Ask HN: Which low-code/no-code tools don't suck? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Which low-code/no-code tools don't suck?

14 pointsarey_abhishek14 comments

Low-code/no-code tools seem to be taking off. I read a post the other day that compared low-code tools to iPhone photography vs. using a DSLR. Most visual programming tools seem to be pretty bad at letting you build something complex.

Are there any products out there that you love? Why do you love them?

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Hi, I think that this question can not be answered so easily, unfortunately. Low-code tools are just a new way of writing applications, and thus, as there is no programming language that is universal, there is no low-code tool that will allow you to build everything. As a programmer, if you want to do intensive database queries, you will probably go SQL while if you want to write web applications you will probably choose php/node or whatever. For low-code I think it is more or less the same. Some of them are good at building nice UI (I personally think that Panda Suite is a pretty good tool for that(http://www.pandasuite.com)) while others allow you do build flows applications or complex event processing, etc... Everything depends on your needs and on what you mean by "complex". If there is a low-code product that I love, I would recommend you to have a look at Hackeet (https://www.hackeet.com) but it is a biased opinion because I have created it ! So, in order to be honest, I suggest you to have a look to node-red too which seems to be quite popular. I (obviously) prefer our product but among our competitors, this is the one we prefer. Hope this helps.

Thierry (Hackeet, A Cost Effective Low-Code platform, for everyone !, https://www.hackeet.com )

Low-code/no-code tools have been around for a long time and come and go in cycles. Microsoft Access and Excel are examples of two more common tools. BI tools tend to be big targets as well including older tools like Talend ETL and newer ones like Looker. WYSIWYGs have fallen out of fashion as web sites have become more complex, but that used to be the way to write HTML. For more examples look through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_programming_language or search articles on visual programming.

As others have mentioned, low or no code tools depend heavily on what you are trying to do and if they fit your use case. This is definitely a growing space and there are a growing number of solutions out there.

I work for and use https://www.knack.com. Our software is really useful for creating no or low-code web apps. We provide a visual interface for importing or creating data, building relationships for your data, managing user roles and logins, and building out a functional web UI lots of different view types and customization options.

Zapier! The life saver for marketers everywhere that need to connect APIs.

Depends on what do you need?

I.e. my company has integrated low-code marketing-campains scheduling designer, that is node-based. I think it is quite cool and our users seem to like it? At least it looks like a good fit for a job. What I as a programmer like, is that you can't make cycles as the designer, limiting the complexity.

But the tool itself is quite niche and I am not sure I would want to do anything complex with it.

What tool is this? Sounds interesting.

Company is https://exponea.com/, you can see the tool in the backround on our landing-page :-)

But I can't really show you, these days we have quite involved procurement setup aimed at large corporations. As far as I understand, the language/editor itself is bespoke, tailor made to the specific kinds of marketing flows you are able to automate with our platform.

OutSystems is probably the leader in this area. But you need to keep in mind that low code != easier development or faster time, it just means another tool to develop. You need to still understand how to use those tool to develop your systems. Everything beyond the tool expectation will need to be built with workaround and longer time development.

> Low-code/no-code tools seem to be taking off.

Do they? I genuinely don't know. Any examples?

Airtable has a huge userbase. Some non-tech people have built products making tens of thousands of dollars in MRR, using bubble.is.

Then there are tools like Shopify which is good enough for a large set of e-commerce use cases.

There was one called Retool (https://retool.com/), that got great positive reviews on HN few months back

Webflow, Airtable, Bubble.is are doing really well. I've used Webflow a few times, but nothing else.

It really depends on the context of what you are planning to build but my favorites in the no-code space are Webflow, Airtable, Zapier, Carrd, Table2Site.

I haven't used it at all, but I've heard good things about Appian from friends/colleagues.

MS Excel

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