When people hear anything about software development, an image of a specialist staring at a screen full of incomprehensible math symbols and obscure commands comes to mind. This image was very relevant just 10 years ago: programming really involved the use of complex languages that required a combination of engineering, math, and logical skills to navigate. As a result, software development was not available to many companies on the market due to the pervasive shortage of specialists.
Many things have changed in the last 10 years. Between 2015 and 2025, a large number of no-code platforms came into being or matured into viable development solutions. Today, we have multiple no-code platforms on the market that offer business-ready and easy-to-use software development solutions. Some of the most well-known apps include Webflow, Zapier, Bubble, and FlutterFlow. No-code is no longer science fiction: these technologies are helping thousands of businesses develop high-quality software.
We want to discuss the impact of this technology on the market and answer one of the pressing questions (especially considering recent AI coding innovations): are traditional developers becoming obsolete?
Understanding No-Code
First and foremost, let's start with definitions. No-code tools are solutions that allow users to create complex software without writing any code. Their primary goal is to facilitate development through a drag-and-drop UI/UX, ideally requiring no code or only minimal coding for the most complex features, such as 3D graphics integration or innovative capabilities.
This feature is vital not only for individual users, who can create their dream apps without hiring software developers, but also for businesses. We are seeing the rise of the Bubble development agency market, which leverages one of the most powerful no-code solutions, for a reason.
In the past, software development typically followed a model with a large number of intermediaries. Before development, one had to work with a team of marketing specialists and designers to agree upon the final look of the product. Software developers usually could start developing full-scale products only after receiving a fully approved design document. This approach was far from optimal in many cases. Software developers often ran the risk of misunderstanding their colleagues' instructions and straying from the original design.
In turn, marketing specialists and designers without extensive coding experience could ask for features that were impossible to implement with the current technologies or within a budget. All this was leading to conflicts within teams and massive delays for some projects.
No-code solves this problem once and for all because designers and marketing specialists can now develop apps themselves and ask traditional software developers to work on the most difficult parts of various apps, such as the backend.
Even if development follows a more or less traditional approach, with no-code developers taking instructions from marketing and design specialists, no-code solutions nonetheless remove many typical risks. It is easier for nonspecialists to understand their limits and propose changes that are realistic and fully correspond to the capabilities of no-code platforms.
Advantages of No-Code Platforms
Let's take a look at some core advantages of no-code platforms. We have already mentioned one of them: it enables specialists who do not know how to code to create their own apps. The technology removes many communication barriers that used to exist in the past.
There are other advantages, of course. No-code platforms speed up development. A no-code specialist or a traditional developer with good knowledge of modern approaches to app creation can use the simplicity of drag-and-drop interfaces in no-code solutions to deliver apps in record time. In the best scenarios (for example, if the development requirements are as clear as possible), it is possible to speed up development by 100% percent. In less perfect scenarios, the gains can also be quite significant, reaching between 20% and 40%.
The final advantage here is cost efficiency. Many no-code platforms offer cloud and hosting services as part of their product package. This means that you not only save time and money on development but also do not have to spend money on servers and their maintenance. No-code platforms already have everything preconfigured for your DevOps specialists, offering sane defaults and user-friendly configuration tools. This is perfect for small businesses that often do not have enough money for advanced maintenance.
Limitations of No-Code Solutions
Obviously, there are some limits, too. No-code solutions are not very good for complex projects that offer many unique features that have never appeared on the market before. No-code solutions typically provide the most commonly used features (for example, maps) and app integrations.
You can also create custom elements, of course, but the main idea here is to combine them with non-custom. If your app is mostly custom (video games are a common example), then no-code solutions are far from perfect because they create customization constraints and major challenges for scalability.
The Role of Traditional Developers in a No-Code World
So, what about traditional developers in the world of no-code? Are they going to eventually disappear altogether? Obviously, no. Firstly, even if no-code solutions eventually enable us to create even the most complex apps without coding, every company will still require experts who will be able to assess whether the app code is stable and fix any issues if necessary. This is especially important due to the rise of AI coding, which, contrary to the common misconception, raises the demands for software developers' skills because it enables more complex apps that are likely to have significantly more complex bugs.
Secondly, we find it very unlikely that no-code apps will move beyond the most common use cases in the upcoming years. Demand for complex apps is rising: thus, traditional development may move out of the everyday consumer space into manufacturing, creating a basis for a new industrial transformation. Lastly, no-code solutions still can benefit from custom code.
Platforms like Bubble or FlutterFlow enable custom scripts; some even have libraries of custom modules created by the community. This means that traditional developers can leverage no-code solutions to create boilerplate code, focusing on the most complex aspects of development instead.
Conclusion
To summarize, no-code solutions enable many positive transformations in the app development space. The future of this technology appears to be very promising. The rise of AI coding can reinvigorate those platforms by allowing users to create custom modules for their apps quickly. Traditional developers will not disappear in these conditions: their role will shift towards code optimization and creation of highly complex features that no-code and AI tools cannot deliver.
The market responds to these shifts accordingly: many software development firms like Keenethics are offering no-code development services. Today, no-code technology is no longer reserved for non-specialists. It is used by professional developers, too.
