Most founding teams approach the no-code vs custom development question as if it's a philosophical debate. They read blog posts, watch YouTube comparisons, ask developer friends — and end up more confused than when they started.

The reason it feels so complicated is that people are asking the wrong question. 'Which is better?' is unanswerable. 'Which is right for us, right now, given our specific constraints?' — that has a clear answer almost every time.

This article is a decision framework, not a debate. By the end, you'll have five concrete questions to work through — and a clear enough picture to make the call with confidence.

What Each Approach Actually Means in Practice

No-code platforms let you build functional applications using visual editors, pre-built components, and configuration rather than hand-written code. At Limy, we build with Bubble for product logic, Webstudio.is for high-performance marketing frontends, Supabase as the backend database, and n8n for automation. This stack produces production-grade systems — not demos.

Custom development means writing the application from scratch in a programming language. Every component is built to specification. The team controls the entire codebase. It's more flexible, more expensive, slower to start, and requires ongoing engineering resources to maintain.

The Five Questions That Determine the Right Choice

1. How fast do you need to ship? If you need a working product in eight weeks or less, no-code is almost always the right starting point. A comparable custom-code product takes three to six months minimum.

2. How well-defined are your requirements? No-code works best when you don't fully know what you're building yet. Custom development works best when requirements are well-defined and stable.

3. How complex is your core business logic? Standard business logic — user authentication, CRUD operations, workflows, notifications — no-code handles well. Genuinely complex logic — multi-variable pricing engines, proprietary calculation models — custom code handles better.

4. What are your performance requirements? For internal tools and B2B products with moderate user loads, no-code performs well, especially paired with Supabase. For consumer applications expecting tens of thousands of concurrent users, custom development gives more control.

5. What does your ongoing maintenance model look like? Custom code requires engineers to maintain it. No-code systems can often be maintained by non-technical team members for day-to-day updates.

When No-Code Wins

No-code is the right choice when speed of execution matters more than theoretical ceiling. Early-stage startups validating a product idea, businesses building internal tools, and teams that need to move fast with low technical overhead.

When Custom Development Is the Right Call

Custom development earns its place when the product's core value is genuinely proprietary technology, performance requirements are extreme from day one, or the business has a well-funded engineering team and a stable product spec.

The Hybrid Middle Ground

The most pragmatic path for most European startups is a hybrid architecture. Bubble handles the product layer. Webstudio.is handles the marketing site. Supabase serves as the backend database. n8n manages automation and integrations. Each tool does the job it was built for. When growth demands it, specific layers can be extended with custom code without rebuilding the entire system.

A Real-World Example: Jonas's B2B SaaS Platform

Jonas co-founded a compliance management platform serving mid-sized companies across the Netherlands and Germany. We built the MVP on Bubble with a Supabase backend. The core product was live in eleven weeks. His technical co-founder built enterprise HR integrations in n8n rather than rebuilding authentication flows from scratch. Twelve months later, the platform had 40 paying customers and closed a pre-seed round. The total development cost was roughly 40% of what a comparable custom build would have been.