Innovation is a vital part for businesses of all sizes nowadays. Especially, with constant transformation and digital development, companies need to be always ready to adapt to new trends in order to stay ahead of the competition. An enterprise low-code development platform is the main key to help business leaders be able to do so.
According to Gartner, “By 2025, 70% of new applications developed by enterprises will use low-code or no-code technologies, up from less than 25% in 2020”. In the most recent Critical Capabilities for LCAP report, it evaluates 18 LCAP providers based on several criteria such as product capabilities, market understanding, innovation, overall viability, and many others. In this blog, Kyanon Digital wil assess five enterprise low-code platforms positioned as leaders in Gartner Magic Quadrant to help guide you to the appropriate low-code platforms for your needs.
Source: Gartner (August 2021)
MENDIX
Mendix is an experienced player and a feature-rich low-code development platform offering powerful visual app development tools for citizen developers, professional engineering and IT departments. It is designed to help teams or departments within a business collaborate and build for speed while maintaining compliance and version control over responsive web, mobile, and tablet applications. Mendix also has built-in collaboration capabilities to rival Appian, and the responsive mobile and tablet app development capabilities same as Microsoft PowerApps.
Features:
- Agile project management.
- Visual modeling functions.
- Reusable components.
Mendix is the most expensive vendor compared to others. There’s no limit or quotas on any app components such as the number of screens, database entities, processes, and functional components that your app can contain. For the Single App edition, the price starts right at $1,875 monthly for a single app with automation backups. If your company is planning to build a multiple app deployed throughout your organization, then it has to be the Pro or Enterprise edition. The Pro edition starts at $5,375 monthly for unlimited app building. For a more advanced enterprise deployment and management feature, you will have to go with The Enterprise edition which costs $7,825 per month.
MICROSOFT POWERAPPS
PowerApps is a platform as a service. It helps you create Mobile Apps that run on Android, iOS, Windows – and with almost any internet browser. PowerApps is also a mobile app. Like Google App Maker, it is still a new entry in this industry, especially when compared with more established vendors such as Appian, Mendix and even Salesforce App Cloud. However, when it first launched, everyone was impressed that Microsoft was able to build a low-code development platform that has nearly everything a power user or developer would want to build business apps with little to no coding.
Features:
- Point-and-click approach for app designing.
- Pre-defined templates.
- Easy connection of application to data.
- Being able to build web-based apps that will be compatible with iOS, Android, and Windows devices.
Microsoft PowerApps offers a few different packages. Microsoft PowerApps Plan 1 begins at $7 per user monthly which is targeted at business users who have no programming experience. Plan 1 allows 4,500 Microsoft Flow “runs” per user per month, as well as access to Microsoft’s Common Data Service. Microsoft PowerApps Plan 2 begins at $40 per user per month, as this plan is suitable for developers and IT administrators who have deeper programming and data modeling experience. And both plans offer a 90-day free trial and no limit on how many apps you can create.
OUTSYSTEMS
OutSystems is a heavy duty and veteran low-code development tool that allows IT teams control over the whole application lifecycle. The platform provides visual tools and reusable templates and components to help users create basic apps, but also have in-depth admin, project management, deployment and update, and automation capabilities for developers.
Along with Mendix, OutSystems is considered as one of the most powerful developer and IT-focused platforms. In comparison with Appian and Microsoft PowerApps, OutSystems might not handle app creation quite as smoothly as, but, for small businesses with less than 100 employees or some enterprise companies that want a veteran low-code platform with a unified experience across the full application lifecycle, OutSystems is a great choice.
Features:
- Error-free deployment for your apps, in cloud or on-premises.
- Real-time performance dashboards.
- Being able to deliver scalable applications.
- Offers the latest security for your applications.
- Applications could be integrated with any system.
OutSystems has a good free plan that gives its basic platform away to any small business with less than 100 users. The Free edition includes a single development environment, limited scalability, and shared cloud infrastructure capacity. That’s a good plan for a small company which is only using the app internally and not planning to have it for anything more than internal use among employees. For companies which plan to develop multiple applications to be used by 100 or more employees, they have to go with other pricing plans. The OutSystems One plan begins at $2,100 monthly which gets you up to the thousands in user capacity, three environments for application development, testing, and production, along with dedicated public, private, or hybrid cloud deployment. And the OutSystems Enterprise plan costs $4,600 per month for unlimited application capacity, and scalability, user capacity up to the millions.
SALESFORCE
Salesforce Platform is an enterprise low-code platform-as-a-service solution that helps users to develop, test and resolve defects in cloud applications before running. It provides tools and services to create business automation processes, integrate with external applications and provide a responsive layout to users.
Features:
- No-Code builders to help build mobile apps easily.
- Instant app creation from a spreadsheet.
- Lightning Process Builder to build complex workflows.
There are three three pricing plans: Lightning Platform Starter ($25 monthly per user), Lightning Platform Plus ($100 monthly per user), and Heroku Enterprise Starter (Get a quote).
SERVICENOW
ServiceNow was evaluated for its App Engine low-code solution, and recognized for its ability to execute and completeness of vision, validating the company’s leadership and investment in low-code application development.
In a time of being forced to digitally transform to compete, the ServiceNow App Engine helps developers deliver digital services faster and at cross-enterprise scale simply. The company’s platform with low-code enables teams to embrace enterprise-grade application development with built-in reliability, security, data protections and scalability. With the Now Platform as its foundation, App Engine allows developers of all levels, and even people outside of engineering or IT teams who have never developed before to quickly build and realize value from low-code applications.
Kyanon Digital is a rapid application development consultancy, we accelerate enterprise app delivery with a low-code platform. Contact us now if you are finding a low-code solution.
