The software needs of businesses are growing, but not every organisation has a large development team or budget to build custom applications from scratch. Enter low-code/no-code platforms – tools that allow users (even those with minimal coding experience) to create software applications through visual interfaces and pre-built components. Platforms like Microsoft Power Apps, OutSystems, Mendix, or even simpler ones like Wix (for web sites/apps) have become popular because they promise faster development cycles and lower the barrier to entry for building apps or automations.

At the same time, traditional custom development – where professional developers write code tailored specifically to your requirements – remains the go-to for many complex or unique projects. How do you decide which approach is right for your business? This decision can impact cost, time-to-market, flexibility, and long-term scalability.

In this article, we’ll compare low-code platforms and custom development on key aspects: speed, cost, flexibility, maintainability, and more. We’ll discuss scenarios where low-code makes sense and where going custom might be the better choice. The goal is to help you make an informed choice that aligns with your business goals, technical requirements, and resources.

What are Low-Code/No-Code Platforms?

Low-code platforms provide a development environment where much of the heavy lifting is done by the platform:

  • Visual Builders: You often drag-and-drop UI elements, workflows, and data models instead of writing HTML/JS/C# from scratch. For example, to create a form, you might drag a “Form” component, then drag fields like text box, dropdown, etc., set properties through a GUI, and it's ready.
  • Pre-built Integrations: Many low-code tools come with connectors to common databases, CRM systems, APIs, etc., so you can connect and move data without writing integration code. E.g., connecting your app to an Excel file or a Salesforce account might be a few clicks.
  • Built-in Deployment and Hosting: The platform usually handles how your app gets published to users, often providing hosting or one-click deploy to cloud. You don’t worry about server setup.
  • No-Code is an extreme of low-code where you do everything via configuration with zero code. Low-code might allow some scripting for advanced logic, but greatly minimised.

Examples of use: A small business might use a low-code tool to create a simple inventory management app that ties into their existing database, without having a software engineer. Or a public sector department might use Microsoft Power Apps to make a staff directory app integrated with Office 365 data, rather than contracting a developer.

Pros of Low-Code Platforms

1. Speed of Development:
Low-code can drastically shorten development time. Gartner predicted that by 2025, 70% of new applications developed by enterprises will utilise low-code/no-code tech​. This is because what might take weeks of coding could be done in days with low-code. For SMEs or internal teams, this means faster ROI – you can prototype and launch solutions quickly. Need a quick customer feedback portal? A low-code tool could have it live in an afternoon. This speed is great for simple to moderately complex apps.

2. Lower Skill Barrier:
If you don’t have seasoned developers, low-code empowers “citizen developers” (business analysts, power users) to create apps. This can reduce the need to hire expensive talent for every project. It also frees professional devs to focus on more complex parts while citizen devs handle simpler tasks. For SMEs with maybe one IT person, that person can achieve more with low-code than writing everything in code themselves. Also training existing staff on a low-code platform might be easier than training them to code in multiple languages.

3. Reduced Maintenance Effort:
The platform often handles security patches, performance optimisations, and compatibility updates. For example, if a new iOS version comes out, the low-code platform provider ensures apps built on it still run (assuming it’s a supported platform). They also handle scalability – many are cloud-based and scale automatically if your usage grows. So you skip a lot of the system admin/DevOps work. Upgrading functionality is often as easy as toggling new features rather than a big code refactor.

4. Built-in Best Practices and Governance:
Low-code tools often enforce certain best practices out-of-the-box. For instance, they might generate forms that already include validation, accessibility features, etc. Enterprise-oriented low-code platforms offer governance features, like IT can oversee what apps are built, ensure compliance rules are followed via templates, etc. For an SME, using a reputable low-code platform means a lot of foundational stuff (like auth, encryption, audit logs) might be handled properly by default, so you’re less likely to inadvertently create an insecure app (compared to custom code where you must implement security).

5. Cost Predictability (to an extent):
Usually low-code platforms have subscription models (per user or per app or flat fee tiers). This can be more predictable for budgeting than custom dev where scope creep can increase costs or developer hourly rates accumulate. Also, some simpler needs might even be met with free tiers or one-time costs. However, note that low-code licensing cost can become significant as usage grows (we’ll mention in cons).

6. Easy Integration within Platform Ecosystem:
If you’re already invested in a platform (say Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace), using their low-code tools (Power Apps or AppSheet respectively) can seamlessly integrate with your existing data and authentication, which is very convenient. It’s “native” in that environment. A public sector example: a council using Power Apps can have staff log in with their Microsoft accounts and pull data from SharePoint lists easily to display in a custom internal app – trivial with low-code, some work with custom dev.

Cons of Low-Code Platforms

1. Limited Flexibility and Customisation:
The flip side of pre-built components is you’re limited to what the platform allows. If you have a very specific UI idea or a unique process, the platform might not support it out-of-the-box. Some low-code allow custom code injection, but that can get messy and defeat the purpose. Native device features or very specialised integrations might be beyond reach. Essentially, if you need to heavily tailor an app’s look or function beyond what the visual builder allows, you’ll either hack around (which can be unreliable) or hit a wall. Custom dev has no such limits (aside from technical feasibility) – if you can code it, you can build it exactly to spec. Low-code may force compromises (e.g., “We can’t do that precise feature this way, but we have this similar thing the platform offers, can that suffice?”).

2. Vendor Lock-In and Ongoing Costs:
When you build with low-code platform X, your app usually only runs on X. If later you want to move away (maybe the platform got too expensive or they shut down), you might have to rebuild the app from scratch on another platform or custom. Some platforms allow exporting the code, but it might not be clean or portable. Also, pricing: while initial dev is cheaper, some platforms charge per user/app which over time and scale can become more pricey than maintaining a custom solution (especially if your app is very widely used). For example, imagine paying $20/user/month for a platform and you have 100 users – that’s $2000/month ongoing. A custom app might have a higher upfront dev cost but lower hosting costs (say $50/month on a server) and minor maintenance costs, so over a few years, custom could be cheaper. SMEs need to weigh if the low-code pricing scales well with their growth.

3. Performance Constraints:
Low-code apps might not be as optimised as hand-written ones. They might include unnecessary bloat or not handle edge cases efficiently. For small apps it’s fine, but large data sets or complex logic could run slower. You depend on the vendor to optimise platform performance. If your app needs to process thousands of records in real time or do complex calculations, sometimes custom code tuned for that purpose will run circles around a generic low-code approach. Some low-code let you call out to custom code for heavy tasks, but then you’re mixing approaches which adds complexity.

4. Integration Gaps and Data Control:
While many integrations exist, if you have a custom legacy system or a very new SaaS that doesn’t have a connector, integrating via low-code might be troublesome. Custom development can always write to an API or database if it exists, but with low-code you rely on connectors provided or maybe an “HTTP request” block that might be limited in how you can parse responses. Also, with data, using low-code often means storing data in their structure (some have their own database in cloud). You need to ensure you have access to backup or export your data outside of the platform. With custom dev, you usually have direct database access and control.

5. Suitability for Complex Workflows:
If your application logic is complex with many branching conditions, or if you need to implement intricate algorithms, doing that in a visual flowchart style interface can be cumbersome (and error-prone if it’s not easily testable). Developers with coding skill might find low-code interfaces frustrating for complex stuff compared to writing code where logic can be more elegantly handled. There’s a threshold where complexity might be better handled by code rather than dozens of connected visual blocks that become hard to follow (the “spaghetti diagram” can become as bad as spaghetti code). In such cases, custom development might yield a cleaner solution.

6. Platform Limitations and Updates:
You’re at the mercy of the platform’s update cycle. If a feature you need is on their roadmap, you have to wait. If they change something, you have to adjust if it affects your app. For instance, maybe they deprecate a component you used, forcing you to migrate to a new one. With custom, you schedule changes on your own terms. Also, some low-code platforms might not allow easy version control or collaborative dev (though the enterprise ones have tackled that with ways to have multiple makers, etc.). If you have a team, coding with git version control might be more straightforward than multiple people clicking around a low-code interface simultaneously.

Pros of Custom Development

1. Tailored Exactly to Requirements:
With custom development, you’re not limited by a tool – you can design the UI/UX exactly as you envision (which can be crucial for consumer-facing apps where brand and differentiation matter). Every feature can be built to spec, no compromises. If your business has unique processes that give you competitive advantage, custom software can embed those precisely; low-code might have forced you into more generic workflows.

2. Greater Control Over Technology Stack:
You choose the programming languages, frameworks, hosting environment. That means you can optimise for performance, cost, and familiarity. If you have in-house devs skilled in certain tech, you can leverage that. If you need to ensure data stays on-premises (for compliance), you can do that with custom. You aren’t reliant on a third-party platform’s uptime or policies. If something goes wrong, your team can debug at any level because you have the source code and control the servers, whereas with low-code you're often debugging through a black-box.

3. Scalability and Performance:
Properly built custom apps can be extremely scalable (think of big tech companies - their stuff is all custom-coded for their needs). You can fine-tune queries, architecture, caching, etc., to handle high loads or large data. You’re not sharing resources with unknown other tenant apps (in low-code cloud, maybe you are, which could cause noisy neighbor issues though enterprise plans mitigate that). If your SME app becomes widely popular, a custom solution can be scaled on cloud infrastructure potentially more economically at scale than paying per user on a platform.

4. Integration with Anything:
You can integrate with any system that provides an API or even directly to databases, do custom data transformations, etc. No waiting for connectors. You can also integrate version control, automated testing, and deployment pipelines as you like – making development process robust (important as project grows). Also if you want to integrate some very new tech (like a new AI service), you can just add it by code. Low-code might eventually integrate new trends, but there’s lag.

5. No Platform Lock-in (Portability):
Your code can be hosted anywhere and modified by any capable developer. If you want to switch cloud providers or bring it in-house, you can. If your relationship with a developer or agency ends, you still have the code base which another developer can pick up (assuming good documentation). With low-code, if you stop subscribing or platform dissolves, you might have a crisis to re-build elsewhere. Custom may have higher initial cost but can be more future-proof in that sense – you own it.

6. Potentially Lower Long-term Cost for High Usage:
As mentioned, custom might have higher upfront dev costs, but if your app will have many users or runs for many years, the cumulative platform subscription fees could surpass that. For example, by 2026 low-code will be widespread​, but still not every scenario. If you foresee heavy use, investing in custom might save money down the road (plus you have the asset of code that’s yours). Also, custom dev cost per feature tends to decrease if you have an in-house team building multiple features on the same app, whereas low-code sometimes charges per app or per function scale.

Cons of Custom Development

1. Longer Development Time and Higher Initial Cost:
Building from scratch usually takes more time than assembling from pre-built parts. SMEs might find custom dev projects taking months whereas low-code could have delivered a working app in weeks. And developer salaries or contractor fees can add up. For a small, straightforward app, custom dev can sometimes be overkill (like paying a chef to make a basic sandwich vs. making it yourself with ready ingredients; the chef might do it slightly better, but was it worth it for a sandwich?). If speed to market is crucial and requirements are modest, custom could cause you to miss opportunities a quicker low-code launch might capture.

2. Need for Technical Expertise & Maintenance:
You need access to skilled developers to build and then maintain the app. SMEs often don’t have a full dev team, meaning they must hire or outsource. That introduces dependency on those individuals or a partner company. If that person leaves or contract ends, it can be hard for a new dev to get up to speed on a custom codebase unless it’s well-documented (and let’s face it, SMEs may not always enforce rigorous documentation or testing due to resource constraints). Also, you’ll need to handle updates (security patches for frameworks, etc.), monitor the app for issues, scale the servers if usage grows – tasks that a low-code platform would have abstracted away.

3. Higher Risk of Bugs and Security Issues:
Professional devs can produce secure, high-quality code, but human error is always a risk. Low-code platforms, by standardising components, may actually reduce certain bug classes (like a form component that’s been tested by thousands of apps vs a brand-new form coded from scratch which might have an edge-case bug). Security-wise, a platform likely has been vetted for common vulnerabilities, whereas a custom app could accidentally leave a hole (e.g., forgetting to sanitize input leading to SQL injection). Proper testing and code review mitigates this, but that’s extra effort/time.

4. Harder to Adjust Quickly:
If business needs change rapidly, adapting a custom solution might take more development time than adjusting a low-code app’s configuration. Low-code often shines in enabling quick changes by drag-and-drop (like add a new field to a form, or change a workflow branch logic) possibly without needing a deployment cycle. With custom, even small changes require going through code, test, deploy. For dynamic businesses, that agility of low-code is appealing.

5. Over-Engineering Risk:
Developers sometimes build more than necessary (either because they anticipate future needs or just from habit of making it robust). That can make a simple SME app more complex than needed, thus harder to maintain. Low-code sort of enforces a keep-it-simple approach (because you only build what you need through limited options). So there’s a discipline needed in custom dev to not go down rabbit holes that the business didn’t explicitly need (like implementing a fancy framework for a simple thing because dev likes it). Choosing the right development partner or team that keeps focus on business value is key.

Which to Choose? Decision Guidelines

Choose Low-Code if:

  • You need an app quickly and it’s relatively standard (forms, basic CRUD operations, simple workflows).
  • You have limited budget or no immediate access to developers.
  • The app doesn’t require highly unique features or pixel-perfect branded UI (you’re okay with a more templated look).
  • You’re already in an ecosystem that offers low-code and could benefit from easy integration (e.g., you use Office 365 extensively, so Power Apps fits naturally).
  • You want to empower non-technical staff to manage or even build the app (so IT isn't a bottleneck for every little update).
  • You’re prototyping an idea or testing a concept in the market and will consider building fully custom if it takes off (low-code can be a great MVP tool).
  • You are fine with the ongoing subscription costs and understand them.

Choose Custom Development if:

  • Your requirements include specific features or complex logic not easily achievable in low-code.
  • User experience and branding are critical and you need full control over design.
  • You need to integrate with many systems or a very custom backend where a tailored approach will be smoother.
  • The application is central to your business (core product or service) and you want to own the IP and have flexibility to evolve it in any direction.
  • You have the budget and timeline for a thorough development and testing cycle.
  • You plan for the app to scale to a large user base or have a long lifespan where owning it might be cost-effective.
  • Regulatory constraints require it (e.g., maybe some compliance rules mean you must host data on-prem and a low-code cloud service doesn’t allow that as neatly, albeit many have on-prem versions nowadays too).

Sometimes a hybrid approach is viable: use low-code for parts of the solution and custom for others. For example, maybe you have a custom backend API (because business logic is complex), but you use a low-code tool to create the admin dashboards or reporting interfaces on top of that API, to save time on the UI side.

Also consider the learning curve: if you already have a team of developers, they might be more effective sticking to custom dev rather than learning a new low-code platform. Conversely, if you have a savvy business team but no coders, low-code aligns with current skills.

Conclusion

Low-code platforms and custom development are both valuable approaches with different sweet spots. It’s not that one is universally better – it’s about context. Many businesses are finding that low-code solutions allow them to innovate faster and at lower cost, addressing a lot of internal needs or simple apps without burdening IT. On the other hand, for core systems and truly differentiated customer-facing apps, custom development often remains the gold standard due to its unlimited potential and finer control.

We’ve also seen scenarios where an SME starts with a low-code implementation to get off the ground, then as needs expand, they gradually replace bits with custom implementations. That pragmatic approach can reduce risk: you only invest heavily in custom when you’ve proven the app’s value.

If your priority is immediate results and cost savings, and your app is not too complex, low-code is likely the right choice. If your priority is a high-end, unique solution or something that must scale and evolve in complex ways, custom development is likely worth the investment.

At Gemstone, we work with clients on both ends of this spectrum. We can help build robust custom software tailored to exact needs, but we’re also experienced with various low-code platforms and can advise if one of those fits your needs better (and even help you implement it or integrate with it). The key is we’re solution-agnostic – the best solution is the one that delivers the needed outcome efficiently. Reach out to us if you’d like to evaluate your project; we’ll give you an honest recommendation on which approach might serve you best.

In summary, understand your needs, assess your resources, and don’t be afraid to leverage low-code for what it does well or commit to custom when it truly counts. Sometimes, the best approach to software development is a well-informed mix of both.