I'm interested in committing to learning and using some sort of open source self-hosted no-code platform for automating org processes and prototype app ideas quickly.
My major concerns are:
1. Cost of keeping the system live (ec2 and other cloud costs primarily)
2. Extensibility (The team is tech-savvy, so if we want to jump into code level, we should be able to)
3. Stability, chances of long-term support (Don't want to buy into things that'll disappear anytime soon)
Any experiences/recommendations/advice will be appreciated, thanks :)
There are a fair few low-code solutions out there for reporting and data visualisation that are great for finance and marketing teams for example. e.g. https://metabase.com/ , https://evidence.dev/
For multipurpose SMB workflows and organisational processes, I have used n8n in the recent past and found it was quite good and incredibly easy to maintain. https://n8n.io/engineering-resources/
For enterprise processes I'd go with Camunda (solely based on recommendations and not first hand experience). Although only parts of their platform are OSS https://github.com/camunda
Bear in mind that some of these are not suitable if you want to build something that competes with them while taking their OSS code. But are perfectly fine otherwise.
I've spoken to a CTO who are using no-code tools, so here are some views:
1. Cost - Will depend on compute power needed, but for internal tools that will be low.
2. You might want to pick something you are familiar with and is actively developed and accepting pull requests. A lot of the low code tools do allow you to write custom code anwyay, which is worth bearing in mind.
3. That's a tough one, some of these tools have a commercial model that runs alongside their open source model, which may help give some security. I remember that Facebook pulled their low-code backend tool many years ago, so just because it's by a big company, doesn't mean it has a long future.
Here's the list:
https://pocketworks.co.uk/blog/open-source-no-code-tools/
To save you a click, here's what's in the list:
NocoDB - Turn any database into a smart spreadsheet Baserow - Create your own online database without technical experience ToolJet - Build & deploy internal tools with minimal engineering effort BudiBase - Build apps for your workplace in minutes AppSmith - Build admin panels, CRUD apps and workflows 10x faster Saltcorn - Point and click database web applications Lowdefy - Build web apps, admin panels and BI dashboards with ease Directus - Wrap your existing SQL database with a GraphQL+REST API and admin panel Frappe Framework - Metadata-driven, full-stack framework in Python and Javascript Basetool - View and manage all your data in one place like a pro Rowy - Manage Firestore data in a spreadsheet-like UI GDevelop - Free, and easy game-making app PocketBase - Backend for your next SaaS and Mobile app in 1 file NocoBase - Build internal tools in minutes
Cheers
T