OutSystems ROCKS OUT LOUD!
Overall Satisfaction with OutSystems
OutSystems has become the core platform for two different start-ups that I did in the past 3 years. At first, we needed a revolutionary way to create new innovative solutions & products at a speed never seen before. These new products needed to go from idea to market in weeks not months.
Enhancements need to rollout in days not weeks. Specifically, the products and services we created are B2C and B2B for Dental & Vision financial products and healthcare provider customers.
As we had amazing success creating products & services for our B2B2C customers, we then decided to forego SaaS-based Sales, Service, and B2B On-boarding and we built it ourselves using the pre-build sales & cases apps (from OutSytems) and the BPM capability in OutSystems for B2B On-boarding.
In short - at the startup that I did, we are using OutSystems as the core for the entire business and integrating it with 3rd party services like Office 365, Google G-Suite, RingCentral, etc.
- Skip prototyping phase - we create very quick designs that actually use our brand standard experiences and connect to real or stub services directly in OutSystems. We've found we co-create in OutSystems. The result is our "prototypes" are really 1st release candidates.
- SWAGGER 2.0 - AWESOME! If you have access to swagger APIs, integration is so very simple, fast, and robust. Click click click - done! Then the swagger API looks just like any other module that your app needs to access.
- Web, Mobile-Web, and Native all in ONE platform. We all have heard the dream and promise of "write once, run everywhere." OutSystems is the closest I have ever seen us come to that vision in almost 30 years in software. We truly have ONE module for Web & Mobile web (all responsive out of the box with SilkUI). We truly have ONE module for both Android and iOS thanks to the ReactJS-based solution from OutSystems.
- LOW-CODE Heaven: No longer to we spend our life slinging code. Now, the OutSystems "robots" generate all the code for us. I will say it's super clean too. I tried to hand-build code that runs faster... I couldn't. On average, OutSystems generated code was 40% faster than mine both on the .NET and SQL side.
- This is a hard one - I'd say continue to expand support and integration of micro-services. It's come a long way and certainly works - but keep on pouring the gas on micro-services as it's a huge part of our ecosystems.
- We created new products and services 10x faster than first planned and at a cost roughly 1/2 of what was quoted by development partners/agencies that were "hand-coding".
- In short, our two start-up companies would not have launched without it.
Most complete solution. Beyond the super fast ability to create high-quality web and native mobile apps, the built-in analytics have proven to almost eliminate the need for added overhead of analytics tags.
I've been following OutSystems for 3 years and the pace of innovation and their investment in the platform is stunning.
Lastly, the developer community is excellent - when I am faced with a particularly hard or unfamiliar challenge, the community typically has a solution the same day - often it's already been solved and there are pre-build free components or at least a post that describes the solution.
Using OutSystems
- Internal apps for team productivity and communications
- Consumer self-service
- Consumer marketing & messaging
- I assumed we would have to build most apps from scratch - instead I found that the FORGE had a TON of pre-built apps, modules and widgets that really sped up our development.
- The OutSystems community is VERY vibrant and helps us think of solutions differently and solve business challenges even faster.
- Retail apps for consumers, healthcare providers and employers
Evaluating OutSystems and Competitors
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Prior Experience with the Product
- Vendor Reputation
- Existing Relationship with the Vendor
- Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
- Analyst Reports
- Third-party Reviews
Then, we built apps 5 different ways ... after a week two were eliminated because they were too difficult to use.
For 3 months we created apps using 3 different platforms - OutSystems was the only one left standing at the end.
We either "broke" the others or found we had to go outside the platform to do customer extensions.
While we CAN bring custom code extensions into OutSystems - I found we didn't need to and after 3 years still have not.
OutSystems Implementation
- Implemented in-house
- Getting folks pulled out of their normal day-to-day work
OutSystems Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | Poor followup |
They helped me resolve it quickly the same day.
Using OutSystems
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using | Lots to learn |
- Simple layout of the PROCESS - UI - LOGIC - DATA construct for each app
- Unless you are a CSS guru, working on refining the UI design to be very custom can be tricky ... but it's the nature of CSS.