Gartner’s headline figure is striking: by 2025, 70% of new applications will be built using low-code or no-code platforms — up from less than 25% in 2020. The market behind those tools has grown to match, with most analyst estimates now placing it above $30 billion globally and growing at around 20% a year.
For a lot of projects, that’s the right outcome. Internal tools, simple workflows, forms and dashboards that used to take weeks of developer time can now be assembled in days. Low-code has genuinely earned its place.
The more interesting question is what this means for the projects that don’t end up there. If 70% of new apps can be handled by low-code platforms, the 30% that can’t aren’t just “the hard ones” — they’re the ones where the product itself is the competitive advantage. Consumer apps with complex UX. Healthcare tools where reliability and compliance aren’t optional. AI products where the model behaviour needs to be tightly controlled. Platforms that need to scale beyond what off-the-shelf tools allow.
Low-code raises the bar for custom software by raising the question: why custom at all? That’s a healthy filter. The projects that come through it tend to be the ones where the investment is clearly justified — where getting it right matters more than getting it fast.
If you’re trying to decide which side of that line your project sits on, our custom software development page covers how we think through that question.