Update: This article was originally published in May 2023. However, it was updated several times – first in December 2023, then in November 2024 and August 2025 – with new information based on new versions of the quadrant.
Low-Code Application Platforms are basically software tools that allow you to create apps rapidly and with little to no coding – by using powerful wizards, generators, and ready-made elements that you simply connect within the platform. If you’re new to this whole low-code craze, you might like to read my articles on 5 low-code advantages and 10 low-code myths.
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for LCAP is a yearly report created by a well-known American analytics company that summarizes the state of the market. It’s a useful source of information for low-code enthusiasts – it helps us choose the technologies we should focus our attention on.
The rules behind the report are easy to understand. Gartner uses two main factors to evaluate low-code platforms – “Completeness of Vision” and “Ability to Execute” – but there are several things contributing to these factors and they have a varying level of importance.
Gartner puts emphasis on innovation, market understanding, and product strategy. Other things that are taken into account include the business model, level of innovation, and marketing and sales strategy.
In this case, the emphasis is on the product itself, as well as the sales execution and pricing. The overall viability, customer experience, and market responsiveness are also important.
Based on these two factors, notable technologies/vendors are divided into four distinct categories, so-called quadrants:
As mentioned above, there are additional criteria that determine whether a given vendor/technology is taken into consideration in the first place.
First, the tool in question must provide low-code capabilities related to various aspects and stages of development. Some examples include versioning, testing, designing data schemas, internal and external data source composition, and building UIs (among other things). It should also support patching automation, offer single-step deployment across environments, and a catalog that can be used to share plugins, modules, etc.
Providers also need to demonstrate a go-to-market strategy and software product offering for the low-code tool (it can’t be bundled with another platform). Moreover, it can’t be viable only for creating vertical/industry apps (it must offer the ability to build cross-industry and general-purpose solutions).
The solutions included in the report have to offer technical support to their customers, provide secure access to applications, high availability and disaster recovery tools. To be included, the platform must also provide third-party apps access to application logic using event topics/APIs.
Gartner only includes large, international companies in the report, so there are specific requirements concerning geographical presence – the product has to be available in at least three of the following regions: North America, South America, Europe, Middle East/Africa, China, Japan/Asia/Pacific
The company must also prove it’s big enough – either by generating a high enough level of revenue thanks to LCAP licenses/subscriptions, attracting a good number of clients, or building a large community. In this case, there are three options emphasizing different factors:
Additionally, analysts evaluate a metric called customer interest index (CII), which is a score between 1 and 100, based on several factors, including social media followers, search trends (both on Gartner.com and the Internet), inquiry volume (Gartner), peer insights (Gartner.com), and web traffic analysis. Tools need to have a CII of 51+ to be included in the report.
Now that we know what’s what, let’s take a look at the biggest low-code platforms in 2025 – as seen through Gartner’s lenses.
There are once again six leaders in this edition of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for LCAP: Mendix, OutSystems, Microsoft PowerApps, ServiceNow, Appian and Salesforce. The last platform is the only newcomer in the Leaders section (it was previously a Challenger), while the rest return from the last report (albeit with some slight adjustments of their positions).
Mendix
According to Gartner’s report, Mendix – a product created by a company of the same name, which is a subsidiary of Siemens – is one of the best low-code platforms on the market, perfectly suited for developing large-scale enterprise-grade applications. The solution’s creators continue to innovate and add useful features at a rapid pace – for example, a Data Hub that helps you manage events and services or MxAssist Performance Bot that watches for bad patterns in the app’s architecture in order to ensure good performance.
It’s a great low-code offering that’ll serve you well in most circumstances and industries and a great option for native mobile app development (it supports Google and Apple ecosystems, sync and offline work, and it can accommodate people with disabilities). It’s also very good for building the logic of your system without coding and offers plenty of powerful integrations and developer features (IDE, version control, debugging, co-development tools, etc.).
The platform also offers powerful AI features, most notably the integration with RapidMinder and Maia AI – the GenAI development guidance tool. Mendix supports AR- and VR-enabled UX, has edge computing capabilities, and the new Solutions Kit was designed for building secure SaaS apps with billing/metering functionalities. The company plans to expand the platform’s AI and data architecture capabilities in the near future.
All of the above, along with Mendix’s compatibility with our technological know-how (Mendix is based on Java and we have almost 20 years of experience in Java development), persuaded us to pursue a partnership with the company – and I’m proud to say we reached an agreement, and Pretius is now an official Mendix partner. If you’re interested in Mendix application development, reach out to us – we have plenty of experience with enterprise-grade systems for various use cases and industries.
Also, for more on Mendix, check out the great articles written by some of our employees (including certified Mendix developers):
OutSystem’s position in the Leaders section is not surprising to me at all. With its powerful toolset, AI enhancements and other advanced low-code development tools, the platform is a great product overall. It supports deployments in OutSystems-managed cloud (AWS/Azure) or self-managed environments, and you can use it to create software of varying complexity, which is great if you want to think about enterprise-grade systems. Moreover, in recent months and years, OutSystems has made investments in improved identity services, a NATS-based (Neural Autonomic Transport System) event bus designed for distributed and event-driven apps, along with a high-availability architecture, further solidifying the platform’s position in the Leaders quadrant.
Of course, that doesn’t mean OutSystem’s perfect – it’s a good tool for general app development, but if you aim to solve industry-specific problems with your software, you might find better, or at least more specialized alternatives. Also, many companies complain about license costs with the new Application Objects-based model (the more Application Objects – screens, API methods, and database tables – your app has, the more you pay), and the company actually increased prices in 2023.
Want to learn more about developing applications with OutSystems? Check out these articles on the Pretius blog:
Power Apps by Microsoft is a low-code product designed first and foremost for so-called citizen developers – i.e. non-technical people who dabble in software development (usually using various low-code or no-code tools that help streamline the process). Power Apps offers a great range of integrations. If the list isn’t enough, there’s also a free development environment that allows you to connect to whatever data source you require via a pre-made or custom connector.
The platform has other interesting capabilities, such as Dataverse, AI Builder, Power Pages, and Power Automate. You can also access Copilot Studio, which is integrated with Power Apps, but considered a separate product (if you want to know more about using AI in software development, check out our GitHub Copilot tutorial). Many customers consider Power Apps to be most successful for citizen development, but it also provides plenty of tools for professional programmers – like easy publishing of a custom API, using custom models with the AI builder, etc.
The cool thing about Power Apps is that you can access some of the basic features on a normal 365 or Dynamics 365 enterprise plan, and the platform is well integrated with the Microsoft 365 suite. The company also has a Power Accelerator program designed to help companies with Power Apps implementation. And, of course, you can count on great support and a long list of extensions available through AppSource.
However, the platform’s somewhat limited capabilities in the area of compliance/governance sometimes require additional investment in other solutions, and the complicated licensing model makes large, multi-tenant, public access systems (such as B2B apps) expensive to develop. Moreover, it’s not the best of tools for creating vertical solutions designed for specific industries – it’s possible, but may require time-consuming and costly custom development.
Another Leader is ServiceNow, or rather the company’s App Engine service, which is available as part of the Now Platform. It offers a decent list of features, especially if you’re interested in automating business processes, workflows, or case management – though it left its old automation niche and currently covers various use cases across many different industries, including technology, education, healthcare, life sciences, etc. ServiceNow has a rich ecosystem, and App Engine is a solid option for companies that already use the company’s SaaS tools – so, usually big corporations. It also offers built-in GenAI tools, most notably the ServiceNow Studio and Now Assist for App Engine. Its downsides are mostly related to marketing/sales strategies (for example, many customers aren’t aware that ServiceNow can be used for projects not related to Business Process Automation).
Appian is a flexible platform with powerful business logic and workflow capabilities, and really great scalability – it supports FedRAMP compliance, multi-region high availability, and container-based deployments (Kubernetes). If you need to handle large user volumes, it’s one of the safest choices you can make.
The platform’s ecosystem and partner networks are also its strong points – with over 900 connectors, solutions, functions, and other utilities, as well as a large number of global system integrators (the company is actually currently scaling back in this regard, focusing on the quality of partnerships).
The company made various AI-related investments in recent years, including AI-assisted development tools and enhanced AI Skill Designer (no-code agent creation).
However, Appian’s pricing, which was already a sore point for customers last year, remains problematic (maybe even more so now since some of the brand-new features, like managed GenAI models, aren’t part of the core product and are sold separately instead). Also, Gartner notes that to access the platform’s full capabilities, you’ll need developers with varied skill sets (this is a consequence of the platform’s flexible nature).
Salesforce, previously a Challenger, is now in the Leaders section. The solution focuses on extending existing SaaS apps. The company offers a suite of low-code and general software development tools you can use for different scenarios with varying levels of complexity. For example, you have visual designers like Flow Builder and Lightning App Builder, 3GL support, IDEs for scripting, embedded agentic AI (Einstein and Agentforce) and so on.
The solutions are constantly evolving and exist within a great ecosystem and a thriving community. The platform provides a top-notch customer experience and makes good use of its strategic partnerships with industry giants (Google, Microsoft, AWS) to facilitate the fast adoption of AI capabilities (the lack of which was previously one of Salesforce’s downsides). However, Salesforce still isn’t really associated with low-code technologies, and the Salesforce Platform isn’t marketed as a general-purpose low-code tool. It also lacks purpose-built vertical components (except for customer engagement and experience areas).
In the current version of the report, the Challengers quadrant only consists of two solutions: Oracle APEX and Zoho.
The first one of these is a technology we at Pretius know very well: Oracle APEX (previously known as Oracle Application Express). APEX is tightly integrated with the Oracle Database (a.k.a. Oracle DB) – it’s available as a database feature, though it can also be used as a service on Oracle Cloud.
There are several great things about Oracle APEX. It’s essentially free if you already use Oracle DB (which many of us do – it remains the leading database solution on the market). It’s also helmed by one of the largest IT companies in the world that clearly knows how to build a strong brand and offers a great level of customer support in many different regions.
Speaking from my own experience, I can also say that the platform handles data very well (thanks to backups, built-in DB, zero-latency data access approach, the option to integrate with other database solutions, and a couple of other things), offers good backward compatibility, excellent reporting capabilities (you can use templates or create your own), and top-notch security. On top of that, Oracle’s licensing, pricing, and update policies are very good indeed, and the same can be said of customer support.
Oracle currently positions APEX as its primary platform for developing its SaaS apps, and a general-purpose custom development tool. The platform also provides generative AI tools via its OCI GenAI integration.
There are some limitations for sure, such as the lack of native mobile support (you can use responsive and progressive web apps, though), and the platform’s innate connection to the Oracle ecosystem can be a consideration, too, if you rely on a different stack. However, in many circumstances and for many companies – especially ones that already use Oracle DB – APEX is the best option out there (there’s a reason Oracle, as Gartner states, “leads the effort to convert enterprise developers from traditional application stacks to enterprise LCAP”). I firmly believe it’ll be in the Leaders section at some point.
If you want to know more about Oracle APEX, you’re in the right place. Here are a couple of other articles by Pretius developers:
Zoho Creator provides a powerful suite of ready-made business capabilities, and it’s part of a well-known suite of business apps, which is also a strength. In fact, similarly to Salesforce, the tool is best used to enhance and customize the capabilities of existing Zoho solutions, though you can also consider it for multi-experience application development. The solution offers multi-region and multi-cloud/on-premise backups and deployments, app performance monitoring, and autoscaling (both horizontal and vertical). What’s more, aside from an intuitive graphical interface, it also provides its own development language (Deluge) and supports various others (JavaScript, Java, Node.js, XPath). Recently, the company also invested in AI-assisted development tools and improved app security (Zoho Creation now supports customer-managed encryption keys).
However, Zoho leaves something to be desired when it comes to innovative features and may not be the best tool for mission-critical application projects (or at least isn’t marketed as one).
There are two tools in the Visionaries quadrant of the current version of Gartner’s report: Pegasystems and SAP.
Pegasystems is a flexible, multi-purpose low-code solution with a strong focus on GenAI capabilities – namely the Pega GenAI Blueprint (for generating app components based on requirement documents, process flows, etc.) and Pega GenAI Autopilot (chat-based developer tools). The company offers a great customer experience and a well-conceived business model. However, its usage-based pricing can be problematic due to steep time/capacity limits. Currently, it also isn’t the best choice for big, front-end apps due to limited data virtualization and user experience development capabilities.
The SAP Build low-code tool – part of the company’s SAP software ecosystem – is designed for industry-specific and back-office use cases. The platform combines low-code features with traditional development tools and AI-powered features (proprietary AI models and AI assistant capabilities). Its primary purpose is to allow companies to enhance existing SAP solutions without outside help. It’s a solid idea with a huge company behind the product, but you have to combine multiple SAP products/licenses to get the most out of the platform, which makes it an expensive proposition. SAP’s product offering is also very varied and can be a bit confusing (some apps have overlapping functionalities).
Two tools from the previous edition find themselves in the Niche Players quadrant: Retool and Creatio.
Retool remains an interesting product – a low-code platform for professional developers. It allows you to build apps using a highly praised drag & drop interface and advanced AI-assisted app generation tools. However, you can also enhance your creations with JavaScript, SQL, HTML, and CSS. Retool is also very easy to integrate with various databases and APIs. The technology is perfect for many use cases, especially internal tools and back-office apps, and it grows really fast – the adoption and recognition, especially among developers, is quite impressive, and the company also managed to find some large, enterprise-grade customers.
However, the choice to give developers more control – and therefore rely on code customization to deliver some capabilities – can be a limiting factor, especially since the platform lacks industry-specific regulatory accelerators or templates. It’s also a relatively small company, especially when compared to brands such as Mendix or OutSystems, and it’ll require a significant sales and marketing push to change this.
Creatio Studio – previously in the Visionaries sector – is on the other end of the spectrum to Retool because it focuses on business users rather than professional developers. It’s also similar to Zoho in that the no-code/low-code offering is meant to augment the company’s SaaS product suite: Service Creatio, Sales Creatio, Marketing Creatio, etc. (the product portfolio is quite varied). The main use scenarios are business-led development and hyperautomation, and the company focuses on professional services, banking, insurance and manufacturing industries. Recently, the company launched Creatio.ai, which serves as an AI command center for various AI features and provides ready-made AI skills.
One conclusion that is the clearest to me from Gartner’s new report is that the interest in low-code tools remains very strong. There are 12 capable, fast-growing platforms in the magic quadrant, and they have already been used in many industries and fields. These solutions are actively developed and improve with each passing year, with a visible focus on adding AI-powered features.
Low-code’s future has never looked brighter. The platforms are no longer just extensions for core systems and tools used for easy-to-make, small apps. They become integral parts of companies’ tech stacks and are essential for creating comprehensive, mission-critical systems. These observations align with my thoughts as Pretius has undertaken various complex projects using low-code technology over the last few years, and as I witnessed APEX’s growing prominence during Cloud World 2024 and heard Oracle’s plans to integrate the platform into its SaaS strategy.
When choosing a low-code platform, it’s important to consider the company’s current tech stack. For example, if you’re heavily invested in Microsoft’s ecosystem, Power Apps can be a good choice, especially if you’re not planning on developing too many complex, custom features for your applications. If you use Oracle products – especially the database – it’s quite probable you’ll need to look no further than Oracle APEX. Of course, there are also many other factors, such as the industry you operate in, particular features, cloud support, and so on.
If you believe now might be the right moment to jump on the hype train but are unsure which platform suits your business needs best, drop us a line at hello@pretius.com or use the contact form below. Pretius has a great deal of experience with various types, shapes, and sizes of low-code systems. We can evaluate the scope of the planned project, your business needs, and current assets (tech stack, etc.) to help you determine the best platform you can use in these circumstances.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
The source of information for this article is “Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms” by Oleksandr Matvitskyy, Kyle Davis, Adrian Leow and Akash Jain, published on July 28, 2025.
Here are answers to some common questions regarding the Gartner low-code quadrant.
The Gartner low-code quadrant is a framework that evaluates and compares the capabilities of low-code application platforms.
Enterprise low-code application platforms (LCAPs) are software tools that enable users to create and deploy applications with minimal or no coding. LCAPs provide graphical user interfaces, drag-and-drop components, pre-built templates, and other features that simplify development. LCAPs are designed to empower business users, developers, and IT professionals to collaborate and deliver solutions faster and more efficiently.
According to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, the leading low-code platforms in 2024 are Mendix, OutSystems, PowerApps, ServiceNow, Appian, and Salesforce. However, you should make the final choice based on your business needs and current tech stack.
