Comparing low-code platforms – 9 reasons why OutSystems outshines the competition

1. AI at its core

OutSystems embeds AI deeply within the platform’s core to enhance developer productivity, perform continuous code analysis and security checks, and automate lifecycle management. This comprehensive AI integration ensures your applications are built faster and at higher quality without additional headcount, reducing time to market. 

In contrast, other low-code platforms offer only superficial AI add-ons that fail to capitalise fully on AI’s potential. 

2. GenAI infused apps

With OutSystems, incorporating GenAI into your applications is quick and easy, thanks to market-leading tools, integrations with LLMs, and templates. OutSystems allows you to create GenAI-powered apps in minutes, not months, without needing a team of AI specialists.

On the other hand, low-code competitors lag behind with promises on their roadmaps, leaving companies unable to innovate with GenAI now. 

3. Actual rather than interpreted code 

OutSystems generates real, high-performance code in languages like C#, JavaScript, and SQL, ensuring your applications run at native speed. This approach provides maximum performance and scalability.

Other low-code platforms often rely on interpreted code, which can degrade performance and limit your access to the underlying real code.

4. High composability 

OutSystems enables the reuse of composable modules across different applications, with cascading updates that simplify maintenance. This streamlines application management, reducing the risk of errors and ensuring consistency.

In contrast, competitors often require manual copy-pasting of components, leading to maintenance headaches.

5. Evergreen architecture 

With OutSystems, no downtime or internal effort is required to make new features available immediately or seamlessly deploy updates. You can be confident that your applications will always benefit from the latest innovations without the need for costly interruptions. For example, customers from the pre-smartphone era could upgrade to the latest OutSystems version, enabling them to generate native iOS and Android apps while reusing and extending their existing applications and functionality.

Other low-code providers may require users to wait for significant product releases and cause disruptions when patching issues. 

6. Thriving developer community 

OutSystems boasts a robust and active developer community, offering forums, learning resources, events, and a marketplace with community-built apps. The community upskills your development team and helps them capitalise on thousands of prebuilt components created by the OutSystems global community.

Competitors often lack such vibrant communities and the access to resources, training opportunities, and community-driven innovation they bring. 

7. Superior deployment and scaling 

OutSystems provides one-click cloud deployment with automatic resource optimisation and scaling. This ensures your enterprise-grade applications can always scale to meet demand, allowing you to focus more on development and less on managing infrastructure.

Low-code alternatives often require manual container deployment and planned scaling, leading to inefficiencies such as over and under-provisioning. 

8. Cost-effective hosting and infrastructure

OutSystems simplifies procurement and unlocks potential savings, offering a more straightforward and cost-effective solution. The platform provides robust application cloud infrastructure with 99.5% uptime and an AI Agent Builder—all included in the ODC base fee. 

In contrast, other low-code competitors may charge extra for these services, adding complexity and cost. For example, they may only sell user and app licenses, requiring additional work and costs to procure virtual cloud computing resources.

9. One platform that scales for all use cases

OutSystems allows you to standardise and streamline your SDLC with one platform that scales for all use cases, ensuring your software can evolve with your business. The platform equips your applications with the elastic architecture, managed infrastructure, and built-in AI necessary to scale for use cases ranging from internal apps to mission-critical enterprise-grade core systems to large global B2C apps. 

Other low-code platforms often struggle with scalability, extensibility with other systems, and advanced use cases, such as GenAI, limiting their applicability to simpler applications.