The major issue we face today is that we still need to completely accept the concepts of digital transformation. As this integration is way more advanced than we thought, we can visualize the current outcomes as compared to the traditional ones. These times are about accepting the change and molding advancements according to the project’s needs. This blog is all about finding the best development solution for project completion as the industry offers two major approaches for this, such as manual and low code development techniques. Letโs know more about them.
What Are Traditional and Low Code Development Techniques?
Both these techniques play an important role in industrial growth, this selection only depends on the project requirements. It can be anything complex or simple, and it can be low-budget or high-cost. Both these categories are mentioned further.
Traditional/ Manual Development
This process lets the devloeprs construct the code structure in a way that requires high-quality management and complex code processes. In other words, it is the custom software development technique that requires skilled developers to perform manual coding for the completion of software. The research data by knowledge sourcing, the market size of custom software development was valued at USD 8.156 billion and expected to grow at 13.339 billion with a compound annual growth rate of 7.28%. This shows the presence of traditional development techniques even in the low code development era.
Low Code Development
This is defined as a visual approach, in which devloeprs can use pre-built components along with dragging and dropping of interfaces for mobile app development. This approach is less complex and time-consuming as compared to the traditional one. The research data by, Grand View Research highlights the same aspects. This low code development market was valued at USD 6.78 billion and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 22.9% between 2023 and 2030. This shows how transformative this technique can be when you need a project frequently.
Comparing Traditional & Low Code Development Techniques
The comparison between these two techniques may tell which one is better and which one is not but that does not indicate that due to a single technique, the other one cannot be used. Both these have some different significance and according to that, they can be selected for your project development. Some of these comparative measures are mentioned below.
The development process becomes easy when one is aware of the tools the mobile application developer gonna use. In the case of low code platform development use tools like visual integrated development environment (IDE), built-in data connectors, and pre-built code templates. The traditional development platform uses tools like web frameworks and programming languages like Python, Java, and PHP.
Speed of Development
At this comparative level of low code vs. traditional development, we can expect comparative process speed from both techniques. With low code technique, one can get a mobile application in almost a month whereas the custom software development process involves a timeframe of a year or 6 months.
Coding Knowledge
Majorly when this low code development was introduced in the market then acceptance of low skill levels was the key requirement for users to accept this technique. Even if it is defined in that way, the technique does not require you to attain such high skills for developing an application. On the other hand, traditional development pattern requires one to have high skill sets and knowledge.
Customization
This is one of the major differentiating aspects of low code vs. traditional development practices. As in these, the low code platforms cannot be customized at that level at the traditional processes can be customized. In low code, you can only add custom UI components. But traditional coding is performed from scratch and it can be highly customizable.
Deployment
In the no code/ low code development process, we get less time-consuming outcomes. As this is one of its major features. This advancement in the application development process results in less time-consuming deployment practices. Whereas in the manual application development process we can expect time-consuming deployments due to the application development process from scratch.
Quality
In terms of quality, the comparison of both low code vs. traditional development techniques provides high-quality applications for better user experience and outreach. For no-code development, we can expect quality benefits like extensive integration, standards performance, and live environment debugging options for making the app error-free. In the case of manual development, these are highly scalable and excellent-performing apps.
Maintenance
When it comes to maintenance, the low code development technique is considered an easily maintained low code platform. This is due to the proper handling of mobile application security, and app upgrades. Along with this, a simple coding format makes it easy to maintain and easily upgradable. The traditional development process requires internal teams to manage and integrate new updates for custom applications.
Cost
The low code platform costs less as compared to the traditional one due to the level of complexity and project requirements. Majoly cost is an essential factor to be taken into consideration in the process of mobile application development. Low code development refers to an application with essential features, so it is somewhere beneficial for startups and low-budget business projects. Whereas, traditional business apps make sure that you get every desired feature within your app so the cost is affected the same.
Technical Support
In this both the techniques, low code vs. traditional development differ at certain points. The low code technique involves proper technical support. This involves detailed documentation, customer services, and community support from forms. Along with this low code platforms provide troubleshooting guides, tutorials, and proper access to professional support teams. Whereas the traditional or manual application development process requires skilled and more technical expertise support. For any specific technical issue, one needs to get help from a developer only. In the traditional development process, the concept of security completely depends on how the teams are performing and constructing the application.
The current technical environment is all about gaining advancement for the business, which can be possible with the emergence of innovative techniques. The integration of a low code platform offers a multiplatform structure by which the developers can build applications to operate on different platforms. This feature significantly reduces the development time and effort as compared to traditional application development. The manual or traditional development pattern does not offer a multi-platform supportive environment as this requires additional resources for individual platforms.
Security
In this digitally advanced environment, we can expect security as a highly recommended feature of the applications. With this differentiating aspect of low code vs. traditional development, low code development technique, businesses can get secure applications as the core part of the software development package. Along with this, we can expect a supportive environment from different compliance standards. Such as ISO 2007, data protection regulations, and SOOC2. Further in the case of traditional development security terms can only be decided based on project requirements and the complexity of the project.
Conclusion
The application development process and techniques are continuously growing with the emergence of innovation and new techniques. Such an emergence can be expected with the low code development technique as compared to the manual application development technique. The emergence of low code platforms results in many benefits from the industry perspective. In this, we have discussed the major differential aspects of low code development service and traditional development techniques. We highlighted major differentiating factors such as tools, development speed, coding knowledge, speed of development, customization, deployment, quality, maintenance, cost, technical support, multiplatform support, and security. With the discussion of these factors, one can effectively analyze the importance of both these techniques. And select an appropriate one for their upcoming project.