At Ateam Soft Solutions, we often hear about the challenges clients face when using no code app development platforms. Today, we want to share the story of one of our clients, John, who fell into the no code app development trap and lost a significant amount of money.
John had an idea that he believed would make a great app. He didn’t know how to build mobile apps and had never done it before, although he did have some coding knowledge. In 2023, John did some research and figured he should try a no code platform. The technology seemed advanced enough, and he thought it would save him from learning a new programming language. So, he opted for a platform called FlutterFlow.
FlutterFlow is a no code app development platform. It is probably one of the most popular no code platforms out there. On FlutterFlow, you can actually build iOS and Android apps without using code. The backend of FlutterFlow is actually the language Flutter. But the idea here is that you will not be programming. You won’t be actually coding in Flutter. It’s more of a drag-and-drop platform that you can start building apps. John began to build his app, looked at their documentation, watched a bunch of YouTube tutorials, and created the wireframe on Balsamiq. He was around 20 to 30 percent complete when things just started not looking right. He wanted to do specific things on his app, which he thought were reasonably easy, but he just couldn’t do it.
Because it wasn’t a default feature, John thought, hang on, I know with FlutterFlow, if you want that uniqueness, that ability to customize things, you can create a custom widget, but he couldn’t do that because it actually didn’t work. So he reached a roadblock and could not continue. John thought he was having so many issues; surely it’s not just him. And he was right. It was not only him. Five months ago, there was a post on Reddit under the Flutter dev subreddit. It said FlutterFlow raised $25.5 million. That post wasn’t the interesting part. The interesting part was the comment below it.
The commenter said they were active in the FlutterFlow environment for about a year and a half and initially very happy with it. They were in the 10 to 90% project completion phase of their app. However, when they got to the last 10%, they realized that FlutterFlow is a 90% completion product. They mentioned that adding custom widgets and trying to integrate them into the FlutterFlow code base without any error logging was awful. After hiring a developer to help, they found the code base was terrible. They had to rebuild the app from scratch.
What this person experienced with FlutterFlow was the same thing John experienced. When he downloaded his FlutterFlow code, it was terrible. There were so many errors, and it just looked wrong. It’s not only FlutterFlow that has these issues. People also posted similar issues with another very popular no code platform called Bubble. Users mentioned a lot of issues with containers and trying to customize their web app. Another user mentioned huge scalability issues with Bubble.
John also did some research on Bubble when he wanted to design the no code app. Again, he thought Bubble was a fully scaled solution. It’s not. This medium article speaks about the disadvantages of Bubble. A problem with Bubble is the ability to customize. Much of the code is premade, and you kind of have to rely on Bubble styles for a lot of the apps you want to build. There are ways to customize, and Bubble provides plugins from third-party APIs, but for the most part, it’s challenging to build highly customizable apps.
You might be asking, fine, there are issues with these no code app development platforms, but why is it a trap? Every platform does have its pros and cons. Yes, you can still build functional apps with FlutterFlow, Bubble, and other no code platforms. But the reason why John thinks it is a trap is twofold.
Most no code clients don’t know how to code. They haven’t ever developed even one line of code. So they don’t really have an idea of everything that is involved when you create an app. Because John was experienced in coding, he could tell pretty early on that there were specific things he couldn’t do. This was a red flag for him, but he could picture someone not knowing how to code. They might buy a platform like Bubble or FlutterFlow, develop until 90%, spend a lot of time and hours, and then just can’t complete it because of the restrictions.
You can’t actually build good, unique apps with these no code platforms. This is the main complaint. You can’t customize it. So either you develop a very run-of-the-mill, common app, or you don’t build anything at all. This would be fine if the no code platforms were more honest about it. They just aren’t.
In their marketing materials and demo videos, they phrase things differently. If you look at these no code development platforms, you always get the sense that they can do it all. Bubble’s front page claims to be the world’s only full-stack, no code platform. FlutterFlow claims you can build applications faster than ever, create beautiful UI, generate clean code, and deploy the app to the app store in one click. But this is far from the truth.
When John downloaded the code base from FlutterFlow, it was terrible. He would have never been able to deploy his app unless he got an experienced Flutter developer to fix the messy code and sort out the errors. If there’s errors in your code, the iOS store would immediately reject it.
It’s okay if no code platforms market themselves as a platform that gets you the minimum viable product (MVP) quickly. If you want to show clients a quick MVP or a proof of concept, go ahead and use something like Bubble or FlutterFlow. But if you want a full-grade production-ready app, you have to do it the old-fashioned way.
When you speak to any software developer who has worked on these tools, they tell you the same thing. They tell you that if you want to use a product like FlutterFlow or Bubble, it’s good for something simple, something quick. It’s terrible with customization and scalability. Do it the old-fashioned way.
If you are thinking about no code app development platforms, do your research. Understand that no code platforms will always be second best to actually sitting down and coding or paying an experienced developer to create your mobile app. It will be a lot more expensive, but you’ll actually get it done right the first time. Whether you need app developers, mobile app developers, or software developers, it’s crucial to consider these factors before diving into no code platforms.
