Prompt versus canvas is the wrong comparison now. The question is who stays responsible.
The old version of this page said low-code means a canvas, components and connectors, and that you cannot describe an app into existence. That has stopped being true across the category. ToolJet markets natural-language creation of full-stack enterprise apps. ServiceNow’s Build Agent generates applications, workflows and agents from a prompt, with App Engine Management Center governing them centrally. Quickbase has Chat-to-App alongside enterprise administration and audit logs.
Because this is a category rather than one product, the table below says Varies wherever it honestly varies. What does not vary much is the operating model. Low-code platforms are development environments: they hand a builder real control, and they expect somebody to keep the platform and its output coherent. Cordango is more opinionated. The person who owns the process asks for what they need, and what arrives is a capability on a company that already has its records, its rights and its history.
Feature availability and pricing change. Every row is checked against the vendor's own current documentation, linked at the foot of this page.
Default means it is there without anyone setting it up. Available means the vendor supports it, sometimes only on a particular plan. Build or configure means it is possible and it is your work. Not a focus means the product is aimed somewhere else.
| Cordango | low-code | |
|---|---|---|
| Building an app by describing it | Defaultthe normal way in, alongside ready-made capabilities | VariesToolJet, ServiceNow and Quickbase all do this now. Older platforms do not. |
| Canvas and formula-level control | Not a focuspurpose-built screens from a shared vocabulary. No canvas, no formula language. | Defaultthis is what the category exists for |
| Shared company records across every app | Defaultorganizations, people and teams are there before the first app | Build or configuremost platforms can. Somebody has to model it and keep it that way. |
| Organisation-level identity and roles | DefaultMicrosoft and Google sign-in on every plan, SAML and SCIM higher up | Variesthe mature platforms have it, often on higher tiers |
| Authorisation inside the app | Defaultenforced below the application, per entity, per field and per command | Build or configureconfigured per app by whoever builds it |
| Audit across every app | Defaultfield-level history produced by the runtime, nothing to model | Variesthe enterprise platforms have it. Check which tier. |
| Central governance of the portfolio | Defaultone platform and one set of rules, because there is nothing else to govern | AvailableServiceNow and Quickbase in particular do this well |
| Somebody has to run the platform | Defaultnobody at your company does | Build or configureenvironments, upgrades, standards and often a centre of excellence |
| Self-hosting | Not a focusCordango is a managed service. Several low-code platforms win this row. | VariesToolJet, Appsmith and Budibase self-host. Plenty of others do not. |
| German or EU data residency | DefaultGerman data centres on every plan, sub-processors published | Variesvery much per vendor. Worth establishing early. |
| Personal views without forking the app | Defaultyour own pages over a capability. Layout only, so a shared view grants no extra data. | Build or configureusually a new screen, built by a builder |
| Who has to build it | Defaultyou describe it, or you ask us to build it on the same core | Build or configurea builder, and on most platforms a trained one |
| What the price depends on | Defaultone contract for the platform. Apps are not priced separately. | Variesper maker, per user, per app or per action, depending entirely on the vendor |
Ask what happens to the tenth application. On a low-code platform it is a project. Somebody models the data it needs, builds its screens, decides its roles and, if the platform is a mature one, registers it with whatever governs the portfolio. The good platforms make all of that manageable, and ServiceNow and Quickbase in particular do it well.
In Cordango the tenth capability is not a project. It reads the organizations, the people, the teams and the roles that were already there, and writes to the same history. There is no modelling phase, because the model is not per app.
The honest cost is control. A low-code builder can make a screen do what they want it to do. Cordango composes purpose-built screens from a vocabulary, and when what you need is not in that vocabulary, you ask us and we build it rather than reaching for a canvas.
A traditional low-code platform is the better choice when you have or want an application-development team, when a builder needs fine-grained control over the result, or when self-hosting is mandatory.
What we can show you, and what we cannot. Cordango holds no ISO 27001, SOC 2 or C5 certification today, and has not commissioned an external penetration test yet. We would rather you read that here than find it in procurement. Security and permissions at Cordango, and the data processing agreement in full.
Bring a process you would otherwise model on a low-code platform. We will build it in the demo, on a company platform where the records, the rights and the history already exist.