Low Code Vs No Code Tool for creating an API
Saurabh Pandey
7 replies
Suppose you have to develop an API or a set of APIs. What would be your preferred Approch?
No Code Tool: Develop API hosted somewhere so you could just start using the API
OR
Low Code Tool: Develop API using your preferred stack, Get the output as raw code, host it on your server.
Replies
Artem Smirnov@artem_smirnov
Depends on what you mean by "develop an API". In most cases you need an API for your backend code. Or you just use someone else's API. How do you "develop API with no code"? Can you give me an example?
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@artem_smirnov Hmmm seems perfect.
I am trying to build a Low code tool that will help in creating the base structure of API for different stacks ( Django / NodeJS / PHP ). The outcome of the process would be in form of raw code. The same low code tool will help the user to deploy the API on the server with minimum effort.
Would that be helpful?
As a user would be helpful to you?
Something like the user creating a small configuration around API and relevant tables. Passing configuration to low code tool which then creates the whole Backend Application. The same Low code tool will help to deploy the application on the Server with just 2-3 commands.
@artem_smirnov it would be someone else's API.
Let's take an example of an API to collect some events records from Android and iOS platforms on POST request and GET would just return the collected events.
A no-code tool example could be Airtable.
@dextrop it's really hard to say in advance, but in most cases it's easier to write your own code than learning your config tool and going through all the configuration steps. Also, most of the devs hate code generation tools.
But maybe it's just my inertia, and I would really save some time by using this tool. I know that boilerplate solutions are actually quite popular. Perhaps an explainer video would help me make a better decision.
@artem_smirnov Agree with you completely, especially with the statement "most of the devs hate code generation tools."
Also yeah onboarding for such tools becomes a hardship, We are working on making it as much easy as we can. Something like passing a spreadsheet with columns name in the first row, If the spreadsheet has some filled data the tool will be able to identify type of column as well. Each sheet pointing to a table in DB.
Well, Thank you so much for you time. Will let you know in the first place.
We are working on low-code platform where you can easily provide rest API or CRUDL API with open API definition and generated client side of app. Or connect to external API (base on open API definition) where platform will generate client part for you.