Low-code development shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, 70% of new business applications will use low-code/no-code technologies by 2025, up from just 20% in 2020. 

A number of factors play into the wide-spread adoption of low-code tools, including lack of IT resources and the pressure to accelerate go-to-market times. Everyone’s jumping on the low-code train. But does that mean you need to invest in a low-code platform? 

Let’s break that question down. 

 

What Is a Low-Code Platform? 

A low-code platform, also called a low-code application platform (LCAP), makes it easy for even non-developers to build custom applications using low-code and no-code tools such as visual and drag-and-drop interfaces. This way, employees – so-called citizen developers – can leverage the platform to develop custom applications, resulting in greater efficiency and faster delivery. 

Learn more about low-code development here.

 

What Are the Benefits of Using a Low-Code Platform?

Empowering both technical and non-technical teams with a low-code platform brings many benefits, including: 

1. Accelerated go-to-market. When citizen developers are able to create custom applications with minimal IT or developer resources, they can deliver these solutions much faster. In fact, a recent study by Forrester found that low-code platforms can reduce development time by up to 90% compared to traditional coding methods.

2. Increased developer productivity and innovation. Low-code is not just for citizen developers or non-technical teams.
   The 2024 Reveal survey shows that low-code tools significantly enhance developer productivity, with 90.4% of respondents stating that these tools have boosted productivity in their organizations. A majority of developers reported saving up to 50% of their time when using low-code tools on projects.
   This improvement in productivity and ease of use means that developers can eliminate a lot of manual, time-intensive tasks and instead allocate those resources towards innovation.

3. Reduced development costs. With custom development simplified, LCAPs help reduce costs and save on IT and technical resources. Gartner estimates that by 2024, low-code application development will account for more than 65% of application development activity, leading to significant cost savings for businesses.

In fact, by 2024, 75% of enterprises will use at least four low-code platforms for citizen development initiatives and business application development.

But is investing in so many different low-code platforms the right strategy?

 

What Are the Challenges of Using a Low-Code Platform?

Even though low-code platforms offer many advantages, here are a few cautions: 

1. Lack of security. Depending on the vendor, security may be a concern or may not be as robust as your organization needs. Additionally, the ease of use for low-code application platforms may lead to security oversights by citizen developers. Teams must prioritize security education and implement measures to mitigate risk. Some challenges to consider include account impersonation, data leakage, and authentication failures. 

2. Customization limitations. The platform may not be flexible enough for your organizational needs. Pre-built modules and templates may lack customization options, or the platform itself might limit what you can actually do.

3. Vendor lock-in. Determine whether these platforms will lock you in with their vendor agreements, making it costly and challenging to migrate to other platforms. Consider how easy it is to extract and transfer the data from these platforms as well. 

4. Integration challenges. In addition to flexibility for customization, evaluate whether the platform can connect to your existing tech stack or other technologies that your organization is already using. Assess the platform’s compatibility to see if trying to make it work within your tech stack will actually require more IT resources. 

5. Lack of scalability. As your organization grows, will these low-code platforms also be able to scale and grow? Or will performance be impacted and limited instead? You need to understand if a platform can handle the increased workload. 

 

Why Use Liferay's Low-Code Capabilities 

Instead of evaluating different low-code application platforms, look to a more complete, robust platform that gives you low-code tools with all the enhanced flexibility, security, and scalability of a digital experience platform: Liferay DXP. 

Liferay DXP not only provides native low-code tools but also a full suite of digital experience building tools including personalization, commerce, CMS, AI, security, and more. With a single platform, you can build solutions like customer portals, intranets, commerce sites, and supplier portals. 

Liferay DXP’s low-code capabilities allow you to streamline a wide range of business processes with minimal to no coding, including collecting and sharing data, generating and distributing reports, or creating a system to track and resolve issues and requests. 

Learn more about Liferay’s native low-code capabilities here. 

Liferay DXP also addresses many of the challenges mentioned above, giving you: 

1. Enterprise security. You can rely on a highly secure digital platform to build your solutions. We’ve placed security, compliance, and data protection at the core of our product, offerings, and operations at Liferay — and this is backed up by our partnership with Google Cloud and numerous security certifications. To learn more, visit our Trust Center. 

2. Incredible flexibility. Liferay DXP is the most flexible digital experience platform on the market. You can easily connect to existing technologies, legacy systems, or third-party applications and even replace native functionality with existing tools. 

3. No vendor lock-in. As a result of Liferay DXP’s flexibility, there’s no vendor-lock in—and you can leverage whatever tools you’d like. 

4. Scalability for the future. Liferay DXP helps ensure business continuity with built-in autoscaling via our cloud deployment options to guarantee performance. Learn more about our deployment offerings here.
    

Low-code is only one piece of your digital experience puzzle. If you’re looking for a secure, flexible platform ready to tackle your current and future business needs, a pure low-code application platform may not be the right fit. Solve the entire puzzle with Liferay DXP.