How to Choose a Low-Code Platform

Businesses like yours are constantly seeking ways to streamline their operations, drive new revenue streams and keep up with the latest innovations. But until recently, this required businesses to make a substantial investment in IT development.

Enter low-code application platforms (LCAPs) and artificial intelligence (AI), the democratizing forces revolutionizing how businesses create applications and build highly customized, AI-driven automation workflows. Together, they are fueling the business automation trend, enabling smarter decision-making and more efficient processes.

In this buyer’s guide, we’ll take a deep dive into low-code apps to learn how to harness their potential for your business. We’ll identify seven components a robust low-code solution should offer, then provide strategic tips to navigate the nuances of vendor selection.

What is a low-code platform?

A low-code platform is a tool that allows both non-technical staff and time-crunched development teams to create applications or integrations through graphical user interfaces, rather than coding — cutting time to go live dramatically.

Choosing the right type of low-code platform for your business will depend on your:

• Governance needs: Businesses with high standards of governance will need an enterprise-grade low-code platform with strong admin controls, role-based access and clear audit logs.
• Workflow complexity: While a lightweight low-code tool might be enough to handle simple workflows, more complex enterprise workflows may need a more robust solution that gives developers the flexibility to add custom code.
• Integration needs: Unless you’re looking to build self-contained applications, your low-code platform will need to be able to communicate with and trigger actions in your other business systems.

7 Features to Look for in a Low-Code Platform

With the low-code revolution in full swing, it’s vital to understand these key considerations to ensure that the solution you deploy is not only up to the job, but can also help your organization easily and quickly navigate future projects.

1. Flexible infrastructure

Low-code application development solutions offer distinct advantages when it comes to infrastructure flexibility and scalability. These solutions ensure that the applications you develop are deployable across a variety of on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure services — so you don’t get locked into a vendor environment.

While the IT industry trend is moving toward an outsourced infrastructure model, you should always have the ability to scale and control where your application lives and how users access it.

Ask if the solution provides:

• Ability to self-host using a private cloud
• Ability to use any cloud infrastructure, including AWS, AWS GovCloud, Azure or Google Cloud Platform
• Hosting services
• Ability to easily transfer over to your own environment at any time, should you wish to move away from hosting
• Application deployment on both desktop and mobile devices
• Multilingual translation capabilities to ensure individuals who speak different languages can seamlessly use your applications

2. Clear planning and methodology

To gain value from your low-code solution, you’ll need an implementation strategy to make your investment pay off. The very best providers will help you forge a detailed plan and methodology. The vendor should provide:

• A published methodology and plan for low-code application development
• Training for methodology, reporting, workflows, security, integration UI/UX, data modeling, APIs and business logic
• Support and resources to become proficient in the solution in under 60 days
• A professional services organization to accelerate your time to value and mentor your team on best practices

3. Out-of-box integration capabilities

The web is full of microservices and all types of new data sources. A best-in-class low-code solution will provide the flexibility to connect to hundreds of different systems, through a variety of methods that address an extensive range of integration challenges and use cases. This will allow you to immediately make full use of pre-built connectors to popular applications, databases and systems, both in the cloud and on-premises, letting you seamlessly and quickly integrate without the need to painstakingly code the connection.

If integration capabilities are a high-priority for your business, ask potential low-code vendors if they offer:

• Pre-built connectors, as well as the ability to build custom integrations
• Integration for both cloud or on-premise systems
• A user-friendly interface to design integration processes, data mapping and transformations without requiring deep coding expertise
• Full cross-platform CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete), along with live data integrations

4. Full data access, 24/7

Data is one of the most vital assets your business owns, and leading vendors know just how important it is for you to be able to access that data on demand. The top vendors will provide full access to your data at all times. Verify you can access your application’s exact table structure via a commonly accepted method, such as a REST API.

Leading vendors will:

• Have an on-premises offering
• Let you manage your data through commonly accepted methods, rather than a proprietary user interface
• Ensure you maintain ownership of and have access to all the data, without additional costs

H3: 5. Complete lifecycle management

A robust low-code solution will help ensure a smooth launch with a process for enterprise-grade lifecycle management. This includes having robust environments for development, testing and production. When the auditors come, you will be up to the task

Important capabilities to look for:

• Development, QA, and production environments with seamless transfer, to help ensure a smooth launch
• The ability to easily and constantly improve your apps without risking your production environment (If something does go wrong, you’ll be able to roll back with ease)
• A lifecycle release management process that tracks requirements, change management, release notes and product development status to ensure visibility and transparency. Release management and a highly disciplined development process ensures a successful project
• Visibility into audit logs of releases and code changes
• Access to advanced logging and user security controls

6. AI functionality

AI-infused low-code solutions can help businesses not just think big, but act big. The very best low-code solutions don’t just have bolted on AI features, but infused AI throughout, enabling even line-of-business employees to create integrations and apps using natural language prompts, all without having to rely on IT.

When it comes to AI functionality, look for a vendor that:

• Demonstrates deep capabilities and AI functionality across many industries
• Presents at least 10 different types of apps and use cases, especially showcasing apps that can meet your current requirements
• Provides robust governance controls so that you can leverage AI in a way that’s secure and accountable

7. Transparent & predictable pricing

The pricing model of any low-code solution should be predictable and transparent, while supporting the growth of your digital transformation efforts. Leading low-code vendors will incentivize you to expand your use of the solution in line with your digital transformation strategy.

When assessing pricing models, leading low-code application development solutions should give you a clear understanding of:

• What components pricing is based on and what exactly you’re paying for
• Whether they charge by simultaneous or concurrent users
• Your price — even if you’re unsure of user numbers
• Additional charges, if any, for additional applications
• How often you can expect pricing to change
• The impact that growing popularity of certain apps could have on your budget — how will you drive adoption when the budget is not available for more users?

Next Steps to Get Started with Low-Code

Through low-code development, full stack developers and citizen developers alike can create powerful end-to-end enterprise-grade applications with sophisticated logic, workflows, security, and integrations. No code required.

Jitterbit App Builder is an enterprise-grade low-code platform that empowers anyone to create fully integrated, bidirectional applications in weeks.

Using App Builder’s data-first approach to application development,​ you can:

• Democratize IT responsibilities across the organization
• Connect and leverage new and legacy systems across the ecosystem in real time
• Build tailored solutions for any use case and device
• Deploy in your enterprise cloud, on-premise, or host with us
• Comply with enterprise security requirements, industry regulations, and corporate governance
• Monitor and enhance performance, scalability, and efficiency from a central dashboard

If you’re ready to transform the way you think about technology and data, the AI-infused Jitterbit App Builder can help you automate business processes and solve complex business problems at scale. Learn more about Jitterbit’s low-code development solution by scheduling a demo with a product expert.