What's in your mind when you think about building some sort of Startup or App. Probably, your answer will be is to create a plan, deal with UX/UI and then start coding the software itself. So, the part of coding is one of the most difficult parts for many folks and there's a solution! Called No-Code tools.
What is No-Code Revolution?
In the past, No-Code tools were used by developers to prototype their ideas and get a MVP (Minimum Viable Product) out quicker. But now these tools are more user-friendly and you don't need to be a developer to use them! So, if you have an idea for website or app, don't worry about coding and just go for it with No Code tools!
There are many No Code tools on the market but we're going to focus on several of them. All of these platforms enable users without any coding experience to build a professional-grade web or mobile app. And even better? They're all free to use!
No Coding = More Time for Creativity!
In this article, we've mentioned several No-Code tools which you can use to create a website or an app by yourself without having any coding skills. These apps are perfect not only for beginners but also for experienced non-software developers who want to be more productive in their workflow by creating something new faster than ever before. All these No-Code tools have been designed around user experience so that anyone could build a product even if they don't know HTML/CSS or Javascript language at all - just imagine that!
So, don't waste your time and start using No Code tools today to turn your idea into a reality without any headaches. And remember, the future of coding is No-Code so it's time to jump in!
Webflow
Well, when we already discussed the Code Revolution and why you should pay attention to it, now it's time for the services themselves. And the first one is Webflow that is a great builder for your website. It's not something like Wix or builders like this, it's like a Figma, however, with a logic implemented with design. It's even better than WordPress
Also, Webflow has courses about Web-Design, Creating Portfolio, and UX/UI. So even if you won't use it as a No Code tool you can use it as a free platform with courses.
And as I said, you don't need to build 100% of your website by using this tool, you can make the main part and then replace or add something by using your custom code.
There's another platform called Bubble.io, however, personally, I think that Webflow is better because it gives your more customization for your design, rather than Bubble.io which is more directed on the business sphere where the most important thing is a piece of information that you provides on your website
Bravo
The one killer feature that Bravo has is the implementation with Figma. You can make a design of your app in Figma and then just past a link and it will understand which element is going to do and that's all, you have a fully working Mobile App.
And it's free, you don't need to pay anything. I honestly think that this one is a great No-Coding app because it helps people to think more about the creativity and the idea of the project, so there will be more folks that will want to create on their own
No coding is a great thing, but No-Coding + Figma = Awesome!
Airtable
This is an app that will help you and your co-workers do your work better by creating custom interfaces that give each and every teammate the relevant information they need, and a simple way to take action.
Airtable is a great No-Coding tool that will save you time and provide you with the freedom to work on what's important. It has pre-built templates for project management, sales pipeline reporting, research library management - so basically everything! And again it's free if your team isn't huge (up to 32 people). You can check how many users are currently using Airtable.
Stackla & Storedot
We've talked a lot about No Codings but now it's time to talk about Stackla and Storedot. These No Code tools are used for creating a digital asset, mostly for social media.
Stackla is an AI-driven content marketing platform that enables brands to discover and curate user-generated content from around the Web and social media, then publish it across all channels in real-time. It also has a great feature - you can use your own custom code if you want something special
Storedot is a No Code tool that helps you collect, manage and share your favorite web articles, videos, tweets or any other type of online content with anyone in just a few clicks. You don't need an account, just enter the URL into the box on their website and it will download it in a format that you can easily send in an email or print out, for example. No Coding skills required ;)
Conclusion
So far we've seen how No-Code tools can help us build amazing things without having to learn complex coding languages. These tools are perfect for beginners and experienced developers alike, and they're free to use! If you have an idea for a website or app, go ahead and try out one of these platforms - you won't regret it!
Top comments (37)
Remember the days when people use Dreamweaver and all kinds of software to do html pages? Is it still there? So no code is mostly a hypetrain. Complex software cannot be replaced by nocode. Maybe simple project do
The technology is here today to allow to replace about 80% of the buggy and repeated software out there. History will repeat itself.
The same way Gutenberg press revolutionized sharing of information, the NoCode movement will transform how ideas are implemented digitally.
Just look how cars are made today vs 100 years ago. Yes, there are only few cars manufactures left and maybe 0.05% custom car makers/sleepers but people do not care , they use it to drive from point A to point B.
Cyber security inside NoCode can be reduced to almost zero and production ready complex workflows can be done . How do I know it: because i built a tool like that already. The idea of the tool was to create applications that can recognize and talk to each other in the same system up and down and share information in real time between applications and users.
Complex Software is Not NP problem!
Yeah, as I said, you can use it as a tool that will help you to build the main part of your website, and then customize by yourself. It will exponentially increase your productivity
The future of coding is developers fixing issues that arise from no-code software.
More work for us.
I appreciate the sentiment but I worked as an automation specialist before working as a software engineer. It was cool, I used a lot of Zapier, Integromat, Airtable, and other no-code tools.
But no matter how robust these tools are, and many of them are incredible - nothing will convince me that no-code will replace code in any 'real' way.
For starters, you still need technical people to use these tools and there are plenty of times where you can't do exactly what you want to do.
Also, Webflow is cool but it's far from cheap when you can host an app on Firebase for free. It's possible that these tools will become customizable enough that they can support more use cases but it seems like we're very far from that being the case.
Yeah, you're right. It's a topic that needs additional thinking. And as I said earlier, No-Code tools won't replace real coding, it will just make some tasks easier, however, there're many pitfalls
My biggest problem with all the "no code" platforms I have looked at is the lack of robust CI/CD features. Some things that I would expect like automated testing, "no code" reviews, and somethings even environments and rollback weren't there. These platforms always seemed like a huge risk for companies. Especially when you start looking at the cost.
You're right, a company or even a group of small Startuppers won't use these tools. However, as i said, it can be useful if you want to build a landing page or site portfolio.
Two things:
These tools are popular because too many startups are churning out very similar, unoriginal apps - for which these tools are perfect.
The market is already flooded with these apps - pretty soon, it will be so saturated that users are likely to stop caring about new apps at all.
I'm actually surprised we didn't get there already, the way to market works - it's a wonder users haven't seen through this yet, but the large majority of new apps are just clones of one or more existing apps, maybe tailored for a niche, if even that, and then you top it off with an expensive marketing campaign.
Well, now they can spend almost nothing developing their useless products and invest everything in marketing instead. How long before users wake up and smell the coffee? 🤔
You’re right! Because of simplicity almost everybody can’t do their own startups, however, after they did it they will learn from it
I agree with some or most of the people replying. They're not much of a help using this no-code builders. It's difficult to try and code over, rewrite the code etc. It will only make your code uglier. Now image Sass and no- code, does it make sense to work twice to reorganize everything 🤔. Plus if you know how to use flexbox and grid, JavaScript honestly you don't need a page builder because you can work as fast as you would using a page builder and have your file organized and be more efficient.
Funny enough, no-code made me go back to start learning to code again.
I mastered basic webflow, airtable, zapier just to realise these costs aggregate and the whole system is rather in-flexible.
Its great for prototyping and mockups, landing pages but where it fails is when complexity kicks in and you need to be more flexible on various solutions such as dynamic apps and even data retrieval.
Not even mentioning the platform lock-in.
So the answer is easy, pick the right tool for the job...
Yeah, as you can see, there's another way how beginner can get into IT sphere. Just by understanding and creating, and only then code by themselves to customize things more
Thanks for the article. It's so important to avoid the "one size fits all" mentality. There's a huge range of software tools, with those for users at one end and those for toolmakers at the other. No Code sits towards the user end, while C, JS and Python are more suited to toolmakers (who might be using them to build No Code tools). In between there are products like SQL and AppleScript.
Only a novice or a fool believes that a single tool can do all jobs equally well. It requires experience to recognize the best tool to use for any given job, and a good engineer is always on the look out for better, more efficient ways of doing things rather than just reaching for the same screwdriver or hammer each time.
For me, warning bells start to ring when low-level coding tools are used to build high-level products such as UIs or to express business logic. Both invite the creation of products that are essentially unmaintainable; they rely too much on what was in the mind of the builder, which is seldom visible in the resulting code. These areas are where No Code scores right now, and as it matures its scope will no doubt expand.
Thanks for reply! I'm still coding with JS and Python, however, I use No-Code tools when I want to create some sort of landing page or as I said to make the easy part by this, so it will never fully replace coding, just and additional information that can be useful for you!
I agree. Fast food isn't the best quality haha
No-code !== No-programming.
I doubt very much there's any way to express complex application logic without describing internal algorithms. And that's the most complex part of development, not coding itself.
Yeah, probabaly you can't use No-Code tools when you're trying to create a real Web-Application, however, in other cases when you just want to create, for example, landing page or site portfolio it gets really useful