who needs it, what are the benefits and why is this a trend for Enterprise level companies
The classic development cycle no longer keeps up with the speed of changes in business – new requirements arrive faster than the team goes through the stages from specification to release. This era may be coming to an end – Gartner analysts predict boom of low-code platforms in the coming years.
Ilya Radchenko, director of platform products SimpleOnesaid in a podcast Neogenda about how low-code platforms work and why they are taking off in the Russian market. The article contains the most interesting things from the podcast, and you can watch the full version of the conversation on YouTube.
What is a low-code platform
Literally translated low-code means “little code”. The main idea behind this approach to software development is that instead of writing hundreds or thousands of lines of code by hand, you create solutions using ready-made componentssimilar to constructor assembly. The advantages of this method include acceleration of developmentreducing dependence on highly skilled programmers and simplifying processes for users with minimal technical skills.
Low-code platforms provide convenient visual tools, allowing you to create applications using drag-and-drop interface. This eliminates the need to write code for basic operations such as creating interfaces, setting up databases or forms. Instead, you simply drag and drop the elements you want and customize them.
Why low-code is better
In classical development, any change is a quest: write technical specifications, hand it over to the developer, wait until he codes, test, deploy. And now a new version of the framework is released every month, businesses want to change processes on the fly, and there is simply no time for the classic development cycle. With low-code, a business user can make changes himself without involving developers.
On the topic of numbers:
creation of a ready-made solution for low-code platform takes 1-3 months;
a developer without a low-code prefix costs 200-300 thousand rubles per month;
a low-code specialist will cost 2-3 times less;
The entry threshold is technical education and understanding of how information systems work.
SimpleOne already has tens of thousands of active users on its platform and is aiming for millions. And the team is only 100 people, half of whom are developers. The MVP was made by a team of 7-8 people in six months, including both the platform and the first box with a ready-made solution.
By the way, about “programmers are not needed” is not entirely true. For complex cases on the SimpleOne platform there is pro-code modeyou can write your own frontend in it or add specific logic in JavaScript. Such a component becomes reusable – it can be embedded in other solutions as a regular low-code element.
Why do low-code at all? Using the example
SimpleOne started with automation of the IT department – they built ITSM system. Applications work in it, SLA and classic Service Deskand under the hood is a large complex task tracker that supports all IT management processes based on the world's best ITIL and ITSM practices.
Why low-code:
launch time of the first version – 3 months versus 6+ according to the classics;
no need to maintain a large staff of developers;
partners can customize the solution themselves for clients;
clients customize another 20% of the functionality after implementation.
Such a system automates service support, calculates metrics, monitors SLAs and manages incidents. And all this can be configured without coding through the platform interface.
Thanks to low-code, a company can start with one module and then expand. For example, we implemented ITSM or B2B CRM from SimpleOnetried it out and started automating other departments. At the same time, they remain within the framework of the already purchased platform – there is no need to buy new systems and think about their integration. The ROI of this approach is visible after just a year of use. And after 2-3 years, savings on development and support become significant.
Low-code or traditional development?
An ordinary situation in business: a new version has been released ITILwe need to rebuild processes. Or another reorganization occurs, and half of the work schemes become irrelevant. Usually this means that you need to burden the developers with routine, wait until they rewrite everything, test and pray that nothing breaks.
At the same time, the platform holds the load perfectly – the SimpleOne team did not reinvent the wheel in terms of scaling and security; these issues are resolved by the platform itself. A low-code developer is focused on business logic, not on how to make it all work on hundreds of servers.
However, despite all the advantages, there are situations where low-code will not work, for example, heavy production processes, work with specific equipment, tasks that require special hardware competence, complex integrations with legacy systems. And for everything related to people and their tasks – HR, finance, IT, security – low-code is perfect. Why? Because these processes are constantly changing, and classical development simply cannot keep up with the changes.
Market situation and competition
There are now two types of players on the Russian market:
niche vendors who have added designer tools to their solutions;
original low-code platforms like SimpleOne.
Internationally SimpleOne targets the niche of ServiceNow, a leader in all Gartner quadrants. HP Service Manager, BPMN, Pega and other heavyweights of the enterprise segment are also in view. The team also paid attention to classic low-code platforms – Aria, Mendix, Zoho. But we decided to do something of our own, tailored to Russian realities.
“When we saw big vendors leaving, we realized that a vacuum would be created, and we began to prepare for this in advance,” says Ilya Radchenko in the Neogenda podcast.
What's under the hood of the SimpleOne low-code platform?
We started with what was at hand – a monolith in PHP, a front in React. But when we got closer to the product, we realized that it wouldn’t take off like that.
What changed during the process:
We implemented DDD (Domain-Driven Design) and divided the application logic into independent parts, where each microservice is responsible for its own business logic;
broke the monolith into microservices;
started importing Go instead of PHP;
installed Kafka for event exchange;
started adding popular tools Redis and RabbitMQ, etc.;
changed the scheme and principles of interaction with the database.
Now the system has tens of thousands of users who actively work in it every day. The plan is to grow to millions of users.
Integration is also at the level: REST API for two-way communication with any systems, works with Active Directory out of the box, there are connectors to email services. Now they are adding support for message brokers like Kafka – this is a must have for large corporate clients.
And the main thing is that all this really works under heavy loads. The SimpleOne solution is aimed at the enterprise segment: corporations, industry leaders, companies with mature business processes – therefore the entire architecture is tailored for Cloud Native and microservices.
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Watch the full podcast on YouTubeto find out more – Ilya also tells how to choose a company low-code platformwhat pitfalls await during implementation and where the market is heading. We also discussed the prospects of AI in low-code: oddly enough, neural networks are already learning to assemble solutions from ready-made components. By the way, we also talked about the SimpleOne sandbox; you can try the platform yourself.
