There is a stereotype that low-code platforms create software that is slow and limited in functionality. As with any stereotype, there is some truth to that, but not much.
To find out what the reality is, at first, we need to start with how high-performance systems are built using general-purpose programming languages. Let’s get to the bottom of this and then confront it with what low-code has to offer. Is custom programming really such a great advantage compared to low-code solutions? Or is it a drawback?
What makes software “slow”?
What does "slow" really mean in terms of a typical enterprise application? By "typical" I mean a 3-layer classic: Web UI + service backend + databases. "Slow" can come from:
Database queries being far from optimal - missing indexes, outdated statistics, bad join strategies etc.
Unnecessary queries - missing caches or “chatty” algorithms assuming that fetching more data from database or external services is free and i...
