Low-Code vs Traditional Development: Cost-Benefit Analysis for CIOs

It’s an increasingly digital world, and businesses strive to remain as agile and competitive as possible. But to do that, first and foremost, they need to optimize their resources to deploy solutions faster. And because speed is essential in every software development process today, organizations are racing to respond to the demand for faster software development. Which leaves them with two options: low-code vs traditional development.

To choose between these two, CTOs, CIOs, Dev Team Leaders, and other high-level executives must consider various tradeoffs like speed, cost, business agility, etc. But it comes as no surprise that with all the advantages that low code offers, it has gained significant traction. Low-code statistics by Gartner even show that “by 2025, 70% of new applications developed by organizations will use low-code or no-code technologies, up from less than 25% in 2020.” And yet, the decision must be supported by practical financial and strategic considerations.

That’s why I will outline key differences between low-code vs traditional development, various use cases, and other factors to consider when determining the best approach for your business.

Low-Code vs Traditional Development Comparison

According to the CIO’s Guide to Prioritizing, Driving and Scaling Innovation by Gartner, “successful innovations align with business goals, cater to market demands, ensure scalability, uphold financial viability and adhere to legal standards, fostering sustainable growth. CIOs, with their role in overseeing technology usage and development, occupy a unique position among CxOs to drive and scale innovation, particularly in an era where technology drives most innovations.” This is why you must understand the differences between using a low-code platform vs traditional development.

Low-Code Development Use Cases

Although there are similarities between low-code development vs traditional, they remain two distinct approaches with differences in terms of when and why they are implemented. Tools like App Builder are great for:

Resource Allocation & Business Process Automation

In one of the most recent surveys by Reveal, results indicate that “more than a third (40%) of software industry professionals are facing increased customer demands and 39% are working with limited resources (lack of budget, unable to maintain software).” So, tackling resource constraints and developer shortages is crucial for businesses that want to innovate. Development teams frequently manage multiple projects or tasks simultaneously, leading to inefficient resource allocation, missed deadlines, compromises in the app quality, and increased expenses.

Business of Apps, for example, estimates that developing a simple app with a basic UI and general features costs between $5,000 and $50,000, with a development timeline of two to four months. For medium-complexity apps, the cost ranges from $50,000 to $120,000, and development can take up to six months. On the other hand, complex app projects may require nine months to a year to complete with $100,000-$133,000 in expenses.

However, low-code tools can be the ideal solution when CIOs want to optimize a team’s capacity, business dynamics, and costs. The Total Economic Impact (TEI) study conducted by Forrester points out that organizations can save up to 70% in development costs compared to traditional development methods. This only proves that low code eliminates time-consuming, costly, and repetitive tasks and allows citizen developers and less experienced programmers to either create simple UX, build MVPs (Minimum Viable Products), or automate specific processes like approvals or workflows.

Keeping Pace With Market Trends & Eliminating Tech Debt

There’s a constant need to innovate and improve business processes to stay competitive. So, organizations must respond and adapt to business and market changes and provide teams with the right tools​. What’s more, scaling applications without low-code tools can accumulate technical debt, such as poorly structured code, outdated dependencies, and undocumented workarounds. Technical debt hampers long-term scalability, maintainability, and extensibility, as executives must dedicate time and effort to address accumulating overheads and prevent future issues.

Low-code platforms, then, are great for rapid prototyping, development, and deployment of applications, allowing users to iterate on ideas and respond to market demands quickly. By streamlining the development process and reducing time to market, low-code platforms actually facilitate agility and responsiveness to changing market needs.

Legacy System Modernization & Integration

Legacy system modernization is a significant challenge for many companies, especially as technology evolves and businesses need change. Organizations seeking to modernize legacy systems, then, can use low-code platforms to integrate older systems with newer technologies because they offer built-in connectors and APIs that facilitate the process.

Apps That Can Be Built Faster & With Less Resources

Low-code platforms are ideal for building UI screen layouts, internal tools such as employee portals, HR systems, project management tools, CRM systems, or creating customer-facing applications, such as customer portals, self-service dashboards, and web forms.

Traditional Development Use Cases

When it comes to traditional development, it is more suitable in areas where complexity and customization are key and budget is not a problem.

Custom Development Expertise & Long-Term Projects At Its Core

Traditional development is necessary when your business and projects need highly specialized coding expertise. It ensures full control over the tech stack, performance optimization, and compliance with business logic and specific needs. There are no limits on feature flexibility.

Cutting-Edge Innovation and Extensive Customization

Traditional development could be the better option when looking for a strategic competitive advantage. It offers deep customization and high levels of flexibility that low-code platforms may not be able to match. Optimized for heavy data loads and complex functionalities, traditional development allows organizations to create highly tailored solutions that address business and integration requirements.

Aligning Long-Term Goals & Continuous Improvement

Traditional development may be necessary for core systems that must align with long-term goals and comply with engineering principles and regulatory requirements. And with the deep know-how of frameworks, it can easily support projects that explore new opportunities and know no boundaries in terms of functionalities and UX since developers have full control over the code.

Apps That Can Be Built With Complexity In Mind

Traditional coding is better suited for building large-scale and mission-critical apps like CRMs and financial systems, core banking apps, retail platforms, ERPs, and others where performance, scalability, and ability to handle massive traffic are critical.

How To Combine Low Code With Traditional Development

It’s not always low-code vs traditional development. Some companies opt for a hybrid development model, using low-code platforms like App Builder and traditional development. Establishing this approach lets them balance speed, flexibility, expenses, and human expertise.

In the best-case scenario, CIOs can leverage low code to:

• Boost the productivity of teams
• Empower citizen developers and less experienced developers
• Build simpler apps, forms, dashboards, and custom interfaces quickly
• Automate repetitive tasks

Meanwhile, traditional development can be applied to:

• More complex back-end integrations and custom business logic
• Mission-critical modules
• Applications that require advanced scalability
• Out-of-the-box functionalities

It’s a win-win situation.

Which Approach is Right for Your Business?

To help you determine which one to choose between low-code vs traditional development, consider the following factors and questions:

Complexity of the Project

What functionalities and integrations does the project require? How complex is the app? Is it necessary to have coding from scratch or can existing templates adapt to the needs? Is the app expected to scale? Are there going to be frequent updates?

Budget and Resources

What is the budget for the project? Have you estimated the expected additional costs for maintenance, planned updates, etc.? How many developers do you need? Can the costs be reduced through rapid prototyping or automation of repetitive tasks?

Team Expertise

What is the development team’s current technical expertise? Are their skills enough to build the project? Do your team’s resources need to be optimized? How much training will the team require if you go with low code? Do you require detailed monitoring and full control of design-to-code processes?

Wrap-Up & Key Article Takeaways

If there’s one thing that businesses are doing today, it’s fighting the pressure to innovate faster with cost-efficient practices. Accomplishing these objectives largely depends on the choice businesses make – whether relying on low-code vs traditional development. Each approach offers distinct advantages, and understanding their best use cases is critical to making the right decision.

• For CIOs, CTOs, and other executives, the cost-benefit of low-code development is clear when the primary business goals are speed, agility, and cost-efficiency.
• Traditional development is more suitable as an option for complex or highly customized applications.
• A basic app can cost from $5,000 to $50,000, requiring two to four months to be built.
• Medium-complexity apps cost $50,000-$120,000, and development can take up to six months.
• Complex app projects can span from nine months to a year to complete, with costs ranging between $100,000 and $133,000.
• Ability to leverage low code to tackle mundane and repetitive tasks, freeing up time to work on the more customizable parts of the app.