The Hidden Issues with Low-Code Integration Platforms

No-code and low-code integration platforms have gained popularity for their promise to simplify complex integration tasks through user-friendly interfaces and pre-built API connectors. While these platforms can be beneficial for basic use cases, they come with significant limitations that can hinder scalability, flexibility, and long-term operational efficiency for B2B SaaS companies.

Below is an exploration of their key shortcomings, and why you should consider a code-first approach to integrations.

Limited Flexibility With API Interactions

No-code and low-code platforms often rely on standardized API connectors that simplify data interactions into predefined workflows. While this approach reduces the complexity of integration development, it also imposes rigid constraints including:

• Predefined Functionalities: Users are restricted to a fixed set of CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations or webhook functionalities, which may not meet unique business requirements.

• Delayed Updates: When APIs evolve or new beta APIs are introduced, users must wait for the platform vendor to update the connectors. This delay can impede innovation and responsiveness to market demands.

• Prioritization Issues: Vendors prioritize popular APIs, leaving less commonly used APIs unsupported or poorly maintained.

  
  

These constraints limit the ability of businesses to customize integrations or adapt quickly to evolving needs, creating bottlenecks in innovation.

Specialized Skill Requirement

No-code and low-code platforms are often sold as a way to avoid using expensive engineering resources to develop integrations. But the tools themselves still require someone to use and manage them, and this specialized knowledge is hard to hire for. They often require:

• Technical Skills: In order to build the integrations, you need to hire someone who is technical enough to understand the systems being integrated, and have some knowledge of how integrations work.

• Low Cost: To avoid the costs associated with using engineering talent, you need to find workers who are willing and capable of doing this work at a lower cost.

  
  

The above two points are often in direct competition with each other, and the talent pool for these very niche requirements is not large, meaning that this is often an incredibly difficult role to hire for. There are also often limited career paths within an organization for someone in this role, which further compounds the ability to attract and retain the necessary staff.

Engineering Resources Still Required

While no-code and low-code tools aim to empower non-developers, they often fail and still require engineering resources. When engineers are brought in to help, the systems are often challenging for them to work with due to:

• No-Code Visual Workflows: Visual workflow builders require intricate branching logic with hundreds of decision trees, making visual workflows cumbersome and error-prone. For engineers that are used to working in code, they require a learning curve to understand what has been built, and what they need to update.

• Lack of Standard Practices: These platforms often lack support for essential developer practices such as code reviews, automated testing, and version control, leading to reduced quality and slower iteration cycles.

  
  

As a result, developers frequently prefer traditional coding environments that offer greater control and efficiency.

Scalability Challenges

No-code/low-code platforms struggle with handling high data volumes and complex workflows due to their underlying design. Scalability becomes an issue because of:

• Event-Based Architecture: Many platforms are optimized for small-scale event-based integrations but falter when processing large datasets or executing resource-intensive tasks like ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) operations.

• Legacy Technology: Older platforms may experience slow syncs or timeouts when dealing with large-scale operations.

• Usage Limits: These tools often impose strict limits on API calls, webhooks, or workflow executions, further restricting scalability.

  
  

For businesses requiring robust data processing capabilities or high-throughput integrations, these limitations can significantly reduce the platform's utility.

Unpredictable Pricing Models

The pricing structures of no-code/low-code platforms can be difficult to predict due to usage-based fees. This often will require integrations to be designed in specific ways to avoid incurring extra costs. Unpredictable pricing is often caused by:

• Variable Costs: Charges are often based on metrics like API calls or data volume, which are influenced by customer behavior and external systems—factors that are hard to control or estimate.

• Unexpected Expenses: Businesses may face unexpected cost spikes if customers perform high-frequency actions (e.g., repeatedly triggering API calls).

  
  

This lack of pricing transparency complicates budgeting and can lead to financial unpredictability, as well as the need to build and maintain integrations in ways that reduce cost - which requires additional human resources to do.

Conclusion: Weighing Alternatives

While no-code/low-code platforms may suit simpler use cases or small-scale operations, their limitations make them less suitable for businesses with complex integration needs or ambitions for scalability. For B2B SaaS companies seeking greater flexibility and control, they need to consider either building the integrations natively in-house, or looking for a code-first platform.

Considering that for many B2B SaaS companies integrations are crucial to their business, investing in robust and scalable integrations makes sense.