Low Code Platforms vs Custom Development

What each low code platform is good at

Low code is not one thing. Tepia has evaluated and integrated with most of the major platforms and they fit different jobs.

• Softr and Glide turn a spreadsheet or Airtable base into a simple web or mobile web app. Excellent for a directory, a lightweight portal or a data entry tool for a small team. Limited logic, limited offline, limited scale.
• Bubble is a full visual web app builder with its own database and workflow engine. Founders build real MVPs on it. Performance degrades with data volume, mobile is via wrappers, and the app lives on Bubble’s infrastructure.
• Retool builds internal admin panels and dashboards on top of your existing databases and APIs.
• Power Apps, AppSheet and similar suit companies already inside Microsoft or Google ecosystems, with per user licensing and enterprise controls.

Tepia has written about low code before and the view has not changed: these tools are the right first step for a surprising number of internal problems, and the wrong final step for any product your customers use.

The thresholds where low code stops fitting

Tepia sees the same thresholds across clients who arrive with a low code tool they have outgrown.

Two or more rows in the right hand column is Tepia’s signal to talk about custom. One row can often be handled with a hybrid approach described below.

Where Tepia still recommends low code

Tepia is a custom development studio and still points people to low code regularly. If your operations team needs a tracker for a process that ten people run, build it in Softr or Retool this week. If you are a founder testing whether anyone wants the product, a Bubble MVP is cheaper than Tepia’s Discovery phase and teaches you things a spec cannot. If you need an admin panel over a database Tepia already built for you, Retool is a fine choice and Tepia will set it up.

What Tepia adds in these cases is the architecture advice: keep your data in a real database (PostgreSQL, not the platform’s internal store) from the start, so that when you outgrow the tool the data does not have to be rescued. Tepia’s guide to building an internal tool covers the pick low code or custom step in detail.

How Tepia approaches low code vs custom decisions

Tepia applies its six phase process, with a Discovery that regularly ends in a recommendation to stay on low code for now.

1. Deliverables: Investigation Summary with the threshold table scored for your situation, Interview Summary and User Stories. Typically 1 to 3 months, often 3 to 6 weeks for an internal tool.
2. Design. Design questionnaire, style guide, detailed wireframes and sample designs. For internal tools Tepia designs for speed of data entry and clear status over visual polish.
3. Development and Testing. Alpha and Beta schedules with functional, user acceptance and non functional testing, including data migration rehearsals from the low code platform and load testing at the user count you expect in three years.
4. Training. In person and remote hands on sessions built around the user story scenarios your team runs daily.
5. Launch. Data migration from Bubble, Airtable or Glide, a parallel run period, transition from the old tool and Tepia support reps on rollout.

The hybrid Tepia uses most: low code admin, custom everything customers touch

The most common outcome of a Tepia Discovery on this question is a hybrid. Keep Retool or a similar tool for internal admin screens where a few operations staff need tables and buttons. Have Tepia build the custom parts: the native mobile app field staff or customers use, the backend and database you own, the integrations with QuickBooks, Salesforce, HubSpot or ServiceTitan, and any logic that must be exactly right.

It also means the low code tool sits on top of your database rather than being your database, so it can be swapped later without a migration.

Related pages: custom internal tools for operations teams, build vs buy software, custom web application development. Review Tepia’s work, services and process, or contact Tepia with a description of the tool you have outgrown.

Frequently asked questions