Platform Comparison

Everything You Need To Know About

Low-Code Platforms

“By 2029, enterprise LCAPs will be used for mission-critical application development in 80% of businesses globally, up from 15% in 2024.”

Gartner

Best fit = best results

Low-code and no-code platforms help simplify and speed up development. But with Gartner tracking more than 400 different platforms in their Magic Quadrant, even deciding on the right platform is complex.

There’s an idea that low-code can only handle automation and simple tasks. But some low-code platforms can handle your most complex use cases, improve customer experiences, create cost efficiencies, and mitigate risks. Low-code helps you speed up while maintaining control. A one-size-fits-all kind of thinking costs you opportunities to do more and differentiate

Are all low-code and no-code platforms built the same? Of course not. So, how do you choose not just your top use cases but also the right use cases for the right platform?

Key Considerations

Before you make any decisions, you'll want to be clear on your capabilities and priorities on some key topics:

Use Cases

What are they? How many processes? How business-critical? Are your users internal, external, or both? Are you most interested in one-off solutions or preparing for scale?
Process

Are you satisfied with your current development approach and platforms, or are they holding you back?
Data

How important is integrating multiple data sources and external APIs?
Speed

How quickly do you want to get started?
Deployment

What’s your cloud strategy? What flexibility do you need?
UI / UX

How important is this to you and your users? How about native mobile?
Collaboration

Do you want business technologists to participate in development? Do you want business stakeholders to collaborate actively with IT teams?
Efficiency

Do you want a platform that can do everything? Or are you comfortable using high code and multiple IDEs?

No-code

No-code platforms are precisely what they sound like. Almost all development happens in a visual, drag-and-drop way. Vendors include, among others, Unqork, Creatio, and Kintone.

Pros
Easy to use
Built for business users, making it accessible and intuitive
Premade connectors
Easily call an API to get data
Fast deployment
Excellent for specific use cases like office event registration and feedback forms

Cons
Only for simple use cases
Generally lack ability to add and maintain custom components
Flexibility concerns
Lack of cloud flexibility, less control over scalability and resources
Integration challenges
Struggles to create connectors to systems and data sources using interfaces and protocols like REST, SOAP, JDBC, OData, etc.

BPM (business process management)

Gartner defines business process management (BPM) as helping organizations use “various methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve and optimize business processes.” BPM software covers both BPM and dynamic case management (CM). Platforms include, among others, Appian, Pega, and Newgen.

Pros
Automate single workflow processes
Improve efficiencies through streamlining
Manage complex processes
Dynamic CM can manage processes across several systems such as decisioning, robotic process automation (RPA), and AI

Cons
Developer experience
Problems with broader issues, such as UX and data models. Lack of experiences like Git, versioning, and automation
Collaboration & management
Difficulty enabling collaboration, lifecycle management, and a steep learning curve
Cost & complexity
Higher costs for building and maintenance

SaaS-attach

SaaS platforms provide a portfolio of related products, including low-code offerings that make it easier to create or extend applications within their ecosystems. These platforms often feature web-based IDEs for creating business logic, workflows, and applications with minimal coding effort. Examples of platforms include Microsoft PowerPlatform, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Oracle, Zoho, and Huawei.

Pros
Easy to use
User-friendly and fits within the rest of its ecosystem
Streamlined integration
Leverages existing data within the ecosystem, such as a Sharepoint form or Salesforce instance
Built-in connectors
Offers connectors and APIs to help pull data from existing sources

Cons
Limited flexibility
Lack of deployment flexibility and scalability, and inability to build outside the ecosystem
Collaboration & data-sharing
Difficult to share data across projects and teams effortlessly
Full-code extensions
May need to extend with full-code IDEs and professional developers, making development complex

General purpose

General purpose low-code platforms offer extensive capabilities, allowing you to seamlessly combine data sources, unite different systems, and build impactful solutions across the enterprise. These platforms, such as Mendix, are designed to handle complex use cases and drive digital transformation throughout the enterprise.

Pros
Comprehensive solutions
Handle complex use cases, ideal for wide-reaching digital transformation initiatives
Seamless integration
Connectors to a wide variety of tools and services (such as SAP, AWS, and OpenAI) speed up development and enable more robust solutions
Scalability
Reusable components and connectors help organizations scale from a single solution to enterprise-wide

Cons
Learning curve
Must invest time and resources into training and familiarization

LCAPs at a glance

Now that you've seen your options, think about your priorities and needs. Let's sum it up:

	PROS	CONS	USE CASES
NO-CODE	Easy to use, premade connectors, fast deployment	Only for simple use cases, flexibilty concerns, integration challenges	Office event registration, feedback forms
BPM	Automate single workflow processes, manage complex processes	Developer experience, collaboration & management, cost & complexity	Process automation
SAAS-ATTACH	Easy to use, streamlined integration, built-in connectors	Limited flexibility, collaboration & data-sharing, full-code extensions	Custom forms and workflows within the ecosystem
GENERAL PURPOSE	Comprehensive solutions, seamless integrations, scalability	Learning curve	Customer portals, mobile apps, process automation, conquering complexity throughout the enterprise

Low-code, high results

Maybe the most crucial question, though, is, “Do you have ambitious digitalization goals?” If so, Mendix is the only low-code platform designed for challenges across the enterprise.

Mendix brings a proven platform, process, and practice designed to help you move from idea to outcome and scale in a truly transformative way. Native mobile, version control, built-in governance, focus on your existing CI/CD pipeline, strategic partnerships with leaders like AWS and Snowflake, cloud-native. Mendix is the only platform that offers everything.

With Mendix, the question isn’t “what if?,” it’s “what’s next?” Get your subscription to innovation with the low-code leader.