Ask HN: Which NoCode platforms are fine?
Which NoCode platforms are producing sensible applications, (assumed the "core logic" can be supplied with serverless "pure code")
1) BPM tools: build workflows & business processes. Tools like Appian, Pega, kissflow, etc
2) Form builders: jotform, typeform, etc
3) automation: Zapier, integromat, etc
4) Frontend builder - Consumer apps -> bubble, adalo, etc - Internal apps -> Retool, DronaHQ, Appsmith
5) App builder - Build core business apps (including backend, microservices , etc) - Outsystems, Mendix
6) Field force apps -> prontoforms, fulcrum, etc
7) Extension builder -> extension.dev
8) Test automation -> reflect.run
Disclaimer: I am part of DronaHQ.
I think a lot of people think of "no-code" tools as something exclusively for non-developers; things like Webflow and Bubble for creating apps. I don't think that's ever really been the case, Zapier being a great example of that, but there's been a lot more tools coming to market in the past couple years that actually work well as a way to replace tedious code-based workflows. i.e. Use Retool instead of building UIs for internal apps, use Reflect to build automated tests instead of Selenium, etc.
All of what I did with Zapier could have been implemented with a database, a bunch of scripting, and cronjobs, but using Zapier saved oodles of time and meant I was outsourcing the maintenance to their API integrators rather than to myself.
I was able to do so much with triggers and webhooks I can only imagine what is possible now with their more recent code blocks feature and adding better environment variables.
Surprised I haven't come across one yet...
Not sure where it would fit in, but Looker adoption is crazy. It's deeper though: no-code data modeling
WordPress, Squarespace and Wix... As their userbases dwarf all other systems mentioned
9) Online DB tools -> Quickbase, Airtable, Knack, etc 10) Website builder -> webflow, softr, etc
Most OSS or IoT folk will immediately point to Node-Red or n8n.io, which look similar but are actually quite different in focus (n8n is geared at hooking up third-party services at a higher level).
And then you have all the Web Automation stuff that has been with us forever since Yahoo Pipes went down.
I'd advice you to take another look. For example take a look at this tutorial (https://www.outsystems.com/training/courses/124/reactive-ui-...) and see everything you can build with OutSystems.... without Eclipse :)
Also happy to answer any questions anyone might have.
I opened an issue quite a while ago about a very basic component being completely broken on iOS and it still hasn't been fixed.
If not, could you tell me more so that I can create an issue.
Setting up UIs was relatively painless thanks to many out-of-the-box integrations, and it was surprisingly easy to implement auth/error handling/component dependencies.
The thing I liked the most is that it's not really a "no code" - you need to be technical to build good apps in this tool. However, that's where the power comes from - it simplifies the mundane development tasks and lets you focus on something more high level.
I wish the team would make it easier to consume your own, custom API however.
We allow you to build polished PWAs and now full web apps using data in your Google Sheet (and soon Excel and Airtable).
You can build logic and complex actions in Glide, without code or formulas. You can use plugins for more advanced custom features or to run your own code: https://www.glideapps.com/plugins
Glide is special when compared to other NoCode tools because we handle a lot more of the design for you–your Glide app is built with higher-level components, rather than you deciding where buttons go or how they look. Glide apps also tend to look much better than what you might design yourself.
I've been a Drupal developer for 15 years and started using it for it's low code abilities. In my opinion it still is an amazing low code platform which is extremely versatile. If you really need to customize, it's all there under the hood to hook into, override and extend.
Is Drupal a generic "no-code" solution? I don't think so. Drupal is a CMS and makes sense to use it if you want a website and manage its content.
No code on Drupal isn't exactly pretty, it requires a lot of CSS work to look good, but out of the box it's reliable and quite secure and robust. I've also implemented it in some of the most secure settings without problems over years. The ke to stability is scanning code prior to deployment for outbound requests, not building/adding what isn't needed or used, applying updates on time, and designing and maintaining a secure architecture (zero trust if data value warrants it).
I have built a lot of cool and mission critical things and sites with Drupal, and I'm very thankful for finding it years ago. v7.X is still my fave, the modules were so much more thought out and available for it, and still are. One of the best aspects of building with it is that the community never really turned into a money factory for modules like Wordpress did. As far as downsides, the hardest thing is debating other developers on why it should be used over other frameworks or instead of a custom app without burning up valuable project time. As a testament to Drupal's reach, it's implemented on many key web sites to this day, all you have to do is google it.
Having shipped an Odoo project this year, how is the developer experience for you?
It seems like Odoo forces developers into time consuming and frustrating workflows (for example using xpath + upgrade modules + possibly reload the server) that make developing for it a pain. Or I might be missing something?
In development mode with inotify you get python hot code reloading. In development mode the XML (with a handful of exceptions regarding menus, and ir.actions) will be read from disk on refresh.
At work we use Dockerized Odoo based on a [Doodba](https://github.com/Tecnativa/doodba). We use [click-odoo](https://github.com/acsone/click-odoo) to manage module upgrades (amongst other things). Dev workflow is largely managed through [invoke](https://www.pyinvoke.org/) tasks.
I do wish there was hot code reloading for the views (xml), but realistically if you’re making an app of any complexity the views in the backend are the small part and likely not where you are spending the majority of your time.
Website stuff is absolutely 100% stuck in the past at the moment, imho.
By “relatively sophisticated” I mean “would have cost me a significant amount in dev time to do this” and “have useful functionality that I can’t get out of the box elsewhere”.
So I guess I’m laying out somewhere in the region of $5250 a year or $450 a month.
That’s split across several projects.
The beauty is I can prototype an idea in minutes (ok, there was a learning curve, but now it’s super super fast) and then test and push to “production” in hours.
I rebuilt my primary application in about three hours recently, massively improving the user experience.
The costs against the business value are trivial.
The advantage of these ones is that I can very quickly customise them to do exactly what I need.
I have some experience using Retool and UI Bakery. Both are quite similar and get the job done. The resulting UIs are never beautiful, but they are good enough to implement most requirements, and development is super-fast. I think I'd prefer Retool, but maybe that's just because I am more used to it.
Not affiliated with any of them.
Is the current sticking point auth & keeping data segregated?
I don’t like their weird syntax around writing code, {{}} everywhere!
I don't think it is just the capabilities of the three tools, I guess they are comparable. Retool has been around for a while, gets a ton of praise, raised a lot of money too (I don't know these info about budibase). It is just that appsmith feels nicer to work with, even though the UI is quite similar to retool.
I know appsmith's support is very very good, I have no clue about the other two.
I am sorry I am not able to give you a concrete answer, beyond the vague I like it :( I guess there might be others who think appsmith sucks and retool rocks. It is one of those things where some people like some UI and the other people hate the same. Another example is clickup, I like the tool in general (I do have complaints) and I pay for it but there are lots of people who hate it.
Hasura allows me to create a schema and then use it in a type safe manner in the front end (through GraphQL). This is a game changer to me: very little code in the model/controller layer.
Disclaimer: I work on circuits.
Feels like voice recognition: I tried every 3 years, since a looong time. And now that they are finally usable they still require an effortful pronunciation.
scaling may be different but very efficient approach to getting to reasonable scale (perhaps 1000s of users)
I’m not affiliated, just a really happy user. More “low code” than “no code”, it’s like Zapier, but with the ability for developers to easily customize and extend integrations. Two thumbs up.
First of all, there are no technological lock-ins, you can export high-quality, human-readable code and use it outside the platform if you like.
We especially made it for professional IT & development teams to accelerate how they build custom web & mobile apps, without the need to know and stay updated with all the frameworks.
There are no production limits whatsoever. Its capabilities basically can only compare to traditional development.
If you want to try it out, just go ahead, it's completely free to sign up and start using it
Adalo feels to me like the most 'pure' no code experience, where it's not just a typical dev environment with a graphical visualization, but instead a tool built around functionality.
I feel like Bubble, Outsystems, etc, is built with a traditional development environment in mind, and just replaces code with snippets, while Adalo is more about extending the functionality of design software like Adobe XD all the way through to the app store and the first 50K users.
I've trained people on Adalo well and it's remarkable the progress a smart, committed person can make in just a few days.
Our focus is exactly the opposite: breaking from traditional development: focus on productivity, focus in what matters.
Now, OutSystems has a specific way of looking into the problem, others players have different ways. And that's ok. We are probably focusing in different use cases.
For OutSystems we are all for building critical apps, that are able to sustain the pace of change of the business
I would like to add Budibase to this list.
The platform is open source, makes it incredibly easy to build internal tools, SSO is free, and its apps are responsive. Also, coding is optional (unlike other platforms listed in this thread)
Also, Budibase is currently free!
EDIT: OK so it was Construct 2, the next iteration seems so much more powerful. The pricing is reasonable, both for individuals and businesses, thank you also for that.
The last thing I want from my tool — even my excellent, robust tool — is lock in.
If they raise the price, do I have options?
If they go out of business, do I have options?
If the platform needs debugging, do I have options?
docker run -d --name nocodb -p 8080:8080 nocodb/nocodb
(Disclaimer: I'm founder of NocoDB )
If you need fine grained control over the presentation and behaviour of a system then you have to specify those things in detail exhaustive detail using a suitably expressive platform which we typically refer to as a "programming language".
The app simply takes HTML files and assembles complete pages in your file system.
The app watches for changes in your project and will build your pages accordingly. The pages you write have now access to a templating system, basically Jinja2 so you can reference other HTML files from your pages (to include a common header, menus...), and you can use variables, macros, etc.
The app comes also with a small local webserver, so you can easily access your built pages. It also supports hot-reload, so when you make a change in a file, all pages that depend on it will be rebuilt and your browser will be refreshed.
Full disclosure: I’m the founder
It's not that it can't be done, but that there's probably very little demand for it. By and large the target market for No Code doesn't value testing.
If you know of a No Code platform with good testing support, I'd love to hear about it...
Would love to get your feedback if you do try us: https://reflect.run/
I can point to this video to say, "this is what I'm doing when I'm writing tests", and I think at least some of them will understand the value proposition. The more savvy ones might buy into your platform or even try constructing tests themselves. Bravo!
Maybe it makes sense for some, and if people pay you for it then that’s great, but to me I cannot see the economics of that ever working out.
Usually when folks are considering us, they're comparing us to the other alternatives which generally are either (1) have folks on staff do each regression test pass manually, (2) hire additional devs/automation engineers to build a code-based automation suite, or (3) have existing developers spend part of their time building and maintaining a code-based automation suite. When you look at the cost of those alternatives we tend to be pretty competitive.
Where we're not a good fit pricing-wise is when someone wants to run very simple tests at a high volume, like running synthetic testing / monitoring scenarios in production, or for load testing.
I guess there is a happy point in between too small and too large where you have a bunch of QA, but no dedicated people to keep your pipeline up (and if things like Cypress didn’t exist, it’d be more or less impossible).
That said, if you think that unit tests are always required, then I think that you are a victim of code complexity. Let me explain. I do believe that unit testing is good to master complexity, which often becomes out of hands with classical approches because the code is complex by itself (new lib versions popping up all the time, breaking refactoring). The thing with low-code is that it lowers that complexity by proposing more declarative approaches, which are more stable and less broken when changing versions (think of a static web page for instance, you don't really need to test it that bad although the browsers versions bump all the time).
I think that it is more important to be able to control complexity in order to avoid testing, rather than having to test "no matter what", like your reaction suggests. Plus, testing implies CI/CD and a lot of automation that are extremely complex to set up and consume a lot of resources.
I wrote a blog post about this stand-point lately https://cincheo.com/2021/10/03/when-low-code-meets-local-fir...
DISCLAIMER: I am currently working on a new low-code platform for frontend development based on the local-first paradigm. (web site: https://www.dlite.io, platform, with examples: https://plaform.dlite.io).
> I think that it is more important to be able to control complexity in order to avoid testing,
I think that's a worthy ideal to strive for, but it's not so easy to control complexity in practice.
First, a lot of complexity arises from business logic requirements. Even if you have an "engineering" department, they're going to have limited ability to negotiate away complexity in business concerns. And many outfits who adopt No Code don't have engineering departments, and aren't well versed in engineering principles like simplifying, testing, or even keeping backups, let alone modularization, separation of concerns, loose coupling, or other approaches for managing complexity at scale.
And then there's time. It takes time to whittle something down so that it is simple and elegant. That time costs precious resources which small outfits may not be able to spare.
You are aware that there is such a thing as a Pontiac and such a thing as a Mercedes, right? One is better than the other. Costs more, too. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for both to exist. That doesn’t mean the lesser one is trying to be the more expensive one and failing.
You are arguing against a straw man, as I don't assume either of those things. Testing a magic bullet? Ludicrous.
> You are aware that there is such a thing as a Pontiac and such a thing as a Mercedes, right?
Hmm, but both a Pontiac and a Mercedes present the same driving interface.
I would instead compare No Code to DIY tools for (pick your industry: music production, graphic design, etc). I agree that you can go very far and do amazing things with DIY.
I'd say that's a given, both that they're not very complex and not intended to scale past a few users.
> tend to fall apart as they become successful.
There are lots of definitions of success. A dashboard on a phone app so that the boss can see the green lights on his servers is successful. It gave him what he wanted: green lights on his phone.
> By and large the target market for No Code doesn't value testing.
This seems to be your qualifier of why they aren't 'good'. I don't own one, or work for one, or even subscribe to a platform that makes them, I'm just a passer-by here, but I can see the value in them. The only one I have used is open source (NodeRed).
When there's no time and you need to glue two or three API's together in 30 minutes, I see nothing wrong with them. It goes without saying that the result will be fragile and only for a handful of people, probably only one of which will get write access.
Here's my use case: co-founded a disaster relief non-profit in 2017 (hurricanes). Our window of opportunity to do good deeds was about 3-4 days, by then the red cross and fema trucks would arrive. When we need to process data it's probably a job with a roughly $0.00 budget and needs to be done in 30-45 minutes, then there's something else to do.
For that? They are wonderful. I built a phone bar-code scanner that could pull price data from Kroger's API to account for food donations in about an hour and a half. Can anyone else do that writing code by hand? I say no, the UI alone would take longer (however rudimentary that UI is). Was it tested? Yeah, a quick manual once-over and me face-to-face telling the person admining it that if the bar code didn't read just google it and plug the price in by hand, or don't and we'll do it later if that isn't feasible due to volume. We were just trying to do a slightly better job than a pencil and a clipboard could do, not a perfect one.
Check out makerpad.co for some courses which amount to design patterns.
Feel free to give us a spin and give me feedback: https://www.truesource.io
Basic 1st project setup things didn’t work, etc.
It allows you to easily integrate with any backend and have a smoother learning curve. Also it is easily extensible by code, so you will never be stuck in feature limitations
Full disclosure: I’m the founder ;D
You can then use it as is (no code) or add business logic (low code).
Wouldn't you consider Notion and Coda NoCode?
TiddlyWiki I see as more experimental so that simply might not be a 'sensible' platform in terms of the question.
It's not NoCode, but it's "little UI" code, meant to create BI applications when Excel is a bit too little. It's based on the observable runtime. The website and onboarding is still pretty crude.
It has a huge number of interface widgets and customization options while remaining very easy to use. You can pull off very distinct design styles with it quite easily. The markup it generates from what I've seen is decent.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not into Wordpress, and I'll take custom HTML + CSS + JS pretty much any day, but I've seen Elementor being used in production at scale and I can see it working for many businesses, especially if they're already into Wordpress.
As for platforms allowing more complicated logic, I've evaluated a few. I built a prototype in Microsoft PowerApps for a large enterprise, and ditched it in favor of a custom web app. We are now analyzing requirements and potentially building a real production app for that same customer, but the app is infinitely simpler (it's just a permissioned interface to read/write a centralized Excel sheet).
I've studied the market a bit (Appian, AppSheet, Bubble, PowerApps, etc.) and my impression is that they are quite complex for what they offer. The original promise was to replace developers and reap huge time savings but I'm skeptical on both counts - specialists need to operate these tools to get good results (so instead of a C# dev, you now have an Appian dev), and from what I've seen only the most boilerplate-y app features can be built significantly faster (and even then, I'm not sure if the difference is massive compared to a batteries-included framework).
The main use case I see for them is as small features or business applications within a larger integrated stack. Retool's approach which seems really centered on this use case and offers loads of database integrations out of the box, but while I hear good things here on HN I would still need to see results with my own eyes in production.
Despite my skepticism low-code is a topic I always keep an eye on, so I wanted to share my two cents and see what other HNers have to say.
Newsy takes an unused domain name and turn it into a content-aggregator (i.e. Reddit clone) with lots of features built in including membership, automated newsletters, HTTPS, using GMail for your domain etc.
I built Newsy because I had close to 50 unused domain names but had no time to develop them.
Newsy lets me quickly build sites for my domains and make use of them while waiting for (hopefully) one day that I turn them into a product.
Who would want this though? I can't picture a reason to want to do this, it just sounds like the spam that shows up in searches sometimes that I instantly back out of
> I built Newsy
Ah
Maybe I'm picturing something more spammy than it is but I don't think I'd ever want to use this, I'd rather the domain didn't resolve
e: I felt harsh posting this, but having seen one of the sites you are actually rehosting the content you aggregate too, it's worse than I pictured haha. This is spam.