There are hundreds and thousands of nocode/lowcode tools out there with new entrants every day - it's tiring keeping up.
But the 80/20 rule means that 80% of the benefit to you will come from 20% of your tools... I hereby present you the:
20/80 Nocode Workflow Automation Toolkit
1. make – Flexible & powerful iPaaS
An automation platform that allows businesses to connect various apps and services, creating workflows with a strong emphasis on visual design (great canvas editor), flexibility and granularity. make supports 1700+ native integrations - which is less than Zapier, but our general view is that make offers more API endpoint coverage meaning you can often do more with X integration in make than you can with its equivalent in Zapier. make offers better error handling and makes it much easier to work with custom APIs in theory giving unlimited integration reach. make has an intermediate to expert learning curve - it is not for the faint hearted, but they are doing wonderful things to make it more accessible.
2. Zapier - Easiest iPaaS
The market leading automation tool by recognition and active users, but many will be on the free or lowest plan. Zapier is the easiest place to begin automating because it is point and click with minimal friction - they have done a stellar job on this. Zapier natively connects with 6000+ apps and is known for its ease of use and extensive library of pre-built integrations or "Zaps."
3. Hookdeck – Webhooks management utility
Lesser-known-gem 💎. Hookdeck offers a platform for managing, monitoring, and testing webhooks, helping businesses build more reliable and scalable integrations between their apps and services. If you want instant, you have webhooks. If you have webhooks, you want Hookdeck.
4. Airtable - Database & app building platform
Airtable is a user-friendly relational database hybrid that helps teams organise, collaborate, and manage their data in a visual way, with a focus on data organisation and management. If you feel like you and your team live your lives in Spreadsheets and you want to automate for super scale, this is probably where you need to go next. Super performance API, but native apps can sometimes feel a little rigid. Great all-in-one app for well defined processes with a focus on backend connectivity. Warning - whilst it can free you from spreadsheets - you do need a slight mindset shift to begin thinking in Entities and Relationships rather than Rows and Columns.
5. XANO - API-first backend
Xano is a no-code backend platform that enables businesses to rapidly build and deploy scalable API-first backends to support web and mobile applications (e.g. WeWeb, Wized, Flutterflow or even custom React!). Unlike Airtable it has no user interface, this is best focused on app development and deployment. If you are going to scale an application with structured data into the millions of rows, and you are obsessed with backend integration and performance - Xano is for you.
6. Coda - Flexible doc with data & formulae
One evening, Google Docs met Airtable in a bar. Nine months later, Coda was born (or something like that) ... Coda is a super flexible, highly interactive app in which even your nan could build an tool. It allows you to build intuitive, data-rich interactive docs with the power of a relational database, the softness of unstructured text (canvas field) and its secret sauce: Formulae. If a business comes to us needing an app to streamline a production environment with a lot of manual IRL processes (i.e. manual production labour) then this really is a wonderfully suitable tool for weaving people with processes for smoooooooooth operator ...... outcomes.
7. Jotform - G.O.A.T data intake
An easy-to-use online form builder for creating custom forms, surveys, and questionnaires, ideal for data collection and streamlining data intake workflows. Jotform is the G.O.A.T in form software but doesn't get the glitz and glamour coverage of design-first market entrants like Typeform and Tally (both of which are good) because they haven't focused on design polish - under the hood, Jotform is an absolute beast in functionality. The singular fact that you can embed your form natively into your website via sourcecode download is unrivalled AFAIK. Then there's conditional logic, granular CSS control, URL-prefilling, it's just.... wow I nearly fainted writing that.
8. Klippa – OCR meets nocode
Offers intelligent document processing and data extraction solutions to automate data entry and streamline document-related processes. If you have an awesome app in your finance department that is ingesting your receipts, invoices, POs and the like - it is likely that Klippa is what those apps run on. Yet little old you and I can unleash that raw power through simple nocode integrations with their API..... it's your unfair advantage in document data extraction!!
9. Documint – Easiest automated PDF creation
Provides automated document creation via API and a set of handy native integrations. My personal view is that every presentation document that goes out the door needs to a PDF, and if you want to master automated document creation because of your commitment to structured data (a good, no, very good thing) then you need a reliable and cost efficient tool to fire that data at to give you back a shiny, clean, branded PDF. And this is that.
10. Twilio – API-first voice and messaging service
A communication platform that allows businesses to integrate voice, messaging, video, and email capabilities into their applications for better customer engagement. You can spend money on retail-level solutions, but like Klippa does to OCR app ecosystem, Twilio does to voice/messaging app ecosystem. Get your hands on Twilio's API friendly suite and totally customise your voice and SMS workflows.
Automation Monitoring & Support Plans
Don't forget the most important aspect of all - support!
As you automate your workflows, you unlock greater efficiency and scale - but stuff does go wrong. Consider how you handle issues, changes, downtime when your techies are on holiday. If you need someone to watch your systems and dive into problem solving mode without saying a word - let me know and I'll introduce you to our monitoring plans.
And as ever, our team of consultants and developers are standing by to help you with any automation, AI or nocode/lowcode challenge or goal!