Low-code vs. the developer: An empirical study on the developer experience and efficiency of a no-code platform

The shortage of competent software developers has led to increased interest in Low-Code Development Platforms (LCDPs), which enable application development with no or minimal coding by leveraging pre-built components. This study explores whether LCDPs can fulfill their promise of empowering "citizen developers" (CDs) without extensive programming experience. Our paper involves a two-part empirical study. First, we conducted semi-structured interviews with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to understand their acceptance of LCDPs and identify potential barriers, such as the need for extensive training. Second, we performed a quantitative experiment to compare the performance of programmers and CDs using a prototype no-code builder. The results reveal no significant difference in task correctness or processing time between the two groups, suggesting that the training concerns for CDs may be overstated. These findings indicate that LCDPs could indeed democratize software development, allowing SMEs to develop necessary applications cost-effectively with minimal training requirements.