Top 10 Low Code Backends

George Batschinski
5 min readApr 25, 2022

Developers worldwide are embracing low-code development frameworks because they offer pre-built features that make app development assignments faster.

This trend is confirmed by a Statista forecast that states that the low-code development subsector will be worth 65 billion in revenue by 2027. In this article, we shall be reviewing the top low-code backend platforms available globally.

Top 10 Low-Code Backends

Here are the best 10 low-code development platforms in the world today.

Back4app

This platform offers an easy-to-use open-source framework with useful features like REST and GraphQL APIs, file storage, authentication, data modeling, and lots more. Developers and businesses worldwide depend on Back4app’s low-code platform to build feature-rich apps in record time.

Since backend coding is not required, Back4app users can develop mobile and web apps faster with the platform’s tools. For instance, you can build a spreadsheet-like data model and query it using REST or GraphQL APIs.

Price

Back4apps pricing is based on the two service plans on the platform, which are the dedicated and shared hosting plans.

Shared Hosting

  • Free plan
  • Basic Plan costs $25 per month.
  • Standard Plan costs $50 per month.
  • Pay as you go Plan costs $100 per month.

Dedicated Hosting

  • Silver Plan costs $250 per month.
  • Gold Plan costs $400 per month.
  • Platinum Plan costs $100 per month.

Firebase

Firebase offers a secure multi-user platform for managing app development assignments quickly and efficiently. An entire team can use this platform to accelerate development tasks.

This Google-owned backend platform takes the form of a well-structured database for serverless app development. It features a NoSQL framework that allows developers to store data as series and documents. Each document consists of fields containing unique data types.

Firebase depends on REST API for querying data and has a suite of tools that expedite app development assignments.

Pricing

Firebase offers two pricing plans. The free tier offers limited server resources while the Premium plan is charged based on server resources used during a billing period.

Backendless

This is an excellent solution for people that need a cloud app development and hosting platform with features like API builder, authentication, and file storage.

With Backendless, you don’t need to write server-side code to build an app. Simply use the in-build services to configure the server-side functions you need. It supports REST API to connect the backend to frontend tools and offers SDKs for Android, iOS, and JavaScript.

Features of this low-code platform include message subscriptions, push notifications, authenticated API requests, and user privilege management.

Pricing

The Backendless Cloud plan is excellent for individual developers and small businesses. The cost is as follows:

· Free Plan

· Cloud 9 costs $25 per month.

· Cloud 99 costs $99 per month.

Medium and large businesses can consider using the Backendless Pro or Managed Backendless plans. Contact the Backendless team for a quote; this service provider did not publish the costs of the advanced plans on its website.

Kinvey

Kinvey is a low-code platform that provides a serverless environment equipped with a cloud backend and SDKs for building feature-rich apps. With support for file storage, data store, and single sign-on, Kinvey developers can complete app development tasks faster.

The suite of backend features and pre-built components in Kinvey enhances the productivity of developers, giving them more time to focus on building value-add app features.

Pricing

Although the cost of Kinvey service is not published on its website, SaaSworthy reports that the services start at $2,500 per year.

Heroku

Developers can leverage the power of the Heroku cloud platform to build, launch, manage and scale mobile and web apps. Do you have an app idea? Heroku can help you transform the idea into a functional app without the complication of infrastructure management. Many app companies rely on Heroku to provide reliable services to their customers.

The features of Heroku aim at building feature-rich apps and enhancing the development experience. Since Heroku users don’t bother with the hassles of infrastructure and server management, they have more time to focus on their core development projects. This service is excellent for mid-sized and large companies.

Pricing

· Free Plan

· The hobby Plan starts at $7 per month.

· Standard Plan starts at $25 per month.

· The Performance Plan starts at $250 per month.

· Private Plan is quoted on request.

Google App Engine

Google App Engine offers a fully-managed serverless platform for app development. It allows developers to build apps and scale them seamlessly without bothering about infrastructure management. Moreover, apps can also be deployed with zero configuration.

App developers can use any of the multiple languages Google App Engine supports. The in-built platform tools are valuable for speeding up apps development. Developers love this platform for its flexibility and valuable app development tools.

Pricing

· Free Plan

· Pay as you go

Digital Ocean App Platform

Digital Ocean App Platform provides a straightforward managed solution for app development. The platform takes care of the infrastructure, app runtime, and other utilities required to covert codes to functional apps without hassles.

A few of the top features of the Digital Ocean App Platform include a server optimized for app deployment, app security, and a seamless user experience. This is an excellent platform for maximizing productivity and boosting app performance.

Pricing

· Free Plan

· The Basic Plan starts at $5 per month.

· Professional Plan starts at $12 per month.

Parse

Parse is one of the leading low-code open-source backend development frameworks. Developers prefer Parse for its cost-efficiency and amazing functions that make app development procedures faster and more manageable.

Parse is an excellent platform for building apps for games, content management systems, eCommerce, cab-hailing, fitness, and IoT apps. It has been used widely for building chat apps and social networking apps like Facebook and Linkedin.

Pricing

· A free download for self-hosting.

Airtable

Airtable takes the form of a hybrid database spreadsheet ( a spreadsheet interface with database features) that supports cloud collaboration. Features of this platform include support for API, creation of a spreadsheet-like database, collaborative workspace, email integration, data syncing, and much more.

This platform provides a familiar interface for teams to collaborate, organize and maintain data tables.

Pricing

· Free

· Plus Plan costs $10 per month.

· Pro Plan costs $20 per month.

· Enterprise Plan is quoted on request

Xano

Xano is a flexible, no-code, hosted backend platform powered by Postgres. This platform uses Docker to create a stable environment for developers to build, run and scale their apps without hassles.

Users of this platform can access servers that scale seamlessly, a flexible database, and a no-code API builder that allows data integration from multiple sources. It can create REST API endpoints for every data table. The procedure for learning and using Xano is straightforward.

Pricing

· Free Plan

· Launch Plan costs $67 per month.

· Scale Plan costs $225 per month.

· Enterprise Plan is quoted on request.

Conclusion

Given the increased adoption of no-code and low-code app development, many platforms have emerged to cater to the increase in demand.

This article streamlined the top ten platforms for developing apps without extensive coding. Explore them and choose the one that works best for your development needs.

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