Wait, what is No-Code?

“The future of coding is no coding at all.” — Chris Wanstrath, GitHub Co-founder.

Remember the personal computers from the early ’80s? You probably don’t, so here’s a picture.

These machines were a nightmare to use because they didn’t have a Graphical User Interface or GUI. Everything was done by writing lines of code.

Anyone born in the late ’90s & after, think of it like not being able to browse through Netflix because you don’t know how to code.

Sounds dystopian, right?

There’s a similar thing going on today, but with Software Development.

There are ~4.2 billion internet users worldwide, but only 19 million software developers (according to a recent Slashdata report).

For every 221 internet users, only one knows how to code.

If one of the other 220 wants to start something online (eCommerce store, SaaS, etc.), they need to spend thousands of dollars on hiring a developer or spending months/years learning how to code.

Enter No-Code.

So, what is No-Code all about?

Simply put, no-code is a way to build web & mobile apps without writing code.

Instead of building your layout with lines of code, you drag & drop elements (buttons, form fields, etc.) to visually build your app.

Want an example?

Here’s our landing page in Visual Studio Code.

& here’s our landing page in Webflow.

We dragged & dropped elements, added a bit of customization & that’s it.

And if you look closely in the first screenshot the code was exported after building the landing page visually.

That’s no-code.

Wait, what is Low-Code then?

The main promise of no-code is to build anything you can imagine without writing a single line of code.

But let’s be real, that’s marketing bullshit.

Everything has its limits. Sometimes the limits are higher, but limits nonetheless.

Low-code is your way to bypass those limits.

You build most of your app without code, & then only write code to build functionalities that weren’t possible earlier. In most cases, you won’t have to leave the platform or set up a separate development environment to do this.

So, can we build anything with No-Code?

Technically, yes. But there are certain limitations.

Most platforms specialize in building something specific. You can build a web, mobile, or even a voice app without code but there are different platforms for each.

Once you figure out what you want to build (example — a web/mobile app or something in AR/VR), you get a couple of platform options to chose from.