What Is Mendix and Is It Right for Your Business?
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More chaptersIn software development, there is often a disconnect between business stakeholders and IT teams. The stakeholders struggle to understand what the IT teams are doing, making it hard for them to comprehend progress updates and submit feedback.
The result often leads to unnecessary back-and-forth and miscommunication, contributing to a poor workflow and disappointing outcomes. Using a low-code platform like Mendix can help solve this problem.
In this article, you will learn what Mendix is, its advantages and disadvantages, and how to use it in your next software development project.
Key Takeaways:
- Mendix is a popular low-code platform developers use to build simple web, mobile, and cross-platform apps.
- It has a user-friendly visual modeling tool that enables developers to drag and drop components into their projects without manual coding.
- If your business operates in a highly regulated environment and has strict requirements, Mendix’s limited functionality may not meet all your needs.
What Is Mendix?
Mendix is a low-code, cloud-based application development platform. It is designed to help bridge the gap between business stakeholders and IT teams.
Mendix promotes cross-team collaboration through visual modeling, which lets developers build applications with a simple drag-and-drop interface. This makes it easier for a non-technical audience to contribute to the software development lifecycle. For example, business stakeholders can more easily monitor progress and submit feedback.
As well as the visual modeling tool, Mendix supports integrations with existing systems. This allows developers to leverage existing IT infrastructure without starting from scratch. Developers can connect data from Salesforce, Microsoft, SAP, and AWS.
How Does Mendix Work?
Mendix is a low-code platform with a strong emphasis on accessibility. It realizes this vision with an intuitive visual modeling tool, where developers use a drag-and-drop interface to design and code app logic. Other components include third-party integration support, collaboration, and project management tools, and
Visual Modeling Tool
A simple drag-and-drop interface for developers to build applications. Instead of typing in code manually, developers interact with a graphical user interface (GUI) to design and code the logic of their apps. This helps speed up the development process and makes it easier for business stakeholders to contribute.
Third-Party Integrations
Mendix supports third-party integrations with Microsoft, AWS, and other software vendors. This allows developers to leverage data and capabilities from third-party applications, eliminating the need to build core functionalities from scratch.
Additionally, third-party integrations help reduce API requests, improve performance, and reduce resource use.
Collaboration and Management Tools
Using the Mendex Portal, developers can collaborate in real time in the same environment. It has dedicated modules for portfolio management, Agile development, application insights, and version control.
The app insights module makes it easier for developers to make informed decisions based on interactive polls and passive user feedback. Meanwhile, the version control module, based on Git, automatically reconciles multiple team members’ work into a central repository.
What are the benefits of Agile methodology? With Agile project management tools, project managers can create, refine, and prioritize sprints and milestone deliverables.
What Are the Advantages of Mendix?
There are many advantages to using Mendix. Many of these advantages apply to developers and business stakeholders. Let’s evaluate each one in detail.
Faster Time to Market
By eliminating the need to code manually, developers can work faster and get more done in less time. They can drag-and-drop modules from the intuitive user interface and modify the app logic to suit their requirements. The result is a faster development cycle, helping the client deploy to market quickly and beat the competition.
Better Collaboration
Since Mendix is cloud-based and offers centralized version control, developers worldwide can work simultaneously in a centralized repository. Any changes made by individual team members can be reviewed and approved by others before being deployed into the repository. This helps keep all developers on the same page, aware of each other’s contribution to the project.
Also, the visual modeling tool promotes better collaboration with business stakeholders. At a glance, stakeholders can visualize the app appearance and get a feel for the functionality too. With a better sense of the look and feel of the app, they can provide more accurate feedback and change requests.
More Affordable Development
When used properly, Mendix has the potential to help reduce software development costs. This is because the platform focuses on a rapid app development process without compromising on quality.
Based on this philosophy, Mendix developers are highly skilled in using the available tools to build and deploy fast, scalable, and beautiful-looking apps in a short time. They can also use third-party integrations to enhance the existing capabilities of an app.
For example, developers can connect Google Maps to a food delivery app, enabling customers to track the status of their deliveries in real time. Naturally, this is much more affordable than building a functional interactive map from scratch.
What Are the Disadvantages of Mendix?
Despite being a powerful low-code application development platform, Mendix has flaws.
The most notable issue is that, as a low-code platform, Mendix may lack the customization developers need to build original, creative apps. For some, the drag-and-drop functionality over-simplifies the development process, resulting in unoriginal apps.
Here are some other potential disadvantages of Mendix.
Limited Flexibility and Scalability
Low-code platforms like Mendix have pre-built components, modules, and connectors. Developers can reuse these pieces of shared code across the entire software application. This helps speed up development and reduce manual coding.
Unfortunately, low-code platforms like Mendix have limited functionality. This is because developers are limited by whatever functionalities the platform has to offer. So, if a business has a specific need, one that Mendix cannot meet, then they will have to request a custom code.
Performance Issues
Another potential downside to Mendix is the risk of performance issues. Drag-and-drop components are not optimized for the apps they are being built for.
As developers add more components, they gradually lose control over how well each component is optimized for the app. This can lead to various performance issues, such as slow-loading pages and frequent crashes. As enterprise applications grow in size and complexity, businesses may encounter more performance issues.
Custom code, on the other hand, can be optimized manually to provide the best possible performance. Dedicated software teams can provide low-code and custom solutions that support your technical needs and business goals. Plus, each team member is hand-picked to meet your unique project requirements.
Security Limitations
By default, Mendix has various built-in security options. These include customizable controls for module security, user roles, entity access, app authentication, and more. This allows professional developers to determine who has access to the application and what they can do.
While the security options for platforms like Mendix are commendable, third-party integrations can present issues. Since Mendix makes it easy to integrate outsider apps, citizen developers may accidentally compromise their code. These unchecked vulnerabilities can raise security concerns, increasing the risk of a successful cyberattack.
This is where professional QA and software testing can help. A software development company like Orient Software can perform manual and automated testing. Using the latest software testing tools, we can identify and address security concerns before they compromise your system.
How to Decide If Mendix is Right for Your Business
Low-code platforms like Mendix are great for building small- to medium-sized applications. However, they lack the depth and customization of custom code. The right approach for you depends on your technical requirements and business goals.
When to Choose Mendix
Got a great idea for a product but low on time and funds? Build a minimum viable product (MVP) with low-code platforms like Mendix.
The drag-and-drop functionality often makes it easy to design a template and input features quickly. This is a great way to test the viability of a new web, mobile, desktop, or cross-platform app. Mendix is also ideal if your app has minimal flexibility and scalability requirements.
Choose Custom Code If You Require
Need to build large-scale enterprise grade applications? Then, consider a custom solution. Custom software development enables you to build, test, and deploy a software application that meets your unique business requirements.
With custom software, you can provide a solution that caters to a specific set of business users, which is ideal if you operate in a highly regulated industry. You also have more control over the individual components within your app than you would with a low-code platform.
As a result, you can optimize the features, performance, and security of your app to suit your target device and platforms.
Build Amazing Products with Orient Software
Whether you choose a low-code development platform or a custom solution for your project, Orient Software can help. Our highly skilled team is always in the position to bring your small to large-scale product to life. With over a decade of software development experience, you can count on us to satisfy your project needs on time and within budget.
Contact us today. Discover how our software development services can accelerate your business growth.
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