Which NoCode platforms are fine?

NoCode platforms can be further divided into sub category of tools. Depending on your need you got to look at using one or multiple tools.

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.

It depends a lot on what you consider “Low Code” and what your target is. Corporate users tend to look at Mendix, OutSystems, etc. because they are typically looking at building end—to-end solutions, and those give you front-end, APIs and ORMs (or, rather, abstract all of those away).

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'm a founder of Appsmith, mentioned here a couple of times. It is a good open source project for building anything from simple CRUD apps to complex internal applications quickly. Drag and drop UI to avoid writing HTML/CSS, connect with any datasource, and use JS to write custom logic when you need to.

I have used Retool to create a (well-received) PoC of an internal-facing admin app. I was pretty impressed, even though it had some rough edges.

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.

Glide (https://www.glideapps.com/) is fine!

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.

Drupal.

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.

I can vouch for Odoo and its Builder module. Odoo itself is open source, but there's a paid support model. We implemented an open source version for one of my clients and for business/production/inventory/accounting I'd say it's second to none. The free modules cover maybe 90% of common business cases, and the 10% left can be handled by duplicating one of the free modules and customizing it in Builder. Odoo is actively updated by large team in Belgium if I remember correctly, and their paid support is quite good. Odoo is Python atop Postgres, and uses a simple HTML/CSS/js for the frontend. Quite customizable, and can be a no-code solution if one uses Builder, which covers most use cases.

I’ve built a significant number of relatively sophisticated applications as internal tools and one public application (which is used daily by ~300 people) using Airtable, Stacker, typeform, carrd, twilio and integromat. I also use MagicBell, Infinity and ApproveIt (a slack approvals tool)

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”.

I'm an experienced web developer but I'm happy that we chose Webflow for the website of our mobile app. It allows my non-technical colleagues to make basic changes to the website, like copy changes or moving blocks around. But Webflow doesn't abstract away the underlying web technologies (just makes it visual) so it's still easy for me to go in and make more "complicated" changes. It's not a panacea but I think they are striking a nice balance between ease-of-use and extensibility.

I think that LowCode makes more sense than NoCode, because sooner or later you will run into a requirement that requires a bit of code, but the LowCode tools I have used can be used without writing any real code. You only need simple expressions ('a.b.c > 1') in JavaScript. An understanding of either SQL or REST/HTTP/JSON can't be avoided though, if you want to access external data.

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.

I like appsmith for internal apps. Tried budibase and retool, but feel appsmith is better. They are also ridiculously responsive on discord - fixing bugs, giving advice etc.

Not affiliated with any of them.

I'm not sure if it fits the criteria, but Hasura has made backends considerably quicker to build.

https://nodered.org/

In Rec Room you can build games, environments, and events using an in-game NoCode tool called circuits: https://recroom.com/

Disclaimer: I work on circuits.

I am one of the maintainers of ToolJet (https://github.com/ToolJet/ToolJet). ToolJet is an open source no-code platform that can connect to all of your existing data sources such as databases and APIs to build applications using a drag and drop interface.

I'd love to build low-code a twitter client (that would need to mirror a bunch of the feed in to a db). Haven't found anything that would let me play with a specific api that easily and build a nice web app.

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.

For the record: dLite.io is a low-code platform I have been working on to build front ends (similarly to bubble.io). It is ongoing work, but it already has many examples (and the website itself is made with dLite.io). It differentiates from others because it comes with a built-in support of the local-first paradigm. (web site: https://www.dlite.io, platform, with examples: https://plaform.dlite.io). (local-first paradigm explanation: https://cincheo.com/2021/10/03/when-low-code-meets-local-fir...) [disclaimer: I am also the author of JSweet.org, but right now my interests are moving towards low-code!]

Bubble.io is fantastic for making business applications. We find performance can often be an issue and typically transfer processing activities to external infra (incl. serverless functions)

Really surprised no one has mentioned https://pipedream.com/

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.

Ours! (https://www.allcancode.com). Kidding aside, I can only tell you how our no-code platform is different and addressing some of the mentioned problems.

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

I've really fallen for Adalo. Before I could only run tech teams, but now I'm one of the best developers I've met for building mature MVPs.

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.

[Founder of Budibase here]

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!

It's for games (not sure if that's what you meant) but our startup makes Construct 3, a NoCode platform for developing games: https://www.construct.net

For me, the high order bit in this context is: is it open source?

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?

https://hellotars.com , I work here. We have customers from different industries including finance, health, e-commerce, real-estate, etc

NocoDB[1] : is a completely free & open source Airtable alternative - it simply transforms any EXISTING MySQL/Postgres databases into a smart-spreadsheet. It offers webhooks that can invoke any API. Getting started is really simple

   docker run -d --name nocodb -p 8080:8080 nocodb/nocodb

[1] : https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb

(Disclaimer: I'm founder of NocoDB )

For larger user counts (and budgets), Salesforce.com is a workhorse. Builds tabs, data views, filters, dashboards, great auditing, security, etc. I've used the force.com platform to track everything from dog daycares to coffee shipments to hospital patients. It's an acquired taste, but it's a huge toolbox that gets the job done.

All of them, until you want to do something that's not a good match for whatever the platform is designed for.

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".

Saltcorn [1] is worth a look. The back-end is Postgres, so integrations are simple. It seems to work how my mind works, it's fun to use, and I don't feel limited or locked in because the data and model are in Postgres.

[1] https://saltcorn.com/

Kit55, https://stack55.com is great - It is a low-code alternative to website generators that heavily rely on the command line, like Hugo, Jekyll, Gatsby, etc.

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

I would say "none of the No Code platforms I've seen are fine", because all the ones I'm familiar with have either inadequate testing or no testing at all. The problem is that apps built without testing don't scale past a certain level of complexity — and so complex projects built with No Code tend to fall apart as they become successful.

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...

https://www.harmonycb.com/ - it's currently used to build the whole UI for a number of startups where the backend/business logic is behind restful endpoints

No code is moving into similar territory to programming languages, as each tool provides a DSL suited to particular problem domains and abstractions.

Check out makerpad.co for some courses which amount to design patterns.

The low code - no code space is a wide spectrum. There are platform sitting at different points on the scale. Completely no code to increasing level of coding . Accordingly a user can get the flexibility to build. I have recently started development in the low code space and worked mostly on the internal tools development. I have been using DronaHQ platform to develop internal tools, i feel the platform sits in between the spectrum, offering good no code solutions and also the flexibility to incorporate custom code in baked in.

We made https://www.kalipsostudio.com/ a low code app to generate Android/iOS/Win/Win CE/Win Mobile (They are still out there lol). Our focus is with mobile native apps not Web/server/backend apps. It's manly used for logistics, erp interface, shop floor, military, mobile sales, etc... you don't need to learn a new language but we assume that you know your way with SQL.

Related question - any NoCode platforms good for mobile native apps?

Hey, I'm the co-founder of TrueSource.io, a no code data publishing platform. Basically, we turn datasets to data apps, providing full infrastructure, front-end (filters, formatting, visualization, etc), and added value features for data providers like user and access management, alerts & notifications, API integrations, etc.

Feel free to give us a spin and give me feedback: https://www.truesource.io

All I hear around here is Mendix. Experiences with it seem to be quite good. I think it's more low-code than no-code as you can write custom things with Java.

Trifacta is pretty cool way to do data engineering. Very efficient approach to assessing what is going on in a massive amount of data and then get suggestions on ways to transform it. Once you're done export to python code or just run from their app as a pipeline that is pushed down into spark or within a data warehouse.

Maybe have a look at https://strapi.io/ and https://directus.io/. They are really easy to setup so yo can spend an afternoon trying out both and see if you like them.

Abstra, YC S21 (https://abstra.app) is great for frontends!

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

If you allow for Low Code as well (what I understood from your parentheses), https://apibakery.com produces an API backend with CRUD operations, as an Django or Node server.

You can then use it as is (no code) or add business logic (low code).

I am surprised that at ~100 comments the likes of Notion, Coda, TiddlyWiki haven't come up.

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.

I am making www.jigdev.com

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.

Elementor for Wordpress is a pretty good page-builder.

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.

Mendix ?? They are expensive onsite, but I've seen projects build in shorter time than what normal devs expect - that way saving money for clients

No-code Data Science tool: https://graphext.com

Free Software:

https://frappeframework.com/

For PDF Online Filling -> platoforms.com

Unqork

I've been running Newsy myself to host all of my unused domain names.

https://www.newsy.co

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.