Make is a terrific platform to develop without having to write code, and less of a no-code platform. The difference is very small, but very important. Think of where people come from before they were using Make.
If you don’t know how to code and don’t want to learn it, you will probably search for no-code platforms. If you have a background that is lacking technical- or programming knowledge, the Make learning curve can become steep (not at first, but when you are trying to do advanced things). Can become, because I see that a lot of people are attracted to the functionalities and decide to stay here and put in the time and effort to master it.
What people struggle most with is understanding coding principles in a no-code form, which is a concept that is applied throughout Make. It sounds cruel, but Make is a very nice JavaScript wrapper. If you don’t know about functions, arrays, operators, constructors, JSON (and many more programming principles), you might have a hard time comprehending the functionalities, and thus limiting solutions you can think of to build. I think Make should put more effort in teaching coding principles in no-code form.
If you have a background in development, Make is a heavenly tool! You know the traditional way of programming, and now you can achieve 99% of the things you could with your own code, with Make, saving a lot of time and investment while using it. I know many developers that supplement their existing environments with Make.
If you compare it to other tools in the market, you can conclude that Zapier is a no-code platform. You don’t need to understand or know anything technical to use it, but it has its limitations. You can only build what is pre-built. Make is a platform to develop, without writing code. There is more freedom in connecting with any API you want and building highly advanced and customized workflows. (also I find it more intuitive, cheaper, and Make is GDPR-compliant).
As someone who build Custom Apps, I know there aren’t many API’s I cannot connect to. But this is a highly advanced usage of Make, not many people build their own apps. I built apps for companies so that their users have the freedom to use the easy drag-and-drop interface. And this is a mutual beneficial relationship I have with most of my customers. They want the ease of use, but Make has some concepts and principles that are not that clear to everyone, so they ask me to build, create or teach them.
Just as Webflow moved from marketing themselves as ‘no-code webbuilder’ to being ‘a visual development platform that empowers designers to build with the full power of code — without writing any.’, I think the next step for Make will be similar. Focussing on more high-touch and enterprise customers, they will focus more on the advantages and less on the underlying buzzword that ‘no-code’ is.
Because in the end, it is all code. Even with Make. And I love Make.
Cheers,
Henk