When you think of a bunch of programmers hacking away in their basements late at night with strings of text in front of them on their computer screens. This is custom software development. It’s when you write things from scratch. Or a more boring formal definition of it is this:

Custom Software Development is the process of conceptualizing, designing, building and deploying software for a specific individual or a group of individuals within an organization or as a third-party arrangement. From: leewayhertz.com

The beauty of custom software development is that you can build whatever your heart desires, anything that is possible with code is possible with custom software development. When a great team of devs builds something from scratch they are able to build it in a way that will scale seamlessly. It also allows you to adjust the software down the line.

Low code or no code, are ways of developing apps that make it so instead of writing text to build out apps you can build it in a visual way. Generally you use some type of tool like Bubble.io or Knack. They have gained a lot of popularity because of their ease of use and the low technical hurdle that you need to use them.

Both low code and custom software development have their uses. For instance, if you are looking to build a product and test it rapidly, low code can be extremely helpful for getting something out to be tested by end users in a short amount of time, relatively inexpensively. On the other hand, low code development tends to come with a lot of limitations, especially as you get to more complex interactions and things that are on the bleeding edge of technology. (Thus why you never see an Uber or Airbnb type of app using low code).

When you are looking to build a robust project that is very unique, and that you plan on working with and scaling for a long time, there is no question that you should go through the custom software development process. But if you are looking for something quick, low code can be a great solution.