OutSystems vs Power Apps: A Feature-by-Feature Breakdown for CTOs

Low-code platforms today are finally getting the attention they deserve. Now industries are understanding that platforms like OutSystems, Mendix, etc, their capabilities aren’t just enough for the simple departmental forms or in-house projects, but they can provide high-performing applications as well, while cutting the cost of the process to almost half, as well as the time of delivery will be 10x faster as well.

But when we are talking about low-code platforms, there is no single player with a monopoly in the whole market, while there are some major players that prove to be a great choice for building enterprise-level and sustainable applications. While they provide almost the same benefits, but it’s internal features and the way these platforms are internally very different, which is very important to understand.

If a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) randomly chooses the platform for their business application, then it can lead to multiple technical drawbacks in the near future, such as architectural technical debt, unexpected, or we can say hidden, consumption costs, and low performance of the application. These are some of the common issues a business faces if they choose a low-code platform without doing enough research.

But no worries, in this blog, we are going to cover the comparison between the two big players in the low-code industry, OutSystems and Microsoft Power Apps, to understand which one is better for what purpose and suits what kind of industry.

In the last blog, we did the comparison between Mendix and OutSystems for the same reason. Do check out the blog if you want to know more: OutSystems vs. Mendix, Which Platform Is Right for Complex Backend Logic

So, before we start the blog, let’s first structure the blog, so that you know what are the topics we are going to cover and whether it aligns well with the parameters you are searching for or not.

Now that we have created the basic blueprint of the blog, let’s dive into the first section of the blog, the core philosophy of each platform, so we know with what ideology each platform was created.

1. Core Philosophy: High Performance Low-Code vs Ecosystem Enablement

So, before we talk about the features of each platform in detail, let’s first understand the foundational design of the application or basic philosophy that the creators followed to develop each platform. Let’s discuss both of them in brief.

OutSystems

If I have to summarise the ideology of OutSystems in just a single word, then it will be something like this.

OutSystems compiles visual models into standard, optimised native .NET C# code.

So, we can say that OutSystems mainly converts the visually rich code, which includes workflows, business logic, user interface, database entities and many more, into the standardized, highly optimized Microsoft .NET C# source code, which is then compiled into binaries that can run directly the standard application server or cloud native which totally depends on which version of OutSystems the organization used for application development.

So, in short, we can say that when the developer clicks on one-click publish or when the application is deployed, it mainly converts the OutSystems code into the .NET C# code for compilation, which then converts into a binary for processing the code on the server side.

Power Apps

Well, when we talk about Power Apps, the story changes significantly. Let’s understand the soul of Power Apps in one line before we jump into a deeper understanding.

Power Apps actually interprets the data models dynamically through different apps like Canvas/Model-Driven runtime engines.

This can lead to a conclusion that Power Apps are divided into two different models that developers can use: Canvas/Model-Driven run time engine. So let’s understand each one of them and how they are different from each other.

• Canvas App: This app is used to map the UI/UX elements from the data, for which Canvas App uses a language called Power FFX, which is a formula language, just like Excel, where you can manipulate the content or trigger actions through formulas.
• Model-Driven App: This is an app where, once the data is created, the application automatically generates the user interface according to the database structure, which is based on the Dataverse schema.

And at last, the underlying or background processing Power Platform runtime engine interprets the configurations dynamically at runtime to ensure that the application is mapped together correctly.

2. Application Architecture and Code Compilation

While everything in the app development is important, there are some factors that shouldn’t be messed up at any cost; otherwise, the application’s performance, scalability, and long-term viability all could be affected in the worse way possible.

Understanding which platform provides which type of application architecture could prove to be important for the organization as then you can understand that the business application you wanted to create would perform best in what type of architecture, and which can withhold it’s potential.

So now, let’s sink into the difference between both the platform’s architectural differences and what the advantages of each architecture are.

OutSystems: True Application Synthesis

OutSystems is surely a low-code platform, but still its speed is as fast as an application built in traditional platform of .NET platform. How is it even possible? You must be thinking.

Well, OutSystems builds application service-oriented architecture, which is also known as SOA. SOA is a way of software design in which different software components, or we can say different modules of the applications, communicate with each other over a network or in an environment. These modules are loosely coupled or sometimes decoupled, which means that any alteration made in one module will not affect in any way to the other modules.

But that’s not the only reason why OutSystems’ execution is so fast. But after the development, OutSystems translate every visual element into the native C# language, becoming the final layer that can bypass any proprietary abstraction layer at the time of compiling the code.

Due to this architecture are mainly two benefits which the client as well as the application can leverage in the long run, these benefits are as follows :

• No Vendor Lock-In at Runtime: For any reason, if your organization decides to terminate the license for OutSystems, all the progress of your application development will not be lost. In fact, OutSystems is a platform that allows you to export the generated, standard .NET source code. So that even when you are out of OutSystems, you can still host, maintain and run your application with the help of engineering teams and on standard IIS or Linux container systems without the need for OutSystems IDE.
• True Application Lifecycle Management (ALM): Ensuring that the architecture of the application is a very difficult task, especially when it comes to route out the dependencies of the application. But with OutSystems, that chances of circular dependencies as there are separate logic modules for sections like Data, Core Services, Core Widget, Front-End, to ensure the clear dependency route and clear architectural boundaries.

Power Apps: Stateful Model Interpretation

Having a platform which contain all the applications sounds like a heavy job, right? But Power Apps don’t actually store your application in the exact manner as you do. It actually removes the whole underlying infrastructure completely and then store you app in the form of configuration metadata, which is then stored inside the Azure-backed Microsoft Power Platform.

So, in a way, we can say that Power Apps shrinks the application into just a configuration metadata by removing the hidden or background processing infrastructure completely, which not have ensure high performing application but it also resources to a very big extent for the organization, so in a way it is a win-win condition for organizations as well as the platform.

There are some features of this architecture that you should be aware about before you choose Power Apps for better planning and understanding.

• Runtime Dependency: The architecture of Power Apps is based on the ecosystems, which means an application which is built inside Power Apps cannot exist outside the Microsoft ecosystem, which is limiting the control of the organization over its own application. This is because the application needs to have an active Power Apps runtime engine that interprets and renders the user experiences inside the ecosystems.
• The Canvas vs. Model-Driven Split: As we have discussed, there are two important architectural components in Power Apps that provide dynamic choices to the user or developers to decide if they want to create application’s by themself or they are fine with the auto-generated UI, which can be a Model-Driven app. But this split forces the users or the team to decide at an early stage about what they have to do, as each choice has its own drawbacks. For example, if a user uses the Canvas app, then they do have full control over the UI of the application, but they need to bind the data structure of the whole application manually. On the other hand, if the user chooses a Model-Driven App, then they will get a rigid and standardized layout of the screen or UI.

3. Advanced Backend Logic and Custom Code Extensibility

Even when there is speed and performance, the biggest drawback of a low-code platform is the limited features it has during the time of development. In traditional coding, the sky is the limit, but when we drop to the low-code platforms, there are some limits on what can be created and what cannot. But to overcome these drawbacks, ensure that the incapability of the platform doesn’t stop the development process. OutSystems and Power Appsss has there own solution to the problem of extending the limited features of the platform to an uninterrupted process of development.

So now let’s understand how each platform ensures that adapting their platform developers aren’t deprived of the new and advanced features which are common in core coding.

Extending OutSystems with Native C#

When we talk about OutSystems, it thrives on the fact that it’s visually very rich and comes in handy for the developers when they are creating an application; sometimes it even lets the developer do the task of hours in some minutes. But when there are out-of-line requests from the side of clients, request which actually aren’t possible in OutSystems Service Studio, it can’t stop the platform, as there is another component of OutSystems called Integration Studio, which provides an uncompromised escape hatch feature.

• Visual Studio Integration: When we are talking about an extension, it means the developers creating the extension don’t have to create everything from scratch. The developer can simply click a button, and they can instantly get the pre-configured C# starter project, which is also called a solution stub. This simplifies the process to a great extent, as then the code contains all the connection points that are needed to interact back to the OutSystems Applications. So, in a way, the extension that is opened in Visual Studio and the OutSystems application are always connected.
• Unmanaged Execution: But Integration Studio isn’t all; there are more ways through which OutSystems adopts the core-coding features. Like the developers can import any new external library or NuGet directly from the C# extension, and can use it inside the application. This lets the platform leverage new and advanced features of these libraries with the speed of low-code.
• Performance: Another thing which great or we can beneficial with the OutSystems extension is that, even if the developer uses the extension of external libraries to create advanced features, it still doesn’t affect the performance of the application, as eventually the whole application is compiled into C# code directly into the main application binaries, executing with optimal efficiency and zero middleware latency.

Extending Power Apps with PCF and Azure Functions

Now, let’s understand what Power Apps’ way of extending its features and capabilities. So, Power Apps extends its features through PCF, which stands for Power Apps Component Framework and the broader Azure cloud ecosystem is also used for the same.

• JavaScript/TypeScript Components: In Power Apps, one cannot only add on the features, but it also provides liberty to the developer to create their own custom UI components with TypeScript and Node.js, while the client-side logic can also be created through PCF.
• The Azure Escape Hatch: Power Apps cannot execute or compile the heavy server-side processing or complex algorithms which are coded natively and are still unmanaged at runtime. But there is another path that Power Apps uses to solve this problem, as they use Azure Functions or Azure Logic Apps to offload their logic weight at runtime.
• Architectural Overhead: While this process provides you with the results that are required by the developers, it is not that efficient in the brutal way. As the architecture is divided, or we can say fragmented, into different portals, the developer has to maintain code across two different portals, which are Power Apps and Azure Portal, which adds to the network latency as well as management overhead to every backend transaction.

4. Data Modelling, Storage, and ORM Capabilities

Data is the most important element in the development process; if there is no data, there is no way the customers are going to come to just look at the UI. Data is the soul of an application, but when the data isn’t stored in the standardized bases, or normalizes correctly, it does just increase the cost of storage of data by the application but it is also makes the data fetching process slow, length and complicated due to which the performance of the application or the websites will about be tampered.

But OutSystems, as well as Power Apps, has built its own set of features to ensure that the data is stored correctly and can be retrieved fast. So now, let’s understand how both platforms deal with Data Modelling, Storage and other database-related operations.

OutSystems: Database-Agnostic Relational Mapping

When we talk about OutSystems with respect to database storage and retrieval, then we can say that OutSystems has a standardised data layer which is created by following the Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) concepts. So, we can say that OutSystems have a very managed way to store and retrieve data from the server. A developer can use a visually rich element called aggregate to fetch data, which will automatically create the SQL query in the background. But that’s not it, OutSystems also give easy access to external databases and many more. Let’s discuss each one of them in detail.

• Flexible Database Hosting: When your application is in OutSystems, it doesn’t restrict the usage of only its database. An organization is free to export the whole database to OutSystems, or they can choose to keep it on the external database only, and there won’t be much difference. OutSystems provides an easy integration feature from external databases like SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, or MySQL, and there are many more ways, like Forge components, to integrate with S3Bucket, etc.
• Raw SQL Control: Aggregates work as a visual query, but they also have their own limitations. When the process of data retrieval becomes long and complicated, it is not exactly possible to compile the data with Aggregate. But for that scenario, OutSystems has an element called Advanced SQL, which lets the developer write the raw SQL statements, which can be integrated with the parameters of OutSystems Server Actions, subqueries and stored procedures, which help to optimize the query execution path as well as index usage when it is not needed.

Power Apps: The Dataverse Centric Model

If we talk about Power Apps and their ability to handle external data, then we can say that Power Apps is highly dependent on Microsoft Dataverse (formerly Common Data Service), which is a cloud-based data platform built on Azure. But we need to understand the dependence of Dataverse, where Power Apps can achieve excellence, and where the limitations for the same exist.

• The Power of Dataverse: Dataverse isn’t just a database; it is a rich data engine which can the features to handle security roles, business rules, data auditing, and polymorphic relationships out of the box. This is highly suitable or preferable for the organization whose deeply inside Microsoft 365 and Dynamics, Dataverse increases the speed of data configuration by reducing the time into just minutes than hours.
• The Query Limitation: Power Apps removes the database layer completely. There is this limitation that a developer cannot write raw SQL queries to retrieve or fetch the data from the Dataverse tables natively within the app designers. While this is possible to do if the developer is well-known with the FetchXML, or they can also use Power Fx expressions. While Dataverse performs exceptionally well when there organization is based on Microsoft, the application backend requires large database optimization where tens of millions of records are processed for just a single transaction, then Dataverse can turn into a performance and cost bottleneck.

5. The Summary

Now that we have gone through all the important concepts and features for the comparison between OutSystems and Power Apps, let’s summarize the same for revision and better understanding.

6. Conclusion

Now that we have compared both the platforms, OutSystems and Power Apps on multiple bases, we can say that both of the platforms have some best cases while some worse cases. There are scenarios when OutSystems can perform exceptionally well, while Power Apps’ performance will be below average and vice versa. So now, let’s conclude this blog by discussing when one should opt for OutSystems and Power Apps.

When to Choose OutSystems

If you want to replace or redevelop your legacy application with advanced features with a high-performing transactional engine, or if you are planning to create a public application or website which will be exposed to millions of users, then you should choose OutSystems without a second thought. OutSystems doesn’t provide native C# execution speed, but it also gives developers tight, or we can say solid, control over the physical database structures, with clear CI/CD dependency tracking, with a guarantee that the vendor can switch the platform whenever they want while still claiming the executable code of the application.

When to Choose Power Apps

The organization should choose Power Apps only when they are heavily or completely dependent on the Microsoft tools like Excel, Word, Microsoft 365, Azure, etc., for the execution of day-to-day tasks in the organization as it will facilitate the configuration process to a very big extent. Power Apps can prove to be very effective with the employee you wanted, that they create their own applications without any background knowledge or computer science degree. This can motivate the employees to automate their repetitive tasks so they can concentrate on more important and defined work. So, mainly, Power Apps are used to create applications to automate the internal company’s processes.

Devendra Baghel

I have been developing software for more than 10+ years, and I am an IT specialist. At the moment, I work with Prodfinity as a Technical Consultant. Through project delivery, I consistently focus on giving the client a high-value product rather than merely software. I take an active position in the Scrum Team and help the team solve problems for clients.