Olp—a restful open low-code platform

Abstract

Low-code is an emerging concept that transforms visual representations into functional software, allowing anyone to be a developer. However, building a low-code platform from scratch can be challenging concerning the scarce available literature about the topic. In this sense, this paper proposes an Open Low-Code Platform (OLP), a low-code solution that enables regular users to create applications. Furthermore, it presents low-code’s functional and nonfunctional requirements, as well as its similarities and its differences with the no-code concept. The experience obtained while developing OLP was translated into a pipeline that details how code was transformed from the visual representations into a fully fledged application. The paper demonstrates the solution’s viability and is especially useful for building a low-code platform from scratch or improving an existing one.