Why 2021 Will Be the Year of No-Code Platforms
March 08, 2021

Ajay Kaul
AgreeYa Solutions

No-code platforms boomed in 2020, and now many organizations are on the lookout for such solutions. According to Forrester's 2021 predictions for software development, 75% of all application development will use low/no-code platforms this year, up from 44% in 2020. As a result, no-code would become the mainstay for all app development projects in 2021.

This overwhelming rise of no-code platforms is due in part to the new working environment and product demands brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Forrester survey further found that "enterprises that embraced low/no-code platforms, digital process automation, and collaborative work management reacted faster and more effectively than firms relying only on traditional development."

Indeed, 2020 was a year that taught organizations to shun their old beliefs and embrace exciting new technologies. The pandemic changed the mindset of business owners from "plan and act" to "act and adapt."

As the pressure to achieve more with less increases in a challenging global economy, more organizations are changing their perspective and adopting rapid and simple no-code app development platforms. Such platforms enable teams to rapidly build apps that make a difference to business results and solve various technology bottlenecks. The no-code approach is allowing business experts to seamlessly innovate without the need for coding skills. It allows organizations to stay proactive and accelerate app development by bringing more people with varied skillsets into application development.

Highlighted below are the reasons why 2021 will be the year of no-code application development.

Supports the "Cloud-Only" Trend

2021 will be the "cloud-only" year, with the "cloud-first" approach becoming a thing of the past. Microsoft, Amazon, and Google continue to invest significantly in enhancing cloud technology. Forrester predicts the global public cloud infrastructure market will grow to a whopping $120 billion with 35% growth in 2021.

Cloud has become imperative for businesses of all sizes, across industries, and even government organizations are now fully turning to the cloud. No-code platforms, with support for on-premise and cloud versions, facilitate convenient cloud migrations. Such platforms can be leveraged to rapidly recreate existing business critical apps, unlock new opportunities for innovation, and future-proof all such innovations. With no-code platforms, organizations can attain new levels of productivity in the cloud.

Meets New Age Software Development Demands

According to a recent IDC study, business application development will shift toward hyper-agile architectures in 2021, with 80% of app development on cloud platforms using microservices and functions. Other experts believe that to stay competitive in 2021 organizations will have to embrace technologies that allow seamless development of serverless and cloud-native apps, enable the adoption of containers and microservices, help build actionable business intelligence leveraging cloud data services, and simplify the building of developer environments with integrated cloud toolsets. No-code platforms that support cloud-based application development can complement all such software development trends for 2021.

Enables Process Automation and Inspires Innovation

Global economic uncertainties and ongoing remote/hybrid working scenarios have inspired organizations across the globe to adopt automation and remove human dependencies in many resource and time-intensive processes. Automation of business processes will continue to grow in 2021 as most organizations will continue operating in a lean fashion.

No-code platforms enable business experts to build apps and dashboards to automate and streamline many business-critical processes. It empowers the business experts to take control of their requirements and liberates IT from spending a significant portion of their day on mundane user requests.

Delivers on the "Data for Everyone" Promise

The global pandemic has demonstrated the importance of "data for everyone." It's essential for organizations to enable the democratization of data across teams and departments. By adopting a "data for everyone" approach, organizations empower employees to glean actionable insights from various datasets and enable decision-makers to make data-backed decisions. No-code platforms enable business experts to create impactful reports and dashboards by bringing together data from multiple sources. And all this can be achieved without any dependence on IT.

Supplements Slow Transition Back to Normalcy

While 2020 was an unprecedented year, 2021 will be the year businesses return to normalcy. COVID-19 vaccines have already hit the markets; however, the transition back to pre-COVID times will be slow. Organizations will continue to operate remotely or with a reduced in-office attendance. No-code platforms, which enabled business experts across organizations to deliver quality apps blazingly fast during the pandemic, will continue to dominate the business app development landscape this year. Such platforms will enable organizations to make a gradual transition, while ensuring business continuity and growth.

Looking beyond 2021, no-code platforms will become commonplace for application development. This technology will empower non-technical business experts to bring together data and assemble software functions in the domains they know best, without any coding. Even the programmer purists, still working with hard-coding tools will recognize the convenience such platforms bring toward their work. In the decade to come, low-code platforms may experience a greater degree of crossover and osmosis with no-code platforms. No-code platforms are a must-have for organizations that want to stay ahead of the game in 2021.

Ajay Kaul is a Managing Partner of AgreeYa Solutions
Share this

Industry News

September 20, 2023

Oracle announced new application development capabilities to enable developers to rapidly build and deploy applications on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

September 20, 2023

Sonar announced zero-configuration, automatic analysis for programming languages C and C++ within SonarCloud.

September 20, 2023

DataStax announced a new JSON API for Astra DB – the database-as-a-service built on the open source Apache Cassandra® – delivering on one of the most highly requested user features, and providing a seamless experience for Javascript developers building AI applications.

September 19, 2023

Oracle announced the availability of Java 21.

September 19, 2023

Mirantis launched Lens AppIQ, available directly in Lens Desktop and as (Software as a Service) SaaS.

September 19, 2023

Buildkite announced the company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Packagecloud, a cloud-based software package management platform, in an all stock deal.

September 19, 2023

CrowdStrike has agreed to acquire Bionic, a provider of Application Security Posture Management (ASPM).

September 18, 2023

Perforce Software announces BlazeMeter's Test Data Pro, the latest addition to its continuous testing platform.

September 18, 2023

CloudBees announced a new cloud native DevSecOps platform that places platform engineers and developer experience front and center.

September 18, 2023

Akuity announced a new open source tool, Kargo, to implement change promotions across many application life cycle stages using GitOps principles.

September 14, 2023

CloudBees announced significant performance and scalability breakthroughs for Jenkins® with new updates to its CloudBees Continuous Integration (CI) software.

September 14, 2023

JFrog unveiled new capabilities that set the standard for quality, security, MLOps and integrity of software releases.

September 14, 2023

Enea launched the Enea Qosmos Threat Detection SDK.

September 13, 2023

Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. announced the completion of its acquisition of Perimeter 81, a pioneering Security Service Edge (SSE) company, with a team of over 200 employees that serves more than 3,000 customers worldwide.