizen development using no-code can include developing dashboards, connecting workflows across SaaS tools, replacing spreadsheets with mobile tools, and upgrading legacy departmental apps with significant technical debt.

What are the platform’s developer personas and skills?

Low-code and process automation platforms generally target developers and technologists to build and support applications, while no-code platforms also target business people with basic technology skills. Many platforms today offer both low-code and no-code experiences, and several offer genAI tools to help people start building applications with natural language prompts.

“A platform that offers multiple ways for developers, business technologists, and front-line employees to work together will not only accommodate the growing demands of the business but also accelerate collaboration, development velocity, and team productivity, says Rich Waldron, co-founder and CEO at Tray.ai.

Waldron also suggests reviewing the platform’s extendability because requirements may eventually exceed the customization and capabilities of low- and no-code platforms. “Tools that also support code-heavy approaches can account for more use cases and developer preferences. Having a comprehensive API also ensures the tool has a clear pane of separation from the company and doesn’t cause vendor lock-in.”

David Talby, CTO at John Snow Labs, says that if you’re considering no-code platforms to support non-technical users building applications, it’s important to review whether they have the time and interest to take on these responsibilities. “The intended users for no-code tools are non-technical professionals—doctors, lawyers, accountants, administrators. Users must be educated, trained, and know what to do if something is amiss.”

How is the platform innovating with AI?

In my recent article on how generative AI will change low-code development, I shared that platform vendors use genAI capabilities to improve the developer experience and reduce the skill set needed to build applications. Many platforms also have genAI end-user enhancements, including search functions, summarization features, and prediction capabilities.

GenAI and machine learning are highly competitive and evolving capabilities, so it’s no surprise that low- and no-code vendors and process automation platforms compete with their innovations. Ask prospective vendors about their current capabilities, how customers benefit from them, and their development roadmap.

“GenAI can act as a creative partner, suggesting designs for new business workflows and offering ideas that most subject matter experts might not see given their focus on the day-to-day,” says Don Schuerman, CTO at Pega. “Business experts apply the productivity enhancements of GenAI, such as summarizing content and finding answers, directly into the workflows that need it most.”

Some of these features are rapidly becoming table stakes and no longer offer real competitive advantages, according to Schuerman. He says, “New advances could help low-code developers create entire workflows from scratch. Feeding genAI engines with industry best practices makes it possible to design entire enterprise-class applications in seconds with just a few prompts and offer ideas that users and developers might not discover on their own.”

What are the platform’s out-of-the-box capabilities?

App development platforms should be able to interface with the business’s SaaS platforms, proprietary applications, and data repositories while supporting integrations with the external ecosystem of partners, platforms, and third-party plugins. Low- and no-code platforms compete on technical approaches, scale, and ease of use in developing applications that are part of end-to-end workflows.

Here are some questions to help you gauge the breadth and depth of a platform’s capabilities:

What feature variations illustrate the versatility and flexibility of the platform? For example, form building needs common UI elements such as drop-downs and checkboxes, but the more advanced low-code platforms will have more sophisticated capabilities. If you’re developing dashboards, look for variations in chart type and configuration flexibilities. If it’s a workflow engine, key capabilities include exception handling, developing reusable subprocesses, automation capabilities, and role-based responsibilities.

Does the platform integrate easily with other platforms, including SaaS, integration tools, and APIs? David Brooks, SVP of evangelism at Copado, suggests evaluating integrations and the number of supported connections because no platform is an island. He says, “Most end-to-end business processes involve two or more platforms and services, so choose a platform with a complete API and tools that make it easy to integrate.”

How does the solution help document and expose APIs to external developers for self-service discovery, learning, and usage? Jason Gartner, GM of product management in application modernization at IBM, recommends evaluating platform APIs because successful digital transformation exposes critical business functionality. “Each API is specifically connected to key assets and infrastructure and is only useful if a third-party developer can digitally learn which APIs to call, how to call them, and in what sequence to call them to complete an end-to-end business transaction.”

These questions help evaluate whether many use cases can align with the platform’s capabilities and how easily it can connect to the corporate and external ecosystems.

How steep is the learning curve?

I regularly evaluate no-code platforms through a one-hour productivity test. If I can’t figure out how to develop something useful in an hour without formal training, that is a problem. I’m fine getting stuck and using it as an opportunity to test the quality of the platform’s documentation and search capabilities. If I can find a page that addresses my question and help me resolve the issue, that indicates the platform is well documented.

Low-code and process automation platforms will take more time to learn and master, but developers should be able to be productive on the platform relatively quickly. Platforms targeting large enterprises and enabling mission-critical application development should have certification courses and a mature partner ecosystem.

“Fast and easy development helps users respond to new opportunities and upcoming regulatory and compliance issues quickly and often in real-time,” says Sid Misra, VP of marketing and solutions in app dev, process automation, and digital workspaces at SAP. “Low- and no-code platforms should be easy to use and allow developers to experiment and test new ideas without needing large IT or external resource investments.”

Organizations should consider having multiple teams learn and benchmark the experience. It helps round out different skill levels and determine how easy it will be to get multiple team adoption.

“Getting a sense of how quickly your team can adapt to the platform is crucial for efficient implementation and sustained use,” says Vannatta of Nintex.

Brooks of Copado recommends evaluating the size of the development community and partners as one easy indicator. “A large base of users is a good indication of how easy it is to use, but also provides a talent pool to recruit from if needed,” he suggests.

Does the platform meet your technical, operational, and security requirements?

Organizations should have a template of requirements covering non-functional criteria, including technology, operational, and security requirements, as well as business criteria around pricing, data, and legal requirements. Platforms that enable application and process development should have added considerations since they enable engines for digital transformation, application modernization, and other strategic business priorities.

Consider the following questions depending on your operating model, requirements, and scale:

Does the platform simplify or improve the experience of integrating various data sources, codifying and updating business logic, and customizing user interfaces? Tailor your questions on how platforms simplify development to the types of experiences targeted and benchmark against whether and how development teams accomplish this work today. “Understand that any of these platforms will not eliminate the need for development but should either simplify development tasks or shift them onto non-developer resources,” says Justin Brooks, director of software architecture at SADA.

How well does the low-code platform align with the existing software development lifecycle (SDLC), including testing, deployment, and other devsecops requirements? Meir Wahnon, co-founder of Descope, recommends this question. “Know how aligned the platform is with your company’s CI/CD processes. If it doesn’t support different environments and sits separately from your SDLC, all the time you save using the tool will be spent stitching it up with the rest of your tech stack.”

What security features does the platform offer, and how does it handle different compliance regulations? Many organizations develop deep security questionnaires and use tools to validate technologies and service providers. Vannatta of Nintex, recommends that businesses “investigate and verify necessary security measures like data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and compliance like FedRAMP or GDPR.”

How does the platform scale, how is it priced, and what will be the total costs when you scale the number of developers, applications, or application usage? Varun Goswami, head of product management for Newgen, recommends assessing the platform’s scalability, the flexibility of customization options, and the total cost of ownership. “These factors are vital in ensuring that the platform not only meets your current business needs but is also capable of adapting to future changes and helping you achieve long-term business goals,” he says.

What are the platform’s observability and monitoring capabilities? Also be sure to evaluate the documentation auto-created by the platform, the quality of knowledge based on different problem types, and the effectiveness of its technical support functions.

Evaluating the risks and benefits of low-code or no-code platforms

Most companies are experiencing increasing demand for modernizing applications, developing new customer and employee experiences, automating business processes, and finding new value from generative AI capabilities. Low-code, no-code, and business process automation platforms can be accelerators, but it is essential that their capabilities, operations, and compliance match business needs.

Organizations evaluating their first low- or no-code platforms must define their technical strategy, what business and technical problems a new platform should address, and what success will look like. Anand Kulkarni, CEO of Crowdbotics, suggests considering alternatives to low- or no-code platforms. “AI-driven software development that prioritizes systematic code reuse should be a consideration as it significantly reduces the risks associated with writing code from scratch.”

Peter McKee, VP of developer relations and community at Sonar, recommends having an exit strategy. He says, “One of the most important questions is, how do I keep the work when we no longer want to use the platform?”

While most platforms don’t offer an easy way to export and transition applications to other platforms, certain features can simplify the exit strategy. Self-documenting platforms with data exporting tools, APIs connected to integration platforms, and a healthy ecosystem of development partners can all lower the risks and costs of implementing an exit plan.