Low-Code and No-Code Platforms: The Future of Application Modernization
Companies that want to improve their agility, increase their innovation and bring down their costs have application modernization as a top priority. Traditionally, app development is slow, risky, and resource-intensive. Low code and no code platforms come in here. These new tools give the nontechnical staff the power to build apps fast, learning a small amount of coding, thus making it easy for these companies to adjust to changing business needs.
Employing IT modernization insights can enable companies to keep ahead and maximize these systems for long-term viability.
What is Low-Code and No-Code?
Visual, drag-and-drop interfaces and extensive libraries of pre-built components are part of low-code and no-code platforms that allow you to assemble apps without manual coding.
- While low code is definitely easier than full code, it still requires some coding level of expertise to customize logic, integrations etc. It takes away 50-90%+ of hand coding needs (and most of the rest).
- No code needs zero coding at all. IT Noobs can build complete apps by citizen developers without any programming skills through preconfigured connectors, AI assistants, and logic editors.
These platforms massively increase developers’ productivity by replacing millions of lines of complex code with simple configurations. Thus, full-fledged production-ready apps are now being developed in hours or days, not weeks or months.
Gartner predicts that by 2025, 70 percent of applications developed by enterprises will have been low code or no code, up from less than 25 percent presently.Â
Key Benefits of Low-Code and No-Code
Here are some of the main reasons companies are rapidly adopting low-code and no-code platforms:
1. Faster Delivery for Greater Agility
Hand-coding apps is slow. Each and every detail is specified by the developers, and they have to do it manually without any guidelines. Even simple changes are very tedious.
However, allow-code and no-code platforms allow you to create apps by visually assembling them from already-made components. Changes are simple drag, drop, and configuring of new components.
A survey from 2025 revealed that companies using low code and no code-delivered apps are 3-8x faster on average than those who are using traditional coding.
This near-instant agility is invaluable in dynamic business environments where the app needs can change on a night’s notice. More apps can be created at a faster rate than teams can continuously tweak an app and adapt to new technologies.
2. Democratization of Development
It allows low-code and no-code developers to stop doing repetitive coding tasks and focus on complex programming challenges. In addition, these tools also enable nontechnical staff to contribute to the development of the app in a meaningful way.
Simple drag-and-drop interfaces replace arcane code so even non-IT staff from operations, HR, finance etc., can build their custom apps for their own unique needs.
By 2026, 80% of application development activity will be performed by business technologists outside the IT department, enabled by low-code/no-code tools.
This “citizen development” approach taps into intimate domain knowledge across the organization to drive innovation and productivity.
3. Lower Costs
Between expensive developer salaries and lengthy development cycles, traditional coding incurs huge costs, especially for large enterprises. Low-code and no-code platforms drastically cut these expenses through faster delivery and by enabling more affordable citizen developers.
The description prepared by Gartner says that using low-code platforms can significantly help organizations cut down development costs by at least 70%. Cost reductions of 10x are possible when replacing external software vendors. When you account for developer higher productivity and less rework, the savings multiply further.
4. Less Risk
Faster experimentation plus visual modeling means flaws get identified much earlier in low-code and no-code projects before they snowball into serious issues. App changes are also a low risk since altering UIs and connections is simple, unlike changing intricate low-level code.
As a result, these platforms drive significant quality improvements, with 60-80% fewer software defects than traditional coding. Failure rates for low-code and no-code projects decrease to just 5-10% versus 30% for hand-coded apps.
5. Scalability on Demand
Cloud infrastructure, automatic monitoring and self-healing capabilities are used to easily scale apps on demand and serve more users with low-code and no-code platforms. It eases enterprises in ushering new apps to market without having to worry about expensive infrastructure and reliability constraints.
For example, a company using OutSystems with low code technology adapted a crisis management app to hirple through multiple regions as load peaked with a higher volume due to COVID lockdowns. This is impossible in traditional coding.
6. Easier Adoption of New Technologies
Emerging technologies often flounder due to a lack of skilled talent to build apps that leverage them. Low-code and no-code platforms contain ready-made components for capabilities like AI, AR/VR, IoT, etc., allowing citizen developers to incorporate leading-edge innovations into apps easily.
As a result, companies can stay ahead of the technology curve without intensive retraining or new hires.
7. Multi-Experience and Multi-Channel Apps
Modern users demand a smooth app experience across all websites, mobile devices, wearables, and conversational interfaces. Manually developing the app for each platform has proven to be very cumbersome.
Multi-experience apps can be built easily on low-code and no-code platforms, with reusable components that automatically adapt the UI to a board’s or channel’s capabilities. Instead, it provides the edge of omnichannel and a boost to engagement as well as conversions across the different touchpoints.
8. Tighter Alignment with Business Objectives
By empowering non-technical teams to build their apps, low-code and no-code platforms inherently drive better business alignment. Citizen developers intimately understand needs and objectives and translate them into apps without misinterpretation by intermediary IT teams.
Low-Code vs No-Code: Key Differences
Low-code and no-code platforms share the same fundamental benefits but have some distinct tradeoffs to consider:
| Low-code | No-code | |
| Coding needed | Requires some coding for complex logic/integrations | Zero coding |
| Flexibility | Maximum flexibility to customize with code | Limited flexibility as per platform capabilities |
| Learning curve | Developers need some training | Very fast ramp-up, even for non-technical staff |
| IT control | IT retains control over enterprise-grade apps | Shadow IT risk from uncontrolled proliferation of apps |
| Cost | Moderate license and integration costs | Low/no license costs but potential vendor lock-in |
| Scalability | Proven for large mission-critical apps | Uncertain reliability for complex enterprise apps |
| Security | Mature mechanisms for access, data and app security | Evolving security models |
| Analytics | Advanced analytics and governance capabilities | Basic analytics and oversight |
In summary:
- With low code, you get the best of both worlds, although fast app development with the ability to customize apps with code when needed. However, it requires skilled developers.
- Democratizing app building for noncoders is the essence of no code, and it maximizes business productivity. In addition to some tradeoffs in terms of flexibility, scalability and governance, however, attempt to support an infrastructure.
Companies should choose low-code or no-code based on their mix of app complexity, customization needs, developer skills and governance requirements.
Evaluating Low-Code and No-Code Platforms
With so many vendors offering low-code and no-code tools, how do you pick the right platform? Here are the key evaluation criteria:
- Ease of use. Unlike superpowers, intuitive visual interfaces, pre-built components and templates make learning easier for both citizen and professional developers.
- Flexibility. Balance of no-code simplicity for standard apps along with low-code customizability for complex logic and integrations.
- Scalability. A proven reliability and performance for enterprise-grade apps with auto-scaling.
- Security. Security of mature identity, data, and app is aligned with industry standards and best practices.
- Analytics. Insights to use to realize the best value delivery from the app.
- Interoperability. Removing barriers of integration between existing and new systems, the cloud, and data sources.
- Community support. Availability of pre-built connectors, components, templates and industry solutions. Active user forums accelerate onboarding.
- Pricing. Capable of predictable licensing models dependent upon deployment needs (on-prem, cloud, hybrid, etc) and ability to control TCO.
- Vendor lock-in. Apps are agnostic regarding cloud infrastructures and between on and off-premises. These allow apps to be used across cloud infrastructures and even between cloud and on-premises to avoid lock-in.
Leading options that excel across these criteria include OutSystems, Mendix, Microsoft Power Platform, Appian, Salesforce Lightning and more.
The Role of Low-Code/No-Code in Application Modernization
What role can low-code and no-code platforms play in application modernization initiatives? Here are some key opportunities:
1. Legacy Migration
Many businesses battle difficult, brittle legacy systems that impede agility. Manually moving these systems to contemporary, cloud-native software is disruptive, dangerous, and slow.
These issues are alleviated using low-code and no-code platforms, as they automate legacy app inventory analysis and accelerate replatforming tools. This means that legacy apps can gradually and quickly migrate in an iterative way.
2. App Consolidation
Most enterprises have hundreds of disjointed legacy and cloud apps that have organically proliferated over decades. Managing and integrating such app sprawl is a nightmare.
Low code offers a practical path to harmonize capabilities across apps by making it fast and affordable to consolidate multiple apps into unified solutions aligned to business domains. Decluttered app landscapes simplify access and reuse.
3. App Renewal
Modern apps, even the most modern apps, are not immune to the dilemma of being out of date, having outdated UIs, bottlenecks on scaling etc.
Citizen developers can easily drag and drop to renew and modernize apps without overworked IT teams. This helps to ensure that apps do not grow obsolescent.
4. App Decommissioning
Low-code testing tools make it easy to identify unused and redundant legacy apps that provide no business value. Such technical debt can be safely decommissioned, freeing up resources to focus on essential modernization instead of forever playing catch-up.
5. New App Innovation
The biggest benefit of low code/no code for modernization is that it enables innovation and experimentation. Due to the easy and affordable building of apps, companies now build cutting-edge customer-centric solutions by leveraging the latest technology, e.g., AI, AR, blockchain etc.
The continual evolution of the app’s capabilities to delight the users is fueled by this fail-fast product culture. An example of such a development is the virtual claims assessor app, developed by an insurance company that gives customers the ability to self-inspect vehicle damage by using smartphone cameras and getting instant reimbursement.
Low-code platforms also simplify the creation of digital twins of physical assets and processes for simulation and optimization. As such, companies can continuously revise their offerings and experiences in virtual environments before coming to market.
Ultimately, low code and no code are simply about opening up developer creativity and business insight.
Conclusion
Legacy software practices focused on precise coding are outpaced by technological progress that allows better velocity of the skills. The expectations from customers today are amazingly intuitive, immersive, and more digital experiences than ever adapted to their particular needs and contexts.
This creates an exponentially growing need for code, and no-code application development platforms enable companies to meet in an economically viable and scalable manner.
Unshackling developers and business teams, these apps herald a new era in software delivery, and the apps are continually evolving. The new agile approach will determine how modern digital businesses operate and how they interact with their customers in the 21st century.
