Low-Code vs. Custom Code: Let's Talk About Speed and Tech Debt

Mohammad Abu Mattar
Low Code , Custom Code , Technical Debt , Internal Tools , Software Development
Published: 21 Jun, 2025
19 Mins read

In the ever-changing world of making software, there’s always this big question: how do we build things quickly without creating a mess down the road? That’s where “low-code” development comes into play. It’s a way of building software that’s different from the usual “custom code” approach. Custom code gives you lots of control, but it can take a while. So, how do we find that sweet spot where we can build fast but still have a solid system that won’t cause headaches later? That’s what we’re going to explore – balancing speed with something called tech debt.

What’s the Deal with Low-Code Development Anyway?

Basically, low-code development lets you build apps using a visual way of doing things, so you don’t have to write tons of traditional code. Think of it like using building blocks to create something – it’s much faster than making each block from scratch. Gartner, who knows a thing or two about this stuff, says that these low-code platforms help you build and update apps faster using tools that show you the whole app, AI help, and ready-made pieces you can just grab and use. And it’s getting super popular! Gartner thinks that by next year, most companies will be using low-code in some way.

What’s really driving this is that more and more people who aren’t traditional programmers are getting involved in building apps to solve their own problems. These platforms usually have easy-to-use visual tools, lots of pre-built parts, and they can connect with other systems and data easily. You can build all sorts of apps with them, from simple interfaces to complex ways of automating business stuff. Some even have AI that helps you build and automate things. Plus, good low-code platforms have controls to keep things organized, security built-in, and they can grow as your business grows. Interestingly, a lot of them also let you add your own custom code if you need to do something really specific.

So, low-code has really grown from a small thing to a pretty big deal because businesses are under pressure to go digital faster, and there aren’t always enough traditional IT folks around. It’s easy to see why building things faster is appealing to both IT departments wanting to work smarter and business people wanting to create their own solutions. This is leading to better teamwork between business and IT, and it’s making app development more accessible to everyone, which could mean we get better tech solutions faster.

Okay, So What About Custom Code Then?

Well, custom code development is the way software used to be built, where you’re creating everything from the ground up. Skilled developers write code using different programming languages to make software that’s exactly what a business needs. The big thing about custom code is that you have total control and lots of flexibility over every little detail of the app, from how it looks to how it works with other systems. This is different from off-the-shelf software that doesn’t let you change much, and low-code options that use pre-made code pieces.

Usually, custom development is done by professional developers who really know their stuff when it comes to coding. It’s important to remember that custom software needs ongoing maintenance, regular updates, and support from the people who built it to keep it running well. Custom code is still super important for businesses that have really unique ways of working or very specific products that off-the-shelf software just can’t handle. Being able to create software that fits perfectly with how a business works is a huge plus. When standard software doesn’t do exactly what you need, custom code lets you build in very specific logic, connect different systems in unique ways, and make sure security is exactly how you want it.

While custom code gives you amazing control and tailor-made solutions, it usually costs more upfront and takes longer to develop compared to low-code options that can be much faster. Building software from scratch means you need skilled developers, careful planning, lots of coding, and thorough testing, all of which adds to the time and cost. Businesses have to really think about these things when deciding if the total control of custom code is worth it.

Speed: Why Everyone’s Talking About Low-Code

One of the biggest reasons people are excited about low-code is that it can make building software much faster. Low-code platforms speed things up in a few key ways. They have pre-built pieces and easy visual interfaces that let developers, and even people who aren’t really developers, create apps quickly. This means you can get your software out there much faster. By making it easier for business users who know what they need to get involved, low-code frees up the more technical developers to work on the really complicated stuff.

This speed is great for quickly making prototypes – you can get a working model of your idea up and running fast to get feedback. It’s also really useful for creating Minimum Viable Products (MVPs), which are basic versions of your product that let you test your idea and then improve it based on what people say. Platforms like Retool are a good example of this, especially for building internal tools. Retool makes it easy to connect to different databases and APIs, so you don’t have to spend ages writing code to make those connections. It’s got a bunch of pre-built and customizable components that you can just drag and drop to create your user interface, which really speeds things up. Retool is designed to be low-code or even no-code, but it still lets you add custom code if you need it, making it super fast for building those internal apps that businesses rely on.

Plus, the speed of low-code can really help with the backlog of IT projects that a lot of companies have, letting them deliver solutions much more quickly. The visual nature and ready-made parts of low-code platforms are what make this faster development possible compared to writing everything from scratch. By taking away a lot of the coding and giving you those ready-to-use pieces, these platforms cut down on the manual work, leading to faster building and deployment. Low-code platforms, especially ones like Retool, are really handy for internal tools because they can quickly connect to existing data and systems, and they focus on making functional interfaces with minimal coding. Internal tools often need to work with different databases and APIs, and low-code platforms that make this easy and have pre-built components for common internal tasks can save a ton of time and effort. This faster development that low-code offers can make businesses more agile, letting them adapt more quickly to what the market wants and what their customers need. Faster cycles mean new features and apps can be rolled out more often, so businesses can try things, get feedback, and refine their plans more efficiently in a fast-moving business world.

But What About Tech Debt? The Hidden Cost of Speed

While going fast is great, we’ve got to think about something called technical debt in both low-code and custom code development. Basically, tech debt is like taking shortcuts now that might cost you more time and effort later. With low-code, this can happen if you rely too much on those pre-built pieces and have to find awkward ways to make them do things they weren’t really designed for. This can make things complicated and harder to change later. Also, some low-code platforms don’t let you customize things as much as you might need, which can mean you end up with a solution that’s not quite right and might need a lot of fixing later.

Another thing to consider with low-code is getting stuck with one vendor. If you build a lot on a specific platform, it can be really hard or expensive to move away from it because they use their own special systems or data formats. This vendor lock-in can be a form of tech debt itself. Plus, with low-code, you often don’t have as much control over the underlying code, which can make it harder to make things run super efficiently or to figure out really tricky bugs.

Now, custom code isn’t immune to tech debt either. When developers are under pressure to deliver quickly, they might take shortcuts in their coding, use bad practices, or not test things properly, all of which adds to tech debt. Not having good documentation is another big source of tech debt in custom projects because it makes it much harder to maintain, update, and understand the code later. Using old technologies might seem faster now, but it can create security problems and compatibility issues later on. And if you don’t have consistent code reviews and don’t follow good coding standards, you can end up with a messy codebase that’s hard to work with and update, which is a lot of tech debt.

Ignoring tech debt, whether it’s from low-code or custom code, can cause big problems. It can lead to higher costs for fixing bugs and maintaining the software, slow down future development because the code is a mess, and cause performance issues that make the software slow or unreliable. So, while low-code can be fast, it doesn’t automatically mean you won’t have tech debt. The limitations of pre-built parts and not seeing the underlying code can lead to workarounds and dependencies that can become a pain later. The ease of low-code might also tempt people to focus on speed over things like long-term maintainability and how well it will scale, which can lead to problems down the line.

In custom code, the rush to finish can often lead to tech debt through quick fixes and compromises in code quality, testing, and documentation. When the main goal is just to meet deadlines, developers might choose faster, less robust solutions that solve the immediate problem but make the code more complex and inefficient in the long run. This trade-off between short-term speed and long-term maintainability is what tech debt is all about. So, managing tech debt is really important in both low-code and custom code to make sure your software stays healthy, easy to maintain, and can grow as needed. If you ignore it, you’ll likely see development slow down, maintenance costs go up, and performance suffer. Taking a proactive approach to find, prioritize, and fix tech debt is crucial for any software project, no matter how you build it.

Low-Code vs. Custom Code: Let’s Break It Down

When you really compare low-code and custom code in terms of speed and tech debt, some key differences pop out. When it comes to speed, low-code usually wins in the beginning because you can build and deploy things much faster using those visual tools and pre-made pieces. Custom code, on the other hand, takes longer because you’re building everything from scratch, which means more time for planning, coding, and testing.

Regarding tech debt, both can have it, but it often comes from different places. In low-code, it might be from the platform’s limitations, leading to workarounds or relying on specific platform features that could cause problems later. With custom code, it’s often about how the code is written – taking shortcuts, writing bad code, or not documenting things well, which makes the code harder to maintain.

Choosing between them means thinking about the trade-offs between getting something out quickly and the long-term effects on tech debt. Going with the speed of low-code might mean less flexibility and more reliance on that platform, potentially leading to tech debt in the form of workarounds or platform limitations. On the flip side, custom code is slower at first but gives you more control, which, if you code well, can help you manage tech debt better in the long run.

Cost is another thing to think about, both the initial cost of development and the ongoing cost of dealing with tech debt. Low-code might seem cheaper initially because it’s faster and might not need as many specialized developers, but if you rack up tech debt, maintenance could get expensive later. Custom code usually costs more upfront and takes longer, but if the code is good and tech debt is managed, it could be cheaper to maintain in the long run.

So, the choice between low-code and custom code often comes down to whether you need speed right now or if you’re more focused on avoiding long-term tech debt and platform limitations. Faster development, no matter if it’s low-code or just taking shortcuts in custom code, can increase the chances of getting tech debt. When the focus is just on getting things done fast, important things like code quality, thorough testing, and good documentation might get missed, leading to a codebase that’s harder and more expensive to deal with later.

That’s why businesses really need to think about their specific project needs, their long-term plans, and what resources they have when deciding between low-code and custom code. They’ve got to find that right balance between how fast they need to go and how much tech debt they’re willing to take on. There’s no single right answer. It really depends on things like how complex the app is, how much customization you need, how important things like scalability and security are, and how good you are at managing tech debt over time.

Got Questions? Let’s Tackle Some FAQs

To make things even clearer, let’s go through some common questions people have about low-code and custom code.

The main difference is how much coding you have to do. Traditional development involves a lot of manual coding by skilled developers, while low-code uses visual tools and pre-built components to minimize coding, making it easier for more people to build apps, even if they don’t have a coding background.

Nope, low-code isn’t meant to replace developers. It’s more like a helpful tool that can make their jobs easier and let non-technical people help out with the development process. Low-code platforms can automate some of the more routine tasks, so developers can focus on the really complex and important projects.

On the plus side, low-code can speed up development and lower costs because you’re building apps faster with visual tools and pre-made pieces. It also lets people who aren’t coders create working apps, which is great for internal tools and automating processes. But, the downsides can be limited options for customization, getting stuck with a particular vendor, and it might not be the best for really complex apps.

The good things about traditional development are that you get highly customized solutions with lots of flexibility, it can scale well for long-term growth, it can have strong security, and it can integrate with other systems easily. The bad things can be higher costs upfront and for maintenance, it takes longer to develop, and you need developers with specific coding skills.

Both low-code and no-code try to make building apps simpler, but low-code might still need a little bit of coding knowledge for more advanced stuff, while no-code lets you build apps entirely with visual interfaces without writing any code at all.

A business might want to switch if the costs of the low-code platform go up a lot, if there are security risks with the platform, or if the platform’s performance starts to limit their growth. Custom development becomes more appealing when you need to connect deeply with other systems and when you need to scale beyond what the platform can handle.

Custom development can really boost efficiency by getting rid of the need for workarounds that you often have with off-the-shelf or low-code solutions. It lets you create workflows that are exactly tailored to how your business works and makes sure things run smoothly by integrating deeply with your systems.

Low-code platforms are generally easier to pick up for new developers compared to traditional development, which requires learning programming languages, frameworks, and complex coding concepts.

Apps built with traditional custom code usually offer better scalability and flexibility to handle more users and complexity compared to low-code apps, which might have limitations depending on the platform.

No-code/low-code platforms offer faster development, lower costs, and more flexibility for updates. However, they can have limited features and might not perform as well as custom-built solutions.

Generally, no, no-code/low-code platforms don’t cause much friction with traditional developers. They’re often seen as serving a different part of the software development market, and developers can often work together with citizen developers, using the strengths of both approaches.

While some enterprise-level no-code/low-code solutions have gotten better at scaling, they often don’t measure up to custom-built software, especially for really complex and demanding apps.

When Does Low-Code Shine? Let’s Look at Some Uses

Low-code is great for a lot of practical situations where you need speed and ease of use. One big one is building internal tools. With low-code, businesses can quickly create things like admin panels for support teams, dashboards to see data, and tools to automate internal processes. Because it’s easy to connect to existing databases and APIs, low-code is perfect for making those custom internal apps that help businesses run better.

Another area where low-code is really useful is for rapid prototyping and making Minimum Viable Products (MVPs). The visual interfaces and pre-built parts let teams quickly turn ideas into working models, so they can get feedback faster and make improvements. This speed is super important for startups and companies that want to test new ideas and see if there’s a market for them without spending a lot of time and money.

Workflow automation is another area where low-code platforms are a big help. Automating tasks that are done over and over, standardizing support requests, and creating set ways of doing projects are just some of the things low-code lets teams do to be more productive and work together better. By making processes digital that used to be manual and take a lot of time, low-code helps organizations be more efficient and make fewer mistakes.

Low-code also plays a role in modernizing old systems. Instead of completely replacing outdated systems, which can be expensive and take a long time, businesses can use low-code platforms to build new, user-friendly apps that work with the old systems or slowly replace their functions with more modern solutions. This lets them make changes gradually and minimizes disruption to their main business operations.

Creating customer and employee portals is another area where low-code offers a lot of advantages. These self-service portals can make things better for customers and employees, improve communication, and give people easy access to information and services, which ultimately makes things more efficient and satisfying. The ability to reuse interfaces and tailor features to specific user needs makes low-code platforms great for building these kinds of apps quickly and affordably.

For simpler apps that are mostly about managing data, like basic CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) applications, low-code platforms provide a straightforward way to build working solutions without needing a lot of coding. These kinds of apps are common for managing internal data and can be deployed quickly using low-code.

Finally, low-code platforms are being used more and more for data collection and analysis. They have tools to build apps for gathering data from different places, creating charts and graphs, and generating reports, which helps businesses get valuable insights from their data without the complexity of traditional development. The speed and ease with which these data-focused apps can be built make low-code a powerful tool for making decisions based on data.

When Does Custom Code Still Rule?

While low-code is great for many things, there are times when the flexibility and control of custom code development are really necessary. For complex applications that need intricate business logic, unique algorithms, or very specialized features, custom code is often the only way to go. Low-code platforms, because they rely on pre-built components, might not give you the fine-grained control you need to implement these kinds of sophisticated features efficiently.

Similarly, if a business has unique needs that the standard components and templates in low-code platforms just can’t handle, then custom code development becomes essential. This is especially true when you need to connect with existing, often older, systems, as custom code lets you create specific integration logic and APIs that might not be available in low-code platforms.

Applications that have high-security requirements and deal with sensitive data often need the strong security measures and compliance protocols that you can carefully put in place with custom code development. While many low-code platforms have security features built-in, organizations with very strict security and compliance rules might prefer the detailed control over security that custom code offers.

When you need performance optimization, especially for apps that get a lot of traffic or handle a lot of data, custom code development lets you fine-tune the app’s performance, speed, and how it uses resources in a way that’s often not possible with low-code platforms. Developers can write very efficient code and optimize database queries to make sure things run well even under heavy load.

Deep integrations with older systems or third-party services that need very specific integration logic or custom APIs often require the flexibility of custom code development. Low-code platforms might have pre-built connectors for common systems, but for complex or unique integration needs, you’ll often need the custom solutions that you can create with custom code.

If a project needs unique user interfaces and experiences that go beyond what the standard templates and drag-and-drop interfaces of low-code platforms can offer, custom code gives you the freedom to design and build highly customized and branded user experiences that can make your app stand out and keep users engaged.

Finally, for applications that need long-term scalability and the ability to evolve without being limited by a specific platform, custom code development offers the most flexibility. Custom-built apps can be designed to grow significantly over time and to adapt to future technologies without the risk of being stuck with a particular vendor’s plans or capabilities.

Retool: A Look at Low-Code in Action

Retool is a great example of a low-code platform that’s specifically designed for building internal tools efficiently. It offers a lot of benefits for organizations that want to make their internal operations smoother. One of its big strengths is its speed and efficiency. Retool lets developers easily connect to all sorts of databases and APIs, so they don’t have to spend time writing a lot of code for those connections. Plus, it has a library of over 100 pre-built and customizable React components that developers can just drag and drop to create user interfaces, which really speeds up the process.

While Retool is all about low-code and even no-code, it also lets you add custom code using things like SQL, JavaScript, and Python if you need to do something more complex or specific that the pre-built components can’t handle. This mix of approaches lets you build quickly without losing the power of custom coding when you need it.

Retool also has a robust development environment with built-in debugging tools that let developers see what’s going on under the hood, like stack traces and query run times. This makes it easier to find and fix problems during development. It also integrates with Git for version control, so you can track changes and collaborate with other developers.

Scalability and security are also important for Retool. It’s designed to help you build internal tools that can grow as your business grows, from simple admin panels to complex partner portals. Retool has enterprise-grade security features, including things like SOC 2 Type II compliance, detailed permissions, custom Single Sign-On (SSO), and audit logs, so you can be sure your internal tools are secure. It even has a Secrets Manager to help you keep sensitive information like API keys safe.

Finally, Retool helps with collaboration and governance within organizations. It lets teams securely share data connections and queries, which makes it easier to work together and avoids doing the same work twice. For bigger organizations with lots of teams and apps, Retool offers ways to manage everything centrally, ensuring consistency and control over how internal tools are developed across the company.

Retool can be used for all sorts of important internal software, like admin panels, SQL dashboards, automated workflows, and secure partner portals. By giving you a comprehensive set of tools and features, Retool helps developers create strong and scalable internal apps quickly and efficiently, while also helping to manage and potentially reduce the tech debt that can often come with internal tooling.

Finding the Right Balance: Making the Choice

Finding the right balance between building software quickly and managing technical debt means thinking carefully about your options. When you’re trying to decide between low-code and custom code, there are a few key things to consider. The complexity of your project and how much customization you need are really important. For simpler apps with clear requirements and a need to get them out fast, low-code might be the way to go. But for more complex projects that need very specific features or unique integrations, custom code is often the better choice.

You also need to weigh how important speed to market is against the long-term effects on maintainability and scalability. Low-code can get you there faster initially, but you need to think about whether the limitations or workarounds might lead to more tech debt and make it harder to grow or adapt later. The resources you have, including your budget and the skills of your development team, will also play a big role. Low-code platforms might lower development costs and not require as many specialized developers, while custom code projects usually need a team with specific coding skills and might have a larger budget. And finally, the security and compliance needs of your app are critical. Apps that handle sensitive data or are in regulated industries might need the tighter security control that custom code development offers.

No matter which way you go, managing tech debt proactively is key for the long-term health of your software. In custom code projects, this means doing code reviews to make sure the code is good and follows standards. Using automated testing helps find and fix problems early on. Keeping clear and thorough documentation makes it easier to maintain and update the code later. And it’s important to fix the tech debt that could really hurt the app’s performance or stability.

In low-code projects, managing tech debt means choosing platforms that give you some flexibility and control, so you can extend what the platform can do when you need to. It’s also important not to rely too much on workarounds for limitations, as these can make things more complex down the road. Making the identification and fixing of tech debt a regular part of your development process, rather than something you do later, is a good strategy for both low-code and custom code. By always thinking about tech debt throughout the development process, organizations can better balance the need for speed with the need to build software that lasts and is easy to maintain.

Wrapping Up: Finding Your Sweet Spot

In the end, deciding between the speed of low-code and the control of custom code is all about carefully considering a lot of different things. There’s no single right answer; it’s about making a strategic choice based on what your project needs, what resources you have, and what your long-term goals are. Businesses need to really think about the trade-offs between getting things done quickly and the potential for tech debt, knowing that both approaches have their own pros and cons. As software development keeps changing, with low-code becoming more and more powerful, being able to make smart decisions about the right tools and strategies will be key to success in the digital age.