By James Virgo
18th April 2024
Dittofi Vs OutSystems
In this article we do a comparison of Dittofi Vs Outsystems.
Dittofi was designed and developed between 2019 and 2020. Dittofi was originally created as a more modern no-code / low-code alternative. Dittofi is the world’s fastest, most flexible no-code platform that can turn visual designs into high quality, human readable computer code that you own at all times.
In this article we look at a direct comparison between Dittofi and OutSystems. We will try to be as neutral as possible, but we are bound to be a little biassed.
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|---|---|---|
| Code exports |
Full feature, unlimited on demand code export – no extra cost.
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Export code once, at the end of your project, for an additional cost.
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| Contract term |
Month to month contract and billing, cancel any time.
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Annual billing.
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| Pricing |
Less expensive – resource usage + support + SLAs.
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More expensive – resource usage + support + SLAs + number of app end users + software add-ons.
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| Tech stack |
Modern tech stack – React / Redux, HTML5, CSS, Google Go, database PostgreSQL.
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Older tech stack – .NET, C#, Java, HTML, CSS, database add-ons e.g. Oracle.
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| Support |
Dittofi Experts
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OutSystems Experts
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| Speed |
6x faster than coding
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2x faster than coding
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Companies history (Dittofi / OutSystems)
Dittofi was designed and developed between 2019 – 2020. The technology was originally designed as an auto code generator, allowing developers to automatically generate high performant code faster than writing the code by themselves.
Midway through 2019, the technology was enhanced to include a visual app builder interface and hosting model that allowed for even faster app development.
Dittofi is unique for two main reasons. First, because Dittofi was designed as an auto code generator first and a visual app builder, this means that the code generated is very high quality compared to other no-code platforms. The platform turns visual designs into high quality and current tech stack – React / Redux and Google Go.
Second, Dittofi’s founding team used auto code generation to build apps in the capital markets space. With clients such as the Toronto Stock Exchange, Nomura investment bank, Desjardins Securities, Convergex and several other major banks and exchanges, Dittofi has a huge amount of experience building apps that are secure and scale efficiently.
After Dittofi’s release, other no-code platforms started to adapt to allow code exports. This has meant that these visual app builders have started to bolt on code generators / code export functionality to their systems. Adding a code export feature second means that the code generated is lower quality, harder to access and less transparent.
OutSystems is one such company. Built on an older tech stack (.NET, Java, C#), OutSystems was founded in 2001 and until relatively recently, did not allow for source code exports. The code exports are now allowed, however code exports are not 100% transparent throughout your app build process – you only get to see your code when you leave and at this point you need to take all of your apps with you, sign additional licensing agreements and there is no going back.
Code exports
Dittofi allow full feature, unlimited and on-demand code export on every pricing tier. Export can be done with total flexibility allowing you to export all of your apps, one or more apps or just subsections of your apps e.g. frontend only, backend only, API integrations and so on.
With Dittofi you own your code and have full visibility over its development the entire time. Developers can insert blocks of custom code as they build, import their favourite libraries and even sync up with their Dittofi generated code repositories using tools such as Git. Dittofi’s code is exactly the same as if you were to hire a developer to write the code by hand. The only differences are that using Dittofi, developers can build up to 7000 lines of error free, high quality code per day. 7000 lines of error free code is a lot compared to a human developer who will write a maximum of 500 – 1000 lines of code per day and, since the code is written by hand, it is more likely to have errors in it.
In contrast, OutSystems does not allow you to see the actual code that is generated for your app until you decide to leave the platform for good. There are also additional fees for if you want to run your code outside of the OutSystems environment. You can see this topic discussed in the OutSystems support forums online.
As you can see from the above screenshot, if you pay OutSystems for “code detachment” you are able to take your code and run it elsewhere but, after you have clicked “detach”, there is no going back. At that point you will be entirely responsible for the OutSystems code and any bugs that might be contained in it.
Although we have not seen examples of code generated by OutSystems, the tech stack .NET, C# and Java are becoming increasingly harder to staff for than the more current tech stacks. The code is also harder to modify than more current technologies. Furthermore, reviews from clients indicate that the code structure does not conform to traditional coding standards but that they didn’t find this out until after they had detached their code from OutSystems.
Vendor lock-in
Dittofi strive to achieve “zero vendor lock-in”. To this extent our contracts run month to month with an option to cancel any time. Furthermore, we give users on all pricing tiers unlimited code exports, allowing users to export code and cancel their subscription at any point with no additional charge.
Furthermore, users are able to reduce their monthly subscription if, for whatever reason, the sales of their app does not go to plan and they don’t need all of the server capacity that they originally planned for. Our goal is to retain users based on the value that they derive from using the Dittofi app builder, code generators and our hosting.
OutSystems by contrast look to lock-in app developers for a minimum of 1 year with billing all done upfront. OutSystems users are therefore required to plan ahead, often paying for an app builder, server capacity and infrastructure that they will never use. Furthermore, as we have already seen, if you want access to your app’s source code, you need to engage with your account manager and pay for the “code detachment”. The code export from OutSystems can only happen at the end of your OutSystems engagement – meaning that you have little to no visibility into the code quality until you choose to leave the OutSystems ecosystem.
Pricing
Dittofi charges breakdown into platform fees for access to the Dittofi builder, code generator and live and test environments. We also charge for the infrastructure required to host your final app. This is charged at the cost of Amazon Web Services plus a markup for the management, maintenance and support of your apps infrastructure.
Dittofi uses free, open source third party technologies in the deployment of your Dittofi app. For example, we use PostgreSQL to store your data. This means that there are no hidden additional costs for software add-ons required to run your app.
In contrast, OutSystems prices are based on several different factors including the number of end users of your app, SLAs, code exports, as well as extra charges for a variety of cloud, infrastructure and database add-ons. For example, OutSystems use closed source technologies such as Oracle. These closed source technologies have additional costs associated with them. So if you’re using OutSystems, make sure you’re fully aware of how your costs will develop. Reports on Gartner Insights indicate that costs for OutSystems apps quickly run up very high.
Tech stack
Dittofi has all the benefits of being a newer technology than OutSystems. Technologies like React and Google Go for example, did not exist when OutSystems was developed in 2001. This means that all apps built on Dittofi utilise more modern, maintainable and superior technology than OutSystems.
To be precise, Dittofi auto generates React / Redux for frontend app development and Google Go for backend app development. React was first created by Facebook in 2012. Since then it has become the most loved and most used web development framework in the world. React is extremely efficient, easy to use and raises productivity. It is easy to staff for and tech giants such as Facebook, Netflix, Amazon all use React extensively.
Google Go meanwhile was created by Google in 2007 to solve problems at a Google-sized scale making it ideal for working efficiently on large concurrent applications.
In contrast, OutSystems utalises older technologies of .NET, C# and Java. These technologies have large communities of developers, however there is a tidal wave of developers that prefer the lightweight, functional programming style of Go and the power of React meaning that the combination of Go and React is well on the way to becoming the preferred choice for commercial app development. In fact, engineers at tech companies such as Amazon, Google, Facebook all use these technologies extensively.
Support
Both Dittofi and OutSystems have a marketplace of independent third party experts that can help you build your app. Both sets of experts are full stack software engineers that leverage no-code / low-code technologies to build apps faster. In addition both companies also provide support packages that are sold in house.
Since OutSystems has been around for longer, they have a larger community of developers and third party expert agencies. That said, Dittofi is growing fast and adding new experts to their roster every month based on the demand for apps built to scale on the Dittofi tech stack.
Speed
A well trained Dittofi engineer can generate up to 7000 lines of computer code per day, with the average amount of code being generated per day being 5000 lines. This is more than 6 times faster than traditional developers who write on average a maximum of 750 lines of code per day.
Dittofi is so fast to build apps since it was specifically built for speed and flexibility. As such, you get a number of pre-configured and pre-optimized app templates and API, endpoint and workflow configurations giving you the ability to create really powerful and high quality apps fast.
By contrast, OutSystems allows users to build apps only 2x faster than writing code by hand. Outsystems does however come with a very extensive library of templates and pre-configured APIs that you can purchase from their marketplace. This can increase your time to market, provided you don’t wish to customize the app template too much.
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