Building RESTful APIs That Scale: Best Practices for 2025

The software development landscape is evolving rapidly. As organizations face increasing pressure to digitize operations and deliver new applications at unprecedented speeds, many are turning to low-code and no-code platforms as potential solutions. These platforms promise to democratize development, enabling business users to create applications with minimal coding knowledge while allowing professional developers to accelerate their work.

But do these platforms deliver on their promise? And more importantly, when should your organization leverage them versus investing in traditional custom development? At Leverture, we've helped clients navigate this decision process across various industries, and we've developed a nuanced perspective on where low-code truly shines and where it falls short.

The Growing Low-Code/No-Code Market

The low-code/no-code (LCNC) market has experienced explosive growth in recent years. According to Gartner, the worldwide low-code development technologies market is projected to total $26.9 billion in 2023, an increase of 19.6% from 2022. This growth is driven by several factors:

Digital Transformation Acceleration

The pandemic dramatically accelerated digital transformation initiatives across industries. Organizations that once had multi-year digitization roadmaps suddenly found themselves needing to implement new digital solutions in weeks or months, not years. Low-code platforms helped bridge this gap by enabling faster application development.

Developer Shortage

The global shortage of skilled software developers continues to be a significant challenge. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that software developer jobs will grow 22% from 2020 to 2030, much faster than the average for all occupations. Low-code platforms help organizations extend their development capabilities beyond their professional development teams.

Increasing Business Demand for Applications

Modern businesses require more applications than ever before. Research from OutSystems found that 65% of IT leaders report application development backlogs, with more than 10 applications waiting in the queue at any given time. Low-code platforms help address this backlog by enabling faster development cycles.

Evolving Platform Capabilities

Low-code platforms have evolved considerably from their early days. Modern platforms now support sophisticated applications with complex business logic, integration capabilities, and responsive user interfaces. This evolution has expanded the types of applications that can be feasibly built on these platforms.

Popular Low-Code/No-Code Platforms: A Comparison

The low-code/no-code market has become increasingly crowded, with platforms specializing in different types of applications and use cases. Here's a comparative overview of some leading platforms:

Enterprise Application Platforms

Microsoft Power Platform

• Strengths: Deep integration with Microsoft ecosystem, AI capabilities, robust security
• Weaknesses: Complex pricing, steeper learning curve compared to some alternatives
• Best For: Microsoft-centric organizations, enterprise-wide applications, process automation

Salesforce Platform (including Lightning)

• Strengths: Powerful CRM integration, extensive marketplace of pre-built components
• Weaknesses: Can be expensive, primarily focused on Salesforce-adjacent use cases
• Best For: Organizations heavily invested in Salesforce, customer-facing applications

OutSystems

• Strengths: Enterprise-grade security, scalability, sophisticated DevOps capabilities
• Weaknesses: Higher cost, requires more technical knowledge than true "no-code" tools
• Best For: Mission-critical enterprise applications, mobile app development

Mendix

• Strengths: Multi-experience development, AI-assisted development, strong collaboration features
• Weaknesses: Enterprise pricing can be high, requires platform-specific knowledge
• Best For: Complex enterprise applications, multi-channel experiences

Specialized Platforms

Bubble

• Strengths: Powerful web application builder, extensive plugin ecosystem
• Weaknesses: Performance limitations for high-traffic applications, limited offline capabilities
• Best For: Startups, MVPs, web applications with moderate complexity

Airtable

• Strengths: Excellent database capabilities, intuitive interface, extensive integrations
• Weaknesses: Limited for complex applications, primarily focused on data management
• Best For: Operational applications, data collection and management, team collaboration

Zapier

• Strengths: Extensive integration library, simple interface, quick implementation
• Weaknesses: Limited application complexity, primarily focused on automation
• Best For: Process automation, system integration, workflow optimization

Webflow

• Strengths: Professional-quality websites, fine-grained design control, hosting included
• Weaknesses: Limited for complex application logic, primarily focused on websites
• Best For: Marketing websites, content-driven sites, portfolio sites

Choosing the Right Platform

When evaluating platforms, consider:

1. Integration Requirements: How well does the platform connect with your existing systems?
2. Complexity of Use Cases: Does the platform support the complexity your applications require?
3. Developer Experience: How intuitive is the platform for your intended users?
4. Governance and Security: Does the platform meet your compliance and security requirements?
5. Scalability: Will the platform support your growth in users, data, and functionality?
6. Total Cost of Ownership: Consider licensing, training, maintenance, and potential technical debt.

Appropriate Use Cases for Low-Code in the Enterprise

Low-code platforms excel in specific scenarios. Understanding these can help you leverage these tools where they provide the most value.

Operational Efficiency Applications

Low-code platforms are excellent for applications that digitize internal processes and workflows. Examples include:

• Approval Workflows: Streamlining request and approval processes across departments
• Employee Onboarding: Coordinating the multiple steps involved in bringing on new team members
• Resource Management: Tracking and allocating resources across teams and projects
• Reporting Dashboards: Creating visual representations of key performance indicators

These applications typically have well-defined requirements, moderate complexity, and primarily serve internal users—all characteristics that align well with low-code development.

Customer and Partner Portals

Organizations often need to provide customers, partners, or vendors with access to specific information and functionality. Low-code platforms can effectively power these experiences:

• Customer Self-Service Portals: Enabling customers to check status, submit requests, or update information
• Partner Collaboration Spaces: Facilitating joint work and information sharing with external partners
• Vendor Management Portals: Streamlining interactions with suppliers and service providers

These applications benefit from low-code's ability to create user-friendly interfaces quickly while integrating with backend systems.

Departmental Applications

Specialized teams often need dedicated tools tailored to their specific needs. Examples include:

• HR Self-Service Tools: Enabling employees to update information, request time off, or access benefits
• Marketing Campaign Managers: Coordinating and tracking marketing initiatives across channels
• Field Service Applications: Supporting mobile workers with information and data collection capabilities
• Compliance Documentation Systems: Managing and tracking regulatory documentation requirements

These applications often fall into the "long tail" of IT demand—important to specific departments but not necessarily prioritized by central IT teams, making them perfect candidates for low-code development.

Rapid Prototyping and MVPs

Low-code platforms excel at quickly turning concepts into working applications:

• Concept Validation: Testing new business ideas with minimal investment
• User Experience Prototyping: Refining interfaces through quick iterations with users
• Minimum Viable Products: Bringing basic versions of products to market to gather feedback

The speed of development that low-code enables makes these platforms particularly valuable in innovation contexts where rapid iteration is essential.

Data Collection and Management

Many business processes require structured data collection and management:

• Surveys and Assessments: Gathering and analyzing feedback from customers or employees
• Inspection and Audit Tools: Supporting field data collection with validation and reporting
• Knowledge Management Systems: Organizing and accessing organizational knowledge

Low-code platforms typically offer strong form-building capabilities, making them well-suited for these use cases.

When Custom Development Makes More Sense

Despite their growing capabilities, low-code platforms aren't the right solution for every application. Here are scenarios where traditional custom development typically delivers better results:

Complex, Mission-Critical Systems

Applications that form the core of your business operations or competitive advantage often require the flexibility and optimization that custom development provides:

• Core Banking Systems: Managing fundamental financial transactions and records
• Advanced E-commerce Platforms: Supporting complex pricing, inventory, and fulfillment logic
• Industrial Control Systems: Operating and monitoring manufacturing or production equipment
• Healthcare Clinical Systems: Supporting medical diagnoses and treatment decisions

These systems often have complex requirements, integrate with numerous other systems, and need to be highly optimized for performance and reliability.

Systems with Unique Technical Requirements

Some applications have specialized technical needs that most low-code platforms struggle to address:

• High-Performance Computing Applications: Systems requiring intensive computational capability
• Real-Time Processing Systems: Applications with strict latency requirements
• Advanced Algorithmic Solutions: Systems implementing complex proprietary algorithms
• Specialized Hardware Integration: Applications interfacing directly with unique hardware

The technical constraints of low-code platforms can become limiting when working with these specialized requirements.

Highly Customized User Experiences

Applications where the user experience is a key differentiator often benefit from the design freedom of custom development:

• Consumer-Facing Mobile Apps: Applications competing for user engagement in the app stores
• Interactive Data Visualization Tools: Systems presenting complex data in uniquely intuitive ways
• Immersive Customer Experiences: Applications creating distinctive branded experiences

While low-code platforms have improved their UI capabilities, they still impose more constraints than custom development.

Systems Requiring Deep Integration

Applications that need to integrate deeply with multiple complex systems often benefit from custom development:

• Enterprise-Wide Data Hubs: Centralizing and reconciling data from numerous source systems
• Cross-Platform Synchronization Systems: Maintaining consistency across diverse platforms
• Legacy System Modernization: Creating modern interfaces for older systems while preserving functionality

The complexity of these integration challenges often exceeds the capabilities of low-code integration tools.

Applications with Unpredictable Scaling Requirements

Systems that may need to scale dramatically and unpredictably often require the optimization possible with custom development:

• Viral Consumer Applications: Systems that could experience explosive growth
• High-Volume Transaction Systems: Applications processing large numbers of concurrent operations
• Data-Intensive Analytics Platforms: Systems working with large datasets requiring optimized processing

While many low-code platforms offer cloud scalability, they may not provide the performance optimization options available in custom development.

Finding the Right Balance: A Hybrid Approach

Most organizations will benefit from a balanced approach that leverages both low-code and custom development where each is most appropriate. Here's a framework for determining the right approach for a specific application:

Assessment Criteria

Evaluate each application against these criteria:

1. Strategic Importance: How central is this application to your competitive advantage?
2. Technical Complexity: How complex are the system's requirements and integrations?
3. User Experience Requirements: How important is a highly customized user experience?
4. Time Sensitivity: How quickly does the application need to be deployed?
5. Available Resources: What development resources are available for this project?
6. Long-term Maintainability: Who will maintain the application over time?
7. Scalability Requirements: How might usage and data volume grow over time?
8. Budget Constraints: What financial resources are available for development and maintenance?

Decision Matrix

Based on your assessment, you can use this simplified decision matrix as a starting point: