I am frustrated with no-code. I am done.

I think this is missing the point. No code is meant for early iteration and MVPs. When it's time to scale, use code. But you'll get to MVP 10x faster with nocode.

No code tools are affordable compared to hiring devs but if you are the dev then def you are not going to like no code tool.

I've tried them just out of curiosity but never built anything with them only because I like my freedom that comes with "building with code"

PS: I am building a no code solution now. No code tools are blessing for many many non tech founders.

Am surprised people haven't come to this realization yet: "You can't beat code". If you're making something light...no code may do. But for something complex...code is the way to go. And I prefer vanilla code

With no code, when implementing my system, I feel so constrained...As a developer, you'll always do better with writing your own code.

This really isn't made for you.

It's better suited for those that aren't developers. Where the hurdle to "just learn to code" is totally unrealistic.

Where the hurdle to "just hire a developer" is too great, costly, and so much more.

It's for those that are constrained by not having any option to solve the problem themselves.

With NoCode, they now can.

No code isn't there yet, that is true. But it creates a bridge into tech that was not there before for non-technical people. The tribal part is quite annoying though putting coders and non-coders against eachother...

Totally agree.

It is hard to cover everything though, any given company can only advance so fast..

I believe the ideal solution would work on two layers. There would be a code based platform that you can code yourself, with a nocode editor on top.
Use the nocode editor 90% of the time, when if it fits your problem at hand. When it's not sufficient, dive down into the code layer and implement it there.

Kinda move fast with nocode 90% of the time, move slow and write code the rest of the time. Best of both worlds.

So you're complaining about a pre-built system and it's limited constraints? Nocode or not - that exists everywhere. If that's your root argument, then you're just wasting everyones time.

I could build a course creation platform from scratch in Bubble within 10 hours or less. Add subscription payments, drip marketing campaigns, MUX api for enhanced video processing/hosting, and that'd be another 10 hours.

Then I'd spend around 5 hours a month for bug fixes, and feature enhancement.

I dare you to do that with traditional code.

Might sound like a bluff, but I've already built two SaaS companies and a hiring marketplace in Bubble that are all profitable, and all of which I built during nights and weekends over the past 18 months.

www.jumpstudios.io
www.nocodedatabases.com
www.nocodealliance.org

Plus, here are some other metrics that I've accomplished for the enterprise nocode applications that I've built for my day job (yes I work professionally as a nocode developer and have for the past year):

-20 million workflows run/month.
-5+ million records in a DB, and 300,000 records in a single Data Type that still yields fast loading speeds into a list of things (< 1 second).
-$80,000 in monthly revenue.

All built in Bubble, with dozens of API integrations. Add Xano into your stack, and those loading speeds go down to milliseconds. Don't believe me? I just published a case study on this that could be found here: https://twitter.com/JJEnglert/status/1560623299205406720?s=20&t=DYqEb3rS0KmcG72vw6Xbjw

Point of this post is not to come at you. But instead, to recommend that you take a breath and find other ways to explore your technical frustrations instead of bashing an entire industry that you clearly don't know much about.

Hope this helps to shed some light on what's possible with nocode once become an expert (taken me ~2 years in total).

I absolutely agree! You hit the nail on the head with, “there was this one or few things always missing.” This is ALWAYS the case. One would think that the people running these platforms would see the glaringly obvious gaps/holes, but I have yet to find one that appears to understand the issue. It seems as though their only concern was an MVP. I’ve used bubble, Softr, backendless, Bildr, Webflow, Wix, Squarespace, Adalo, Unbounce, Tilda, Dorik, Strikingly, Zoho, Moralis, and others! The issues with no/low-code are not statistical outliers—they are the norm. Honestly, you could tell me that every single no/low-code platform was made by the same people and I would fully believe you. I should have spent the time I put into trying to build literally anything on these platforms on improving my coding skills.

With all these sites, you get features A, B, E, H but not C, D, F, or G. I’m a realist. I don’t expect to get every feature I want. It’s all about trade-offs. What I’m asking is that the trade-offs not be catastrophic. To commit to any of these platforms, one has to make numerous large sacrifices—and they have to make them often.

The thing that frustrates me the most is the lack of control. I hate the ‘pre-fab’ blocks w/ no option to change anything other than the font color and things of that nature—can’t re-arrange objects, can’t delete objects, etc. These are small, trivial things that could easily be accounted for on the backend when generating the code. I suspect the sites don’t allow this because they are trying to promote their brand and aesthetic.

The lack of integrations is another huge issue. Why offer just four built-in integrations (with promises that more are on the way—someday)? No matter which four you choose, you alienate a large majority of people because they don’t use those specific four apps. Let users—the people who are paying to use your site—build their own integration! There is zero reason not to! It actually would be less work on the devs because they wouldn’t have to build and maintain any built-in integrations. The restrictions and the sheer number of them that these sites impose are as ridiculous as they are unnecessary!

I also hate the platforms that don’t offer free trials. You should only need to pay once you’re ready to deploy. I want to see that the platform is sufficiently capable for building my site or app. Requiring payment before someone gets a chance to experience your product is scammy behavior.

when I got started with no-code, I knew that they are only good for marketing project and for others low code and full code is way to go.

• In fact all my apps are low code based and marketing are no-code

Yep, this has been my thoughts exactly on no-code platforms from day 1. IMO, it can get you up and running quickly but soon there are tons of customization needed which just can't be occupied by a one shop stop no-code. Good for showing some progress in early stage for investors though.

Yup, I agree with this. Although no-code 10 years ago infuriated me beyond belief, at least it's becoming ever so slightly more usable :)

Since we acquired NocodeAPI.com we have been working with both developers and nocoders on enterprise projects.

What I've seen is it really depends on objectives and costs. How far do you want to take this project? What is the end user objective (if it's over 1000 users Nocode is a huge Pain).

We've seen it being more effective for internal tools for companies, more than MVPs.

It's an interesting discussion.

Let me add my point of view as founder of DaDaBIK (one of the very first no-code low-code platform, first release 20+ years ago) and as very early adopter of these platforms.

First, I want to dispel some myths that promptly emerge:

1) No-code platforms are for non-coders only. False.
I start programming when I was 8, I have a PhD in Computer Science and I really enjoy coding.
However, I use DaDaBIK whenever I can. Why? Because I can build an application in a fraction of the time needed without it and because I can automate the most tedious, repetitive, coding tasks and focus on the development parts that matter (and that are more fun).

2) No-code platforms are for prototypes or for simple applications only. False.
I have personally created and I have seen in use complex applications developed with DaDaBIK at work, in production, for large companies, serving their employees everyday for years.
And yes, security is taken very seriously and yes, you can easily add your own CSS (I'm replying to the OP here).

3) You end up spending more time. False (if you use the right tool and you know how to use it).
Let me answer with a real use case. I have just posted this video:
https://youtu.be/4SnsMUxHZiM
where I create, in about one hour and a half, a helpdesk system without coding. I have used a few line of code only at the end, but it's so simple and high-level that we could call it pseudo-coding.
Well, probably if you remove all the speeches I make during the video, the actual development time is 30-45 minutes. Can you implement it in vanilla code in the same amount of time? I don't think so.

We also have to keep in mind that, at least at the moment, these platforms are not equally valid for all types of applications.
I have a lot of experience in what most people call "internal tools" (because DaDaBIK is mainly used for internal tools) and I can guarantee they are very good for these applications. Typically, data-driven applications, having (even complex) forms as input interfaces and grids, reports and the like as output are very suitable for no-coding. Other types of applications may be not as suitable.

Finally, I also see very often references to a sharp dichotomy between no-code and low-code platforms.

In DaDaBIK (and I think in some other applications as well), this is not the case. There are a certain (and growing) number of things that you can implement without coding, if this is not enough you can always add your own PHP/Javascript code (low-code) through hooks, custom functions and other means. Maybe you only need 30 lines of code instead of 30k, but those 30 lines are essential because they cover a specific business process that you (and maybe only you) have.

My 2 cents, sorry for the long message!

I know where you're coming from.

As a developer, one of the issues is that invariably I want no-code tools to do things in the way that I would code them, because I know what's possible with code, and I know what's best for my requirements. Invariably, the nocode tools don't allow that.

People who aren't developers don't know what's possible, so they're happy with what I see as limitations.

But like all things, nocode tools have their place: I started on Frontpage 98.

Andy

I think it would be very, very valuable if you tell us which platforms made you so frustrated.
Thanks!!

I'm obviously biased, but this is why we built Autocode. Rather than obfuscate the code, we let you dig in and customize all of it, while still giving some of those "no-code" niceties like event and API integration, instant hosting and endpoint availability etc.

If your primary concern is fine-grained technical control then of course no-code stuff is going to frustrate you, but like some others mentioned, it's a inroad into automation for non-technical founders or smaller teams who don't have the time/resources to be managing devops infrastructure.

Cost is always going to be a tradeoff: either you're paying an employee a salary to solve these problems in a very specific way, or you're paying a SaaS company that's invested in their own engineers to solve this problem more broadly at scale.

Which tools did you use??

Build MVPs in no-code unless it is to prove technological feasibility.

Build applications in low-code when requirements are common and the product won't change much prospectively.

Build production applications in actual code when requirements are individual and flexibility is important.

I totally agree with this post. No-code is good maybe for prototyping and just starting out. But I noticed as a developer myself the same limitation of not being to add custom code or create automation using python without some third-party software like zapier etc. I only do no code now for my clients that ask for it but otherwise I am sticking to the old fashion editor and my coding skills.

As many pointed out, no-code is a short term solution. Once you have validated your MVP, you quickly want to change to code because the more features you develop with no-code, the harder it will be to switch. No-code builder company have built their business plan around this.

I have heard these stories many times and I am here to correct those disappointments. When launching our startup with No Code, we tried to take into account all the problems that users face. Now we have launched Moxly Mobile App Builder which has No Code, Low Code and even Open Source!

We appreciate the work of any startup, it is a lot of hours, nerves and money spent. We want to say STOP injustice.

If you support our idea, join us and let's change this world together https://www.moxly.io/

What do you think about this @MaxHaining

"I can write code" you clearly don't lol...

I've spent the last 3 years of my life trying to build a no-code tool that solves this problem. Prolly take 3 years more. It is tough. But no-code/low-code tools will get there.

Meanwhile, no-code tools atm are more about testing the market with a rough MVP. I'd go ahead and build something crude and worry about scale IF I see some traction.

I wonder what service you used and how I understood it was about creating a website? Because the concept of No code today applies to many services and tools, from creating applications to creating chat bots, etc.

When choosing such platforms, you should always look at the possibility of expansion in the future, there must be a Low Code available, and even better open source. For creating websites I use Bubble, and for creating Moxly applications, there is always a certainty in the future if the developers do not limit you in anything

Amen. Thats how I feel about no-code too. Dont use it for your core business or more than just prototyping.

This is a common theme with LCNC (Low Code / No Code) tools. You get rapid progress up to a certain point, and then you encounter some platform limitations. Even when there's a way around it, it's usually so complicated that you've lost all the productivity gains you initially got from choosing LCNC.

The thing is all of the Low Code tools came from the same process: they built a visual tool that could just barely achieve building some simple app, like basic CRM. Then they started marketing it, and whenever someone asked for a feature or an extension point to add code, they added that (if the customer was important enough).

But even if you repeated this process for 10 years, you would probably still have some requirements that the tool can't handle. All of these tools can handle 90% of anyone's application, but that last 10% is always different.

There's only one platform I know of that was built in a different way, and doesn't have this problem. First, they built SmartClient, which is a general-purpose OSS web framework for business web apps, and has been around for 20 years now and has been used for basically everything. Then they built the Reify low code designer on top of SmartClient, and all that Reify does is generate declarative (XML or JSON) files that drive SmartClient. You can export and deploy directly with SmartClient. You can look up anything that Reify generates in the SmartClient documentation. If you hit a wall with visual design, you can just export the declarations from Reify and start modifying them in an IDE - no lost work.

This model - having a general-purpose platform where there is an optional visual, low-code front-end to the general-purpose front-end - is the only model where I can imagine you would be completely safe from the Low Code problem of running into a limitation and having to rewrite everything.

Reify/SmartClient is really focused on business applications - lots of grids, lots of data, complex relations, complex validation, and all of that. I wish we had a Bubble alternative for simple consumer apps that used the Reify/SmartClient model.

Can you create another post with the most frustrating things or may e a list that you came up please? Mentioning the nocode tools -> limitations and/or constraints.
I think that could be very helpful for people that already using those tools or maybe starting using.

Definitely, when using No-code, you need to learn to deal with limitations. They exist, but the business gain for startups is undeniable.

99% of products and startups fail and you can't ignore it.

Developers tend to look with their eyes and think they can do it all, they really can, but at what cost?

Even in No-code world I see people thinking a lot about the future of their project, "will I have 10k simultaneous accesses, can the platform handle it"?

My friend, if you get there..., this will be a good problem.

Looking at the business level is where No-code shines, you can build and scale with little and also limit the worries of bugs and technical issues.

Contrary to what some say here in this thread, the code is no longer just for MVP's, it already allows a scale to another level, but start small, test quickly and get around the limitations...

I also prefer coding. I think the reason you should use no-coding app is you don't know how to code or you don't like coding

Con
It's might be more expensive than a traditional hosting company

Pro
I guess it is actually easier to build with no-coding

I currently use a no-coding app because I don't know how to code. Am only good in web design

But my apps works well just like an app built using code. I build perfect apps for clients and no complains

HYPE. All bubbles eventually burst :)
Coders have an advantage. They can build stuff the way they want. Play by your strength!

I'm using Bubble to do a MVP called ConfigExpress which helps to generate and review system configurations like Iptables.
The biggest difficulties for me is making sure my pages are responsive which can be a nightmare when your pages are not doing what they are supposed to be doing. Currently trying to setup a external mail server to Bubble. Really wish that aspect was easier to do in terms of email verification and password reset. In case anyone is interested take a peek https://configexpress.com. Will be launching soon.

Currently building a keyword rank tracking (https://www.serpto.com/) application on bubble. I must say, shifting to code is inevitable if you are serious about your application. Adding one more thing, debugging with nocode sucks.

This is exactly why we built HTTPS://quest.ai - the lowcode platform for technical users. Generates clean, extendable ReactJS components from Figma designs. Automated your front end development yet you have full control on the code.

I totally agree with you, one thing that Rob Walling did mention in one of his video is the ability to sustain growth quickly. With the no-code you're relying too much on the platform to sustain.

I step forward, 2 steps back.

If coding is a language then like a spoken language it offers the smallest atomic building blocks in order to create something unique. The abstractions of a low/no code platform will always offer a finte way of combining abstractions as defined by some business focused product manager. Also the tooling itself is clunky and not enjoyable, it's really hard to see the internal logic on your app as it's buried away in visual menus, reminds me of working in SharePoint or some CMS that made my life miserable. Developers want freedom and these platforms offer the opposite IMHO. Also what happens when you try and sell your business and you have a rube Goldberg setup with a dozen subscriptions to zapier, airtable, power apps etc. And where is the IP?

I agree word press is the best

Wordpress is the best no-code/low-code no lock in platform. Most themes and plugins are free, have a free version or are a one off fee.

After trying Bubble and AppGyver I also got frustrated - the main issue was that if there's a platform bug, you are stuck. When you are coding then at least you can find alternate ways - with no code you feel very constrained.

As developers we usually forget about the unlearn sessions when stepping in to no-code. Our brain immediately triggers "Ah, you can do that just with 2 lines of code, why bother!".

I had the same thought, then I watched some of the tutorial from Simon Høiberg on youtube and don't think for anything serious I will choose no-code - at least for the next couple of years. Low-code can be a choice though.

Why? Not because no-code is necessarily bad but it involves too much uncertainty, relying on 3rd-party services that can entirely break a business feature. On top of that there is an extensive learning curve involved with no-code too and teaching myself to think like that will be counter-productive.

hello
As many pointed out, no-code is a short term solution. Once you have validated your MVP, you quickly want to change to code because the more features you develop with no-code, the harder it will be to switch. No-code builder company have built their business plan around this.
<a href="https://instavideosdownloader.net/">thanks for download</a>

Thanks for the post. The problem with the scalability and interoperability of no-code tools is the reason we made Baserow, an open source no-code database that is API-first. Your use case is another proof that we made the right choice to focus on performance at scale.

Whether you're fine with no-code when building your product only depends on the complexity of the problem you're trying to solve. But I think you're mistreating no-code. No-code is for quick validation, setting up an MVP and see if it works in real life or how it needs to be altered. Once you're done with that phase, you're good to switch to code.

Felt the same about the webflow, it was supposed to be a no-code solution for non-devs, it was supposed to be easy but there were things I couldn't figure out and I didn't want to waste time finding solutions on youtube. In the end, I had to code the website from scratch.

"No-code may appear quick to production but not in the long run. " - wouldn't be amazing to be able to start fast with no code but then at any point be able to export the current solution as fully editable generated code in a nice framework.
I'm gathering such solutions for both backend and frontend at https://www.generatedcode.io/

I'm not sure what you mean by :
I have been using a few no-code course platforms to run my courses over the years and I've wasted months (> 6) trying to figure out the right platform.

But if what you're looking for is to provide training courses, maybe you don't need to build your own thing/custom platform using no-code tools but should use something that handles all that for you (or most of it).

Maybe something like Podia, Kajabi or Thinkific could work for you. Then, if you need to integrate with other tools, you could always use Zapier.

This sounds like a story of a bad breakup. Sorry to hear this, it will definitely get better.

Let me provide a little bit of a perspective from my side. I was making living building low-code tools before it was a buzzword, started almost 20 years ago. Having close to 100,000 customers now and over 1M successful projects, I can tell that low-code and no-code tools are not going anywhere and will only get more traction.

Most likely it didn't work for because one of the two reasons:

1. Your project didn't fit the low-code concept. For instance, it had little or no UI and a no-code/low-code approach is not beneficial here.

2. Or you picked a tool that didn't have enough flexibility for what you need. Based on your other remarks, this is most likely the case.

As another commenter mentioned, no tool will have all the features you looking and this is what you need to evaluate, is it possible to implement this missing feature, and how? The common approach to adding more code is hooks or triggers or events, pieces of code that get executed after or before a certain action. In our software, PHPRunner ( https://xlinesoft.com ) we call them events.

You mentioned your app dealt with image upload. Imagine that you needed to add a watermark to each uploaded image or put each file into its own folder based on some rules. No tool can cover all possible scenarios but many will let you do it using events and you should only consider tools like these. If you cannot use hooks or events to add your own code, you are limited to using "integrations" that will cost extra and not necessarily do exactly what you need.

The same about CSS, in our software you can add CSS on the element level, on the page level, and on the global level. Again, you should not be picking the tool that doesn't let you do that.

Let me summarize. If you have absolutely no idea how to code, pick a no-code tool and there is a very big chance you will end up with something that does the job. Or, at the very least, it will give you a prototype, quickly. If you are not afraid to put a few lines of code together or your project is more complicated, pick the low-code software. It will let you build 80-90% of your project and the rest will be the code and customizations that you can add. This kind of recipe seems to be working well for your clients.

I've seen, that quite a few people mentioned that low-code tools are only good for building prototypes or "marketing websites", whatever that means. Last couple of years we have been reworking our own website, re-implementing all different parts of it with our own software. "Dogfooding" if you like. And if you think that "this is just a website", here is the list of modules that have already been converted: shopping cart, marketplace, clients portal, helpdesk, forums, change log, and our own control panel. The only thing left to convert is our CMS and we may postpone it since we are quite happy with what we use now.

One more data point. You probably notice that low-code software is mostly divided into two subcategories, the ones that you install on your computer/server and those that are hosted in the cloud. The ones that run in the cloud may look more convenient as you do not need to deal with databases and servers. The ones that you install on your side though give you so much more. Your data never leaves your servers, it generates a web application that can be freely deployed anywhere, be that intranet or World Wide Web. In many cases, you also get access to the full source code of the generated application. Digging into the generated code is not something that you want to do on daily basis but, sometimes, it is useful to see how something is implemented and also, makes things easier to debug.

I will provide a list of tools that, I strongly believe, are beneficial to those who can code a bit or maybe even a lot. These tools may look old or outdated but they will give you a lot of freedom.

PHPRunner (our software)
AlphaSoftware
CodeOnTime
PHPMaker
ScriptCase
IronSpeed (now dead)
CodeCharge (been dead for a while)

Happy coding and no-coding!

Which no-code platform did you use specifically? I've used to Bubble for building our MVP (we're a VC backed startup) and honestly it's been a great experience so far. We will eventually switch to code once we have enough validation on the scope of the app but it's a huge time/money saver in the meantime (see our app here https://app.learningloop.org/loop/founders ).

I think Bubble is the best solution out there because it's a "no-code programming language". Sounds counterintuitive but they absolutely deliver on that, and allow API calls and etc.
Sure it still takes a week or 2 of getting used to it (given that you know how to code), but once you get comfortable with it, you can ship features in no time tbh.

I previously used Glide (https://www.glideapps.com) which is a lot more limiting in terms of what you can achieve, but i still liked it and managed to build an app with 100 DAUs for a few months.

happy to jump on a call and exchange thoughts on this

Have you looked at no-code platforms that generate production-quality code you own?

Quest.ai would be one.

Which ones did you like the best? I think the problem is that your trying to have your cake and eat it too. I plan to use no-code to test but not to scale, and so I am preparing to rebuild later. Do you think it works for this purpose @techPackets

Try MS Frontpage.

I can speak from two side

1. One being a user of no-code
2. being a founder of a no-code and headless api solution for two side platforms (marketplace sort of) > https://tradly.app

Before I found that I wanted to launch a idea sourcing platform to solve social problems in my community. I started with Wordpress and bought a product hunt like plug-in to make my website has voting and User generated ideas, etc

1:
It was super quick implementation and I was able to showcase that to different people and get feedbacks.

2. Day passes by, my desire to do more in the platform increased. I started searching open source alternative and found out VulcanJS where they had a product hunt like codebase. It felt good to me because it’s open source, react and all the tech stack I love. But it provides a boilerplate and am not a coder to fully optimise.

3. I hired a developer from freelancer and paid few hundred dollars to customise that according to my need. That also failed because even the senior engineer don’t feel it easy to customise everything because the Vulcan stack was new with graphQL, Appollo, etc (before 5years ago)

None of this approach has taken me to reach the end product. So I understand this feeling of wasting time and energy

Expectation vs reality :
When we are going for a no code platform, we need to set ourself right that the goal is minimum version for now to test the product and may be get product market fit

Once all the risks in terms of idea validation is gone, that’s where you want to go with full development or even hybrid model

LESSON:

With all this lessons, let’s go into what we made to show why we made into the way
+
with all the clients Tradly had (paid, missed deals, churns) experience

• design is very opinionated and varies by culture. We can never satisfy any one with a single tool. Every designers can only think to a certain level. May be webflow or Wordpress doing good in that aspect

• For starters(no resource or time to learn or time to build from scratch ) they don’t want to build something from scratch. So no-code platforms provide templates.

• Then intermediates: they want not just minimal customisation but drastic customisation. So for sure this templates may not accommodate. (Expectation : code level touch but don’t want to learn the language. Only learn small google based fixes and wanted a code level touch)

• Experts : they find everything that they wanted. But are fan of particular technologies

• Experts people want to try new technologies even though there are certain softwares which are matured enough what we look for. Example : Wordpress but people consider it’s old school and bloated. But they forget a matured thing will always comes with lot of bloated things. This bloated is optional (plug-ins). Just because it’s free people use it and then they complain

• When it’s a new thing. It will always have a limited feature issue. As you said they can’t integrate with every marketing or any platforms. That’s where things like zapier comes in. If we are not satisfied about zapier, then do you have time to use the no code tools api? You can do anything you want with the api. But do we have time to do?

So even though I agree no code tools have limited. It serves the purpose on who need it, it’s for non technical people. Developers who expect high flexibility or modularity should use Low code platforms. Or build something from scratch

Or trade off.

I feel you man. Sometime No-code make me hate building things. Take so so so much time finding the right tool. And when you find it and you have spent 1 month building, you end discovering that one feature that you thought that works, it doesn't not.

We have to understand that 99% that no-code is for MVP. 2022 is a good year because there is a lot of option.

Wampler - you can add your html, css and JS. Export the code, use bootstrap templates.
Bildr - good option too. Now you can export html an css. JS in the future
Bubble - the most famouse one
Clutch - Works with React
Flutterflow - if you want to build native flutter apps

You have coding skills. Find the tool that allows you to use your code(ej. Wapler). Save you time with basic stuff that visual builder give you and after that VSCode to add your code.

Which tools did you use?

Maybe is a good option that you take a break of no-code for 1-2 months

You're always relying on somebody elses vision of what is appropriate for the market with any no code tool, which is why coders will always be in demand.

Seems to me there is plenty of room for both options with no-code being for people with modest requirements. The real problem is the marketing hype associated with no-code, which I've never believed. Its one reason I will never trial a product that requires any sort of upfront payment, or even one with a short trial period, like 7 days. Its an immediate no-go for me.

As a developer, if you're rather skilled, building stuff yourself doesn't take that much time. And in the long run it saves a lot of money, while not having to be bothered about limitations or integration issues. As an indie dev I want to keep running costs as low as possible!

Code generators for your favorite stack can save time at the beginning with a one time fee (like Bootify in the Java space).

You have to pick your battles with no code/low code. It's definitely starting to take over internal applications (eg. Admin tools) but when it comes to external where you need full control over the experience its not great.

what is your course? what are the features that you are missing ?

I feel like this too sometimes. Depending on what you want to build the no code may be quicker but then it could cost you more. Like you say using things like Zapier and Make really is annoying especially when all you want it for is a "simple" task

I guess it's because you haven't came acroos the right No-code tool yet