Today’s post marks the end of my blog series on “The five key considerations for selecting a low-code platform”. I’ll be focusing on what cross-platform support means and why it makes a difference to your end-users. If you’re interested in reading this blog series in order, here are quick links to the first, second, third and fourth posts.
True Cross-Platform
Over the last decade, application deployment options have become vast and, ultimately, diverse and unwieldy. How can one make a sound decision when application development technologies and trends are so pervasive, yet fluid and fleeting? How can one be certain that a small decision today doesn’t become a large, bad decision three years from now? And how can one maximize the longevity of their applications?
The answer to all of those questions is utilizing a low-code development platform that possesses many deployment options, as well as a migration path to easily port applications over to a different technology stack.
While investigating low-code development solutions, here is a list of deployment options and capabilities the platform must possess:
Portability is just as important as supporting the capabilities listed above. To minimize your risk, you’ll need the ability to easily migrate between different technology stacks. High-quality low-code development platforms will provide a level of abstraction enabling you to quickly swap out server platforms or databases with little to no modifications to your applications. Migrating to or from the cloud must also be a simple process, as well as supporting hybrid environments.
While this section has focused purely on mobile and web applications, many companies still need to develop stand-alone or client-server Windows desktop applications for laptops and workstations and Windows server programs initiated from job schedulers. If Windows is a critical part of your infrastructure, then make sure the low-code solution provides support for building native Windows apps too. Choose a low-code platform that gives you a wide range of options.
Remember, while designing and building your next app, it may be critical to deploy in one, very specific way. But what about your next dozen applications? You don’t want to be constrained. Try to avoid an approach that requires different low-code platforms for different types of application deployments.
Selecting the Best Low-Code Development Platform
It would seem obvious that the “best” low-code development platforms are those that significantly reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO). This encompasses the initial design and development as well as the ongoing application maintenance, modernization and extension.
When you consider that application maintenance can typically consume up to 80% of an application’s TCO, the part generated by the low-code solution is a relatively small portion of the TCO. Therefore, the mechanism by how you maintain and extend your low-code application beyond what the solution can generate must be a key consideration when researching low-code platforms.
Besides doing your due diligence on the five key considerations of selecting a low-code development platform, investigating the product’s vendor is a must too. Make sure you can answer all the normal questions when selecting a business partner to your satisfaction, like:
- How long have they been business?
- Do they have a solid track record of staying current on new technology?
- What do customers say about them on crowd-sourced review websites, like G2Crowd?
- Will they help me with a proof of concept?
- Do they offer phone support with seasoned employees?
- Is mentoring available?
- Do they want me to be self-sufficient or rely on their professional services?
- Will they let me speak to customers who have been with them over the long haul to discuss long-term ROI, TCO and upgrade cycles?
Whether you are looking to develop new solutions, modernize your existing applications or integrate and extend business systems, be sure to remember these five key considerations when trying to select which low-code development platform is best for your company and start accelerating your application development.
For more help on selecting the best low-code development platform, download The Five Key Considerations When Selecting a Low-Code Platform white paper.
