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Attila Cs. Nagy

Why are developers still building landing pages from scratch?

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There are so many great no-code site builders out there to launch marketing pages for products. Why are developers still prefer to build landing pages on their own? - Is it only money? - Is there any technical reason behind it?

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Kamila Klavíková
TL;DR Tried no-code. Didn't work as expected. After experimenting, we code it ourselves. First we tried to create our landing page in Webflow. We paid for it so we could export the code. We wanted to save time and we felt it was difficult to create a responsive website. But we hit a few major roadblocks: 🔹 The controls are clunky. All the editing took us a long time. You get the feeling it would be easier in code. 🔹 The resulting code is a horrible mess. We tried to clean it, but realized it would be quicker to start from scratch. It didn't feel worth the money. We expected it would be easier to use. That's why we decided to code it ourselves. We haven't found a simple framework for generating static websites in Clojure(Script) that works for us. So we ended up creating our own microframework for generating static sites. We published it so other people can use it: https://github.com/OrgPad-com/vo... That's our story. I hope it helps to get some insight.
Jessie
No-code are definitely great and opens up more opportunities! I guess for developers since they know the language very well doing it from scratch gives them more flexibility and less limitations...
Hussain Effendi
@jessie_m have you used no-code for landing pages. If yes what were the limitations that you came across if any. I am seriously in a dilemma when debating with my team about no-code vs code. I feel no-code would be a faster solution to the initial launch landing page, but my team has an argument that says, A- it won't do justice to the impact in terms of design and B- There are possibilities of SEO limitations, Not really a technical or marketing guy to debate well with them on this. My concern for the moment is time!
Jessie
@heffendi Yes wordpress. The are pros and cons for everything and it's different for everyone - you'll need to evaluate the priority, needs and current staff skillset and then decide base on your specific scenario what's best move for the organization. For no-code: you need to learn how the template works and sometimes it challenging to fix the space and little details that can make a difference visually, but overall it's pretty good and time efficient. I am no developer so I can't speak on the technical much but for a developer I would think it might be even less time consuming to create from scratch because they know the language vs they need to learn the specific no-code template which might take more time - so this can depend on your team skillset and what are their strength. Here's some interesting an interesting article where they mention about no-code design and optimization pros and cons: https://medium.com/swlh/20-ways-... - hope you'll find this useful :)
Becky Reich
@jessie_m I think the big discussion should be how much effort from the development team goes into iterations. Yes, it can be done from scratch with more flexibility, but they need to make all the updates. If a no-code solution was used then they could hand it over to Marketing to do all the small updates that take so much time out of sprints.
Jessie
@becky_reich Good point Becky! If the marketing team is assigned to make any website updates then yes definitely no-code. I would personally give it to developers (front-end) to do any website updates (if you there is an IT team) instead of marketing just to keep tasks and team focused. However, there is no right or wrong answer it all depends on internal logistics and what is best with the resource the organization currently has.
Ender
No-code builders typically produce low-quality (hard to read) code and have poor web performance. Code is also free, and no-code platforms usually aren’t.
NotesbyHugh
I'm all for no-code landing page builders but they definitely have limits and if you have the ability to code it would allow you to take the site to another level.
Ng Fang Kiang
Unique and better performance (Core Web Vitals)
Hussain Effendi
I personally feel no-code is a go-to but that's because of me being a non-tech guy. But if you want to do justice to the hard work of your design team then I guess code is what is required. Also, would any of you happen to know if no-code landing pages have any limitations when it comes to SEO?
Prince-Brown Jasper
Coding from scratch gives more flexibility than no-code platforms. In fact, it's enjoyable. When you code, you don't to need to waste hours trying to figure out a CSS codes that controls each section of the page. That's the difference between makers and copiers. Real makers build things!
Maciej Cupial
In my case, full access to the source code and complete control of the website. No code is fantastic, but it may limit you in very edge cases.