On May 31, Hipa Cloud, a vendor of low-code solutions, announced its official cessation of service.

Founded in 2019, Hipa Cloud announced its Series A funding in July last year. Later, it was acquired by ByteDance's Feishu. Despite being well-capitalized and highly anticipated, startups like Hipa Cloud still struggle to survive.

In recent years, low-code platforms have a burgeoning market, but for many enterprises, how the technology continues to develop and how the business model evolves remains an enigma. Amidst the boom, the promising company became the first low-code vendor in China to announce its withdrawal.

"April 1, 2019 - May 31, 2022

Hipa Cloud will cease service on May 31, 2022.

Hipa Cloud is a leading codeless application-building platform that enables business users to develop information-driven software without involving IT professionals. Founded in 2019, the company was acquired at the end of 2021 and has decided to cease operations.

Thanks to the customers, employees, and investors who accompany us all the way, you make everything happen."

(Source: https://hipacloud.com/)

High demand from the market

The concept of low-code itself is not new to the public, as some see it as an "old wine in a new bottle," suspecting a form of hype.

In 2000, the Visual Programming Language (VPL) was born. Forrester, a leading international market research firm, introduced the concept of "low/zero code" in 2014, defined it as a rapid method of creating applications without coding or with only a few lines of code. As of 2018, Gartner introduced the concepts of aPaaS and iPaaS, and starting in 2019, China has entered a phase of relatively rapid growth in the low-code market.

Visual development has been around for a long time, but none of them has significantly impacted how applications are designed. The wave of digitalization has created a significant application gap, which is why low-code platforms are returning to prominence after an absence.

Recent technological advances, such as 5G, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things, have urged more and more organizations to accelerate their digital transformations. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has driven enterprises to find ways to transform in a more efficient manner. Through increased delivery agility in the development of applications, low-code has been one of valuable options available to reduce costs and promote efficiency .

The low-code business caught some attention when OutSystems was valued at more than $1 billion in 2018. Later, Siemens announced that Mendix, a low-code application development platform, had been acquired for 600 million euros. Almost at the same time, tech giants like AWS, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle have entered the low-code field.

Low-code platforms also enjoyed a positive response from the Chinese market. According to Gartner, digital transformation in China will require at least 500 million new applications in the next five years to meet demand, and low-code will no doubt hold great potential for this market. According to reports, from 2018 to 2020, there were 16 funding and investment events in China's low-code fields, totaling nearly RMB1.5 billion, with a valuation of about RMB 7 billion for most low-code companies.

With the influx of big players into the low-code field, opportunities have been expanded. Last January, along with the release of Version 6.0, DingTalk announced the complete opening of the underlying capabilities and 1,300 APIs, proposing the "low-code revolution." Zhang Jianfeng, President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said at the launch that cloud-based DingTalk would enable brand-new software development, and he expected 10 million apps to be developed on DingTalk within the next three years. According to information, more than 2.4 million low-code applications were available on DingTalk at the end of December 2021.

Uncertainty surrounds the future

Low-code companies are currently in their infancy in China, and the industry landscape is not as clear as it should be, despite the market's rapid growth and capital advantage. This could result in a major reshuffle in the near future. Moreover, the immaturity of low-code platforms and business models continues to be a limiting factor for most startups.

Low-code tools offer clear advantages from a technical standpoint. Firstly, low-code platforms can more effectively respond to development needs by allowing users to drag and drop components, reducing project costs and delivery cycles compared to full-code development.

Second, these tools can be used to enable business workers to participate in application development and help promote universal development in business and IT collaborations.

However, the shortcomings of low-code tools are also apparent.

First, we must consider the conflict between generality and customization. To reduce the development threshold, we should make the limited packages cover as many scenarios as possible. However, in reality, application scenarios are very different, and any modifications to a trial scenario may increase the upfront cost of the trial and error.

The second concern is security. Low-code vendors do not allow developers to review and test encapsulated code modules. If low-code tools cannot guarantee security control, enterprises will have to invest in third-party security management mechanisms, which will increase operational costs.

Meanwhile, the low-code market has yet to be explored regarding business models. It is challenging for low-code vendors, whether they focus on products or customized services.

First, a range of alternative tools are available, most of which are free of charge. For small and medium-sized businesses, the primary challenge is how to make users comfortable with and willing to utilize low-code. Aside from that, it is unclear whether the business logic can work smoothly and achieve the scale effect.

A second disadvantage is that application types are insufficient, and it is challenging to develop an ecosystem. Low-code is still in its infancy as an enterprise service, and it is hard to survive without the support of a large ecosystem of applications. This platform-based low-code model is effective not due to its differentiation or any real advantages but because DingTalk is an efficient collaborative office platform that can create a sizeable development ecosystem.

Third, there is the chain effect after big players have entered the market. There was a surge of companies entering the low-code market around 2020, such as Alibaba's Dingdingda and Tencent's WeDa. Industry insiders speculated that Hipa Cloud's decision to be acquired had been made following a thorough assessment of its pros and cons. Rather than relying on their own development, it would be better for small startups to expand with the resources and ecosystem advantages of tech behemoths.

A lack of mature technology and business models makes it difficult to predict the future of the low-code market, but it also displays a kind of wild growth of vitality. Following the brutal competition, the next generation of low-code will become a joint proposition in the industry when the market becomes saturated.

Views from developers

The rise of low-code companies has centered public attention on the concept of "universal development" and the idea that non-developers can build applications. Diverse developers from our reader community have expressed divergent views on the subject.

Who can benefit from low-code?

coeus: "Low-code tools seem unsuitable for developers. Visual programming, low-code, and zero-code emphasize the concept of "developer-free, open access." Therefore, a mass-market product must be simple, easy to use, and require low customization. Additionally, similar low-code features for developers can be grouped into components, tools, and modules, which are not considered low-code products."

Bianchenglangzi: "Low-code primarily offers two service models: business-oriented and developer-oriented. For instance, Alibaba and Tencent's open-source low-code platforms are only available to professionals."

Zhang Yegui: "Low-code is not intended for developers but for business users familiar with the software. There is no doubt that low-code fits the business scenarios well since most of the business logic is encapsulated, and most of the work is automated. Meanwhile, low-code is much more difficult to use when integrating strong coupling or data into a business process."

What are the applications of low-code?

Lao Huang: "Low code should be the solution if the scenario is complex. If the scenario is simple, it is not necessary."

Kevin: "As for me, low-code tools work in generic (standardized) scenarios and does not have much to do with complex requirements."

17 Nian: "Low-code seems more suitable for standardized processes, such as questionnaires, matter declarations, and other services requiring little interaction."

Zizhu: "Low-code means customization. Typically, customization entails more solidified code, less content that can be changed, and a greater level of parameterization. However, customizability and universality have an inverse relationship, and such paradoxes have no solution."

Feihu: "Implementation of low-code will depend on the industries and their needs, and these needs should be adapted to low-code. I believe that if a product-based low code applies to an extensive range of industries, users can slightly modify it based on their process to improve their efficiency. However, the initial investment costs are relatively high, and whether an organization needs the solution depends on its scalability."

How valuable is low-code to developers?

Looffy: "I think developers don't want to use it (can't deal with complex business), and non-developers do not know how to use it (some basic programming knowledge may be needed)."

Signx: "A prototype can be built very quickly with low code tools, and it is ideal for uncomplicated business, such as informatization, for automating some manual processes."

Timo: "Low-code is still in its early stages and is far from being mature. Only a clear distinction between a universal low-code platform and a vertical low-code platform has been established, and we call it maturity. Developers can use a low-code platform as a tool for daily management, which helps increase development efficiency. The particular use of low-code depends upon the individual. For instance, rather than letting newbies use low-code to improve performance, teaching them some practical development techniques would be more effective."

Conclusion

Indeed, there are still many limitations to low-code, but compared to traditional software development's high cost and long lead time, low-code has advantages that cannot be ignored in specific scenarios.

It remains to be seen how low-code products will continue to meet market demand in the future. Is it better to add additional features or keep the design simple? Would it be more appropriate to open more interfaces to encourage other developers to participate or separate scenarios further for more differentiated approaches? It would be best if you always exercised caution to avoid trial and error and make adjustments promptly.

It is still unknown whether and when "universal software development" will become more prevalent, but for vendors offering low-code products, listen to customers' voices, make good products, and the day will finally arrive.