tw-rl

As a CTO, I use No-Code tools. I can't avoid bumping into frustrations every time. These tools are great for short term goals. But they easily become tech debt, if they survive longer than an MVP. 3 examples👇

1/ @airtable vs building a custom database Airtable allows non-techy people in the team to build a database for their initiatives. Eg: A sales team wants a CRM. In my experience, these solutions grow clunky very fast. As the CTO, I always need to "migrate" to a proper SQL DB.

2/ @bubble vs building a frontend Tools like bubble can literally build you a frontend built in minutes. And it looks good! However, as custom needs arise, the fixed boundaries and the external nature of it causes issues when making releases. Good for PoCs and tests. That's it.

3/ @zapier vs building custom API integrations It's great to click a few buttons, next next next, and boom. You have two apps integrated with triggers to port data from on to another. PMs get excited, and suddenly that's dozens of zaps, with sensitive data passing around. Oops!

My learnings are: - No-Code is great for proofs of concept, and for short term goals. Perfect for ephemeral initiatives and for anything in which the future state is not relevant. - No-Code is terrible for persistent solutions that need to be scalable with load and team growth.