From code to nocode
I'm an experienced back-end developer, spending most of my time in Laravel or messing around with AWS. But for a new side project I've decided to dive into world of nocode.
I reached out on Twitter asking for tips and received a great response, the #nocode community is strong! It was by far my most engaged tweet so far:
#42 likes
#3 retweets
7,025 impressions
1,409 engagements
I tried pretty much all of the suggested platforms; Bubble, Webflow, Softr, Pory and Carrd.
I found Bubble and Webflow powerful, but way too complex for my needs - I could see myself spending days just figuring out where things are. I'm also not a designer and didn't find any templates that got me half way there.
Pory and Carrd were great, really nicely designed and easy to customise. Pory has a nice Airtable integration which was the one thing missing from Carrd. Only problem with Pory was that I found it difficult to make any customisations with CSS (OK I cheated with a little bit of code).
Softr was the eventual winner, it was flexible and really powerful. It has a load of great built in blocks and super easy to use whilst making it easy to edit the CSS if required.
So my stack:
Softr - web platform
Airtable - database
Jotform - form (I didn't like the standard Airtable forms)
MemberStack - User accounts and payments
Integromat - for extracting images uploaded to Airtable, resizing and storing on AWS S3.
All-in, I probably spent a good 8 hours developing the website - which includes testing all the available platforms. I'm sure going down the Laravel route would have taken longer.
End results - www.strming.com - a new hub to discover premium streaming concerts and theatre productions.
What nocode tools are you using?
I too am a backend developer and have found all this no code stuff, fascinating 🤩My stack is typically...
That's my base stack, then it's extended with other stuff when needed...
...and that's basically it.
Nice stack, sounds very similar to what I've been using. What do you use when coding?
Lately it's all Rails + JS
Thanks for this, I am developer too and I want to try no-code platforms to develop faster landing pages. What about the SEO and speed of the webpage?
Yeah that's a tricky one. Softr has some tools for SEO and I know they're developing more tools to help with speed. I had to use Integromat to extract the images from Airtable, resize and then host on S3 so I could serve through Cloudfront.
But there's a lot more that could be done to improve speed.
If you care about page speed https://versoly.com/ might be the one for you :) We score 99/100 for desktop and getting faster everyday.
why don't you choose the code? isn't everything scalable with code? and the costs you spend will be very expensive if your user has grown. I've tried nocode and in the end you depend on platform no code. If they go bankrupt like my post here https://www.indiehackers.com/post/advice-for-founders-who-want-to-build-without-code-a2b7c7809b
Only because this was a small side project that I wanted to turn around quickly and it was a nice chance to try out a new way of working.
Of course, if what I've built gains any kind of traction and we decide to pursue it further then I'd go the full code route, like I've done for my main project - tidze.com
I've launched www.strming.com on PH - I'd appreciate any support on there!
https://www.producthunt.com/posts/strming-com
Thanks for the recommendations, I'm developer and I found Bubble a bit too time consuming as a no-code option. I'm a fan of using Carrd to create landing pages within minutes, but I'm going to take a look at Softr for my next projects.
No worries! Carrd is nice, I liked the templates and the way you create pages. I just couldn't find a way to integrate with Airtable.
I briefly looked a Webflow and was immediately intimidated by the learning curve. It seemed easier for me to learn a CSS framework (like tailwindcss) really well and build the rest of the app using Gatsby or Next.js.
I get that, I'd imagine using a CSS framework would take me less time to build too. My friend is a designer and has no coding experience, he's invested a lot of time into Webflow but can create pretty much anything he wants with it now.
Any thoughts on Integromat compared with alternatives like Zapier?
I've not used Zapier a lot, but I found Integromat easier to use as it's all visual. You can drag modules around and when you run the workflow you get a visual representation of the process.
It alerts you to any errors with tips for fixing. I found it really easy but powerful. I use it to extract an image from Airtable, resize, store on AWS S3 and then update Airtable with the new CloudFront URL.
I am a front end developer and started playing around with Bubble a while back. Agree that it makes more sense for complex-ish applications ( not sure how complex it can go exactly, but its certainly far from trivial ). I've also been impressed by Webflow but haven't tried it out yet. I would like to build something with a nocode tool but my problem is having too many ideas and trouble deciding which one to build.
That's interesting. I need to look into these other solutions. I'm getting ready to do something with Typeform and Integromat on Wednesday. My first time using Integromat.
Hi, Liam welcome to the No code
I have been in the community for months and it's amazing it opened me new opportunities. if you in mobile App development you should try Adalo
actually I miss the power of the code but everything has a price
hoping in the future it will get more advanced