Simplicity vs. Capability - or both?
We launched GW Apps with a mission to create the most capable cloud application development platform for business users, extending the power of No Code to enable non-programmers, often called citizen developers, to create meaningful applications. This No Code solution gives all users the power to digitize and modernize the business processes they manage: marketing teams creating applications to manage their events, operations departments improving the way they manage the company assets, etc. A well designed web application can replace the multitude of emails, papers, and spreadsheets and accelerate the move to a paperless office.
Low-Code or No-Code options provide users with the tools they need to create a well developed cloud application without complicated code involved. For many businesses, this presents a huge plus – the ability to create these applications without spending valuable time and resources that they may not have. But with the multitude of products on the market, how can businesses choose the best Low-Code or No-Code solution?
Finding the best cloud development tools for a business can be challenging. There are multiple vendors offering No-Code/Low-Code products, but how do you choose the most appropriate one for your needs? We hope the following information will help in your search and evaluation.
Low-Code development platforms have been around for a while. Vendors worked out how to hide parts of an application’s coding with graphical interface builders and prebuilt functionality. They have been a great disrupter for application development and a welcome addition to IT Departments worldwide. However, when using a Low-Code platform, you will still need developers to complete most applications, as some coding is still required. With Low-Code, IT is still typically building the application.
With continued advances in cloud technologies, vendors started to introduce No-Code platforms, eliminating the need for any programming skills, and extending the capability to create applications to non-developers. The business is then far more involved or is even leading the software development.
Weighing the Benefits: Low Code vs. No Code
Various major IT publications and research firms have all come to similar conclusions: if you aren’t incorporating Low-Code and No-Code development in your portfolio, you will be at a competitive disadvantage, as those who are using this approach will be more efficient and effective. More recently, as the capability and awareness of No-Code platforms have risen, many are convinced that they will be far more transformative than their Low-Code cousins.
No-Code Delivers Benefits by Changing the Game
There are many benefits to a No-Code solution rather than a Low-Code approach, the main being that it allows one user to develop a full application independent of other parties. Still, it is important to understand all of the benefits associated with a No-Code approach and examine how this solution can provide business users with security and increase productivity.
No Need to Wait for Developer Resources
With No-Code development, business users can take care of many common applications themselves or with only minor support from IT. Now, they no longer have to wait on the availability of developer resources.
Faster Development at a Lower Cost
Low-Code reduces the time to build enterprise applications from months to weeks. No-Code allows you to shrink the development time even further, to a couple of days in most cases. As it doesn’t require the involvement of developers and a project manager, business developers are able to iterate and build their own applications very rapidly. Studies show that you can reduce development time by up to 80% with No-Code development.
Update Applications at the Speed of Business
Because company requirements change, applications can quickly become outdated as business needs evolve. Making even minor functional changes to an existing application is complex and time consuming in traditional development. A No-Code platform makes such changes quick and simple, allowing for applications that evolve as quickly as your business.
Replace Shadow IT with Business IT
No-Code gives the IT department the capability to bring structure and sensible standards to business user development. When an enterprise does not embrace a No-Code standard, business users will be tempted to introduce multiple SaaS solutions to help them manage their business processes. This can lead to an explosion of tools within the enterprise, issues with application security, and all around difficulties tracking data from multiple applications. Offering one platform that can be used to build the most common business applications helps eliminate the emergence of a Shadow-IT environment.
One Product, Multiple Applications
Achieve substantial cost savings by investing in one product that will enable your organization to deploy multiple applications. You also gain efficiencies with single sign-on, sharing data between applications, and providing a consistent user interface while still allowing divisions and departments to their own distinct branding.
We believe that large organizations should utilize both a Low-Code and a No-Code platform in their environment, as each addresses a different need and group of users. Small and medium businesses should at a minimum embrace a No-Code platform.
While there are many Low-Code solutions available to businesses, No-Code solutions that allow application development for businesses are difficult to come by. GW Apps was born out of that need. Our product offers a No-Code solution that allows users to develop enterprise grade applications in a simple, user friendly way.
A key objective was to keep GW Apps easy to use and simple to learn while still providing advanced capabilities to build highly functional web applications.
GW Apps’ Functionality is based on 4 key components:
- Intelligent Form Builder – Versatile, Flexible Layout
- Add Workflow – Record Routing and Approval
- Build Reports & Views – Custom Reports & Dashboards
- Security Management – Control Data Access at the Field, Form, and Application Levels
The form builder’s ease of use will enable almost anyone to start building forms and turn them into fully functional applications, while the advanced configurations for workflow and data security would enable power users to build more complex applications.
We’ve achieved our goal and we have seen 2 distinct sets of users successfully use GW Apps in ways that suit them best:
- Business users who don’t have access to IT resources but have a business process they need to automate or improve.
- Information technology professionals who need to create applications faster so they can meet their deadlines and their business’ demands.
We have heard great success stories from both business users and IT developers. Business users have leveraged our templates to quickly deploy custom applications for common needs like time tracking, asset management, and vacation requests.
Some of our more advanced IT customers have used GW Apps to build applications far more complex than we had ever imagined!
Learn what you can achieve with No Code. Visit our product page to read more about the features that help you build your No-Code web applications. Want to customize a pre-built app? Take a look at some of our templates you can use as a starting point.