GoKawiilIn 2019 I bet on the no-code revolution. That bet aged so-so. Here is the new one.
I joined the productivity tools market in 2004 and have had the luxury of observing its dynamics for 22 years now. From time to time the market changes and I write a holistic "visionary" article. The last one was in 2019 when I bet on the no-code revolution. Now it's time to write a new piece, because the market is experiencing tectonic shifts that will change its landscape enormously.
Everyone knows that AI lowered the barrier, so now anyone can build software. You can't vibe-code a full OS (yet), but you can easily vibe-code small apps to solve personal problems. Things get more complex when you add "collaboration" as a dimension. If you work alone it's relatively OK to break things and move forward until you're happy with the app, but if you work in a team it becomes harder to implement all the needed bells and whistles to cover collaborative use cases. You suddenly need data storage with relations, concurrent editing, notifications, changes history, permissions, etc.
It raises an interesting question: where is the hot spot of malleable software in the AI age? Should we always start from scratch in Codex? Or should we have some solid base that can be tailored via custom code?
Imagine you have a small mushroom farm that employs 10 people (don't worry, we will grow champignons here (for now)) and are looking for software to run all operations. Most likely you are using Google Sheets, since the market is too small to have specialized software (ha! no market is too small).
Kinoko. A new way to manage your mushroom farm. Very specialized tool.
You have several options. The irony is that… none of the options are ideal.
Build from scratch (Claude Code, Codex) - from 2024. Problem: When you prompt-code everything from scratch, you have to care about everything, including hosting, auth, basic permissions, database, etc. The first 80% may be easy, but the final 20% would be hard Future hope: Here we can hope that eventually AI will be so cool and powerful that it will just do things right and fast Vibe-code (Lovable, v0) - from 2023. Problem: Somewhat better than #1, since you get a hosted app, a database, auth and deploy out of the box, and it looks finished sooner. But when you outgrow what the generator does well, you will be stuck Future hope: More powerful models make it better. Also these vendors will add more and more components, moving into "solid base + custom code" space Low-code & app builders (Retool, Softr) - from 2017. Problem: This category has been selling "solid base + custom code" last ten years: auth, permissions, hosting and audit logs out of the box. But it's an app base, not a work base. Your data is assumed to live somewhere else, and even when these vendors add their own database, it stores app data: no collaboration, no comments, no changes history Future hope: Move deeper into "solid base + custom code". The open question is whether an app base can grow into a work base fast enough Assemble it in a malleable tool (Notion, Fibery) - from 2013. Problem: This might look tempting, since you will get many things ready fast. The problem is how to tailor these tools to your process. They are quite flexible, but might not support your specific needs and do not have enough extension points Future hope: Add more extension points and let users vibe-code the missing ~20% of use cases, so these tools will move into "solid base + custom code" territory too Buy some specialized tool - from 1999. Problem: This is still a very good option sometimes, since a specialized tool was built with your domain in mind and it might look very relevant. Go for it if you don't need customization Future hope: Moving into flexible tools territory will be almost impossible for these vendors (and it is not needed at all). The moment it gets generically flexible, it stops being specialized 🙂
80% solid bases + 20% custom code
What is happening in the productivity tools market? It seems the ideal solution is to have a solid base covering 80% (databases, permissions, history, collaboration, notifications, etc.) and let users mix these things and extend via custom code.
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