Is no-code really a better option for internal software?
This post is to find unbiased opinions on how no-code tools fare in internal processes (imagine processes like inventory, sales, vendors, field force, manufacturing) when compared to conventional software.
Have you come across use cases in your company, where it felt more fitting to subscribe to conventional business software like Freshworks, Zoho, Odoo, etc?
On the other hand, if you went with a no-code solution over such software, please share the reasons behind taking that call.
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Of course it will depend on your specific use case, but I've recently built a custom app on Appsheet to work as a task manager for a team of freelancers to communicate with the internal team, and it worked great!
The big selling point was the possibility to easily integrate with information coming from other systems, and doing spreadsheet calculations before making it available to the users. We also didn't need to involve the development team, which would significantly delay the release of the tool.
Once we need something more robust, we'll need to take it off Appsheet. But who knows when/if that will happen?
I am not sure. Every time I have tried to use a no code tool to build an internal dashboard for our SaaS, I end up just throwing it out and building it internally in order to get exactly what I want. Maybe my needs are just too specific, I don't know 🤷♂️, but we will continue building internally for the foreseeable future.
Just curious, what tool were you using? I've heard good feedback about low-code tools like Retool and Appsmith. They are reasonably customizable.
Actually Retool is one that we use here. Don't get me wrong, it is a fantastic tool, and powerful, but to get exactly what we wanted, it just didn't go deep enough. For instance, one of the screens I wanted to build was a real time map of users currently logged in to our system, and really, the only way to build that was natively within our 'god mode' dashboard as no 'no code' or 'low code' tool really could do the trick.
I think that the continued use of spreadsheets and the popularity of things like Zapier show us that there will always be a need for people to customize tools/software beyond what point solutions allow.
Given this, I think no-code is very helpful in support of that goal.
Customizations seem like a deciding factor for a business to opt for no-code tools. I am unable to imagine a business or team that wouldn't prefer customized solutions over off-the-shelf software.
Going by that logic, no-code should be more popular and widely adopted but that isn't the case. Tools like Zoho, Freshdesk, Odoo still enjoy a majority share in the market.