So today I read the Codemap 2022 report of the no-code industry. There are a few highlights from the report and thoughts of mine that I'd like to share, from my perspective:
😀 1. The industry is booming
It is undeniable that the industry is skyrocketing, with no-code starting to be widely present in the EU region and North America region, as it plays the role of an effective digital transformation and MVP development enabler.
Yet, no-code is still unheard, or worse, a taboo in the SEA region. I walked through a few forums in Vietnam recently and most of the developers discoursing the technology showed their disinterest to the tech, saying it can barely solve any complicated use case or build meaningful products. Some thought that it was a joke, as "code is superior". The region is slowly adopting though, with Filipino and Singaporean developers getting their hands on the technology recently.
😀 2. No-code is for Citizen Developers, but No-code Development as a Service is not (at least for most of them)
No-code is allowing non-devs to build products on their own, such that entrepreneurs can be the product owners themselves. As an agency, we have no-code devs with non-dev background as well.
Yet, when it comes to being a service provider or a product owner, there are challenges that no-code tools cannot help with such as performance optimization or requirements management. Those skills require you to have a background in PO, BA, QA/QC, UI/UX or something similar. Hence, a lot of startups are still struggling with MVP development, since no-code is only helping them with software development, and not product development.
😀 3. Concerns about scalability, security and vendor lock-in
Many asked me about those as huge concerns, but actually those should be the last things you care about. Building products on your own, it'd cost you a fortune trying to scale and secure the products. With no-code platforms, they have teams of great cloud and security engineers that will handle those issues for you, while you only have to pay a tiny fraction of the cost.
Imagine building a website from scratch and doing intensive pentesting, while WordPress has been pentested for almost 2 decades.
🤔 4. SaaS and No-code platforms are converging
The report stated that the line between SaaS and No-code platforms are blurring, as most no-code platforms are SaaS and SaaS products are providing more and more customizations. I wouldn't say Zoom is a no-code platform, yet it is a SaaS product. We have to put a better line there somewhere, and I think when we are talking about no-code platforms, the users can customize and create their own logics, no-codedly. From this definition, ClickUp should be a no-code tool, but Taskade should not. Woocommerce is highly customizable, yet the customizations are limited to turning features on and off and not building one's own logics.
Let's leave 3rd party integrations and custom code aside for now.
🤔 5. The data of the report
Last but not least, it was sure that the data of the report is heavily biased as it came solely from the Codemap platform. For instance, the data of no-coders demographics was dependent heavily on the geolocation of Codemap's promotion. Another example was WordPress being marked as "low in demand", yet it is being used by 450 million websites. That figure is going to take Webflow a really long while to reach to. I'd suggest analyzing the report with doubt in mind.
Regardless of the shortages, I want to shoutout to Codemap for their amazing work as they are the pioneer in such research. You can purchase your own version of the report here: https://codemap.io/trends.
Also, for whom interested in no-code, Phil Simon has a fantastic book about no-code being released really soon, which covers the landscape of no-code industry and trends as well. You should totally go and check it out!
Disclaimer: I am not promoting or related to Codemap.