6 Low-Code Tools That Will Make You a Better Frontend Developer

Introduction

How does one become a better developer? 

You can say a developer is measured by their ability to deliver product features in less time while maintaining high code quality.  Striking this balance has become more achievable today, thanks to advancements in languages, platforms, CI/CD automation tools, and testing methodologies. However, integrating all these aspects can be challenging for developers and teams.

One effective way to achieve this balance is by utilizing low-code tools. These tools allow developers to quickly add functionality to applications and maintaining code quality while ensuring separation of concerns. In this article, we'll explore six low-code tools that can help you become a better frontend developer, enabling you to deliver higher-quality business value (aka product features) faster.

1. Clerk.dev

Authentication is a crucial feature for any application, verifying a user's identity to ensure they are who they claim to be. Developing authentication from scratch can be a time-consuming and complex task, involving session management, identity providers, passwords or other authentication methods, and more.

Clerk.dev is a cloud product that provides all the necessary functionality for authentication using multiple identity providers and secure methods, all in just a few lines of code. Unlike other authentication products, Clerk.dev puts the frontend developer at the center and provides an SDK and UI components that can be used with any frontend framework. By using Clerk.dev, you can quickly add advanced authentication functionality to your app and focus on creating practical value for your users.

2. Supabase and Vercel

While frontend development and browsers have become more powerful, certain capabilities still require backend development, causing bottlenecks for many teams. Supabase is a backend-as-a-service infrastructure that enables backend functionality without writing backend code. Vercel is a cloud platform that provides the Frontend Cloud, offering modern cloud infrastructures for frontend teams. By combining Supabase and Vercel, you can create full-stack applications without the need for backend code, allowing you to concentrate on user-oriented features. This saves valuable time for tasks like data persistence and backend functionality.

3. Cloudinary

Frontend applications heavily rely on media items such as images, videos, and gifs,  but handling them efficiently can be challenging. While displaying media items is built into every browser, implementing features like storing, serving, and managing them can be time-consuming and challenging.

Cloudinary is a cloud product that simplifies media management with just a single line of code. It offers storage, serving, and manipulation of various media items through APIs, along with UI components for frontend-based management without backend code. With Cloudinary, you can save significant time and effort on media-related features, enabling you to focus on providing practical value to users.

4. Stripe

Monetizing applications is crucial for businesses, but implementing payment systems can be complex, and implementing a payment system, managing transactions, usage, and quotes often requires dedicated teams.

Among various payment systems, Stripe is an ideal choice for frontend applications, offering easy-to-use APIs and UI components for creating a full payment system without backend code. By integrating Stripe, you can achieve monetization in your application in a fraction of the time it would take to build from scratch.

5. Algolia

Data drives our applications, regardless of the domain. Whether it's e-commerce, cybersecurity, enterprise software, or any other field, your app is filled with data, and users need an effective way to search and navigate it. However, implementing a search engine can be a daunting task for frontend teams.

This is where Algolia comes in. Algolia provides a low-code infrastructure that allows you to implement user-friendly search with ease. By plugging data from your app and configuring Algolia, you can integrate a search engine into your application's core features quickly, streamlining user interactions and saving time on complex search implementations.

6. Permit.io

Authorization is a critical aspect of every modern application. After users log in, it's essential to decide what they can do within the application in a secure and granular manner.

In frontend development, there are two aspects to authorization: feature flagging, which allows for features to be enabled or disabled for specific users or groups, and access control, which determines if and when a user is allowed to perform an action.

Traditionally, only feature flagging has been part of frontend work, but with the growing functionality of frontend applications, fine-grained access control has become essential. 

Permit.io is a cloud product that offers a wide range of access control and authorization functionalities designed with front-end developers in mind. By using Permit.io, you can utilize Frontend Only Authorization (FoAz) to access backend APIs directly with frontend credentials, all without writing backend code. This allows you to grant your users access to third-party services, your own backend APIs, or any other resource with a fine-grained permissions model using only frontend code (It also has quite a generous free tier!)

Additionally, by encouraging your backend teams to implement authorization infrastructure, you can support advanced feature flagging and access control functionalities in your frontend application. Using Permit.io will allow you to elevate your frontend application's security, ensuring users can access only the resources they are allowed to.

Empower Your Team Today

As frontend developers gain more power and responsibility, low-code tools become indispensable for creating better applications faster without compromising quality. Whether you're a junior or senior developer, architect, or team leader, leveraging low-code tools can enhance your team's productivity and deliver better results with less effort. Take the opportunity to empower your team with low-code tools that will make you a better frontend developer.

If you have any thoughts or comments on the article or simply want to chat with low-code makers, we invite you to join our Slack community. There, you can meet other developers and makers who use low-code tools to create better applications faster.