Internal systems are important to enterprises because they are designed to satisfy various business needs. Despite the importance, you certainly don't want to spend too much time developing internal tools and get distracted from your core business logic. Custom software development is an alternative, but it's highly time-consuming and costly, making it an unpleasant solution.

Most software is built in more than one programming language. Although since the advent of FORTRAN and COBOL, software engineers have been investing efforts to make programming languages easier, learning a new language is definitely labor-intensive. A worth mentioning fact is that some similar functions are implemented in multiple languages. Thus, one elegant solution to avoid writing repetitive codes and save time and energy is to compile these similar functions into widgets for reuse. Reusing code snippets is exactly the basic idea of low code.

How a low-code platform can help your business

A low-code platform saves you a lot of time by offering built-in frameworks, simple connections to databases, etc., allowing you to focus more on real business needs. Startups, small- and medium-sized companies, enterprise groups - companies of any size can use the low code platform to quickly design, customize, and develop internal systems.

Unlike no-code platforms which need no coding at all, low code platforms require writing codes when adding certain functionality to your apps. However, their features such as intuitiveness and ease of use make them available not only for software engineers but for entry-level developers. Users with all levels of programming skills, no matter whether you are a product manager, salesperson, or operations and support engineer, can quickly construct web applications by dragging and dropping predefined components and adding business logic. In other words, low-code platforms are specially tailored for their users to customize UI, connect to data sources, manipulate and visualize data.

Essential Features of a Low-Code Platform

As a software developer, I have been fascinated by low-code development platforms, and have tested many popular low-code builders. From my experience with these systems and working in engineering, there are 7 key features for a low-code platform to be productive and powerful.

1. Drag-and-drop interface

The drag-and-drop interface of a low-code platform allows you to build apps like playing with Lego blocks. Everything you need to do is take ready-made "blocks" and move them to the desired location on the canvas. The drag-and-drop interface is probably the most critical feature for a low-code platform to ensure that app development is as easy and fast as possible.

2. Visual modeling

Low-code platforms offer an easy-to-understand method for app development regardless of your programming skill level. The only prerequisite is the logic of the app you are creating. If you have advanced functions, then you can get started with building custom components using JavaScript, Node.js, etc. In short, low code is a graceful solution to most of your needs without complex programming.

This is the preview page of the app displayed above. Your creation on the canvas is exactly what your users will see after you publish the app.

3. Out-of-the-box

Low-code development platforms provide rich out-of-the-box features, so that you can construct applications without having to start from scratch. This out-of-the-box functionality comes with diverse components, app templates, data dashboard, and simple data source connection for different needs such as customer support, inventory management, sales management, CRM, etc.

Below is an example of a movie review page. For more templates, visit Openblocks' GitHub.

4. Reusability

The DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle of software development emphasizes that every piece of important information should be stored only once, aiming at simplifying the maintenance of codes and avoiding redundancy. When developing apps using low-code, this principle still applies. Specifically, all pre-defined components are natively reusable; user-defined custom components and modules for certain scenarios are also reusable across apps and even workspaces.

5. Scalability

A robust low-code development platform should be able to serve hundreds of users without performance problems. As the number of users grows, the number of apps rises even hugely, the low-code platform must ensure providing sufficient performance, and an approach to this is horizontal scalability.

6. Security

Most low-code development platforms support access control to your apps and data sources, allowing you to define what an individual user or a group of users can view or edit. Besides, these platforms must meet the required security measures, have the necessary security protocols in place, and encrypt all credentials and connections. Ideally, a low-code system doesn't store your data at any stage of the data flow, but only functions as a proxy. In addition, a reliable low-code platform needs to keep audit logs of critical operations so that you can review them when needed.

7. App lifecycle management

Your app or internal tool is ready to go doesn't mean that your development process is completed, because you still need to debug, test, and deploy your app before releasing it. An excellent low-code development platform should continue to help you with all these phases. Usually, the deployment on a low-code system is done by one-click and takes only a few seconds. Considering the update and maintenance of your apps, version control is absolutely a critical feature of an awesome low-code platform, which supports you viewing and restoring any historical version at any time.

Openblocks: A high-performance low-code platform

Low-code is a tool that simplifies app development by avoiding tedious and repetitive tasks. While your team is spending a lot of time learning new frameworks and researching deployments, your competitors are likely to have already shown their first MVP to a customer you just lost. Once you start using low-code, you will soon notice how it improves productivity and thus boosts your business growth.

Openblocks is a developer-friendly low-code platform that helps you create internal tools more efficiently. With a set of out-of-the-box components combined with connections to most databases and any REST API within clicks, you can quickly build fully functional internal apps and devote most of your time and energy to expanding and promoting your business. They also offer excellent documentation to discuss technical details, present practical tutorials, and provide all the information you need know for building an app.

Start your first app now and feel free to reach the vibrant community on Discord if you encounter any issue or would like to share an idea!