The Rise of No-Code Builders in Algeria: How Non-Technical Founders Are Creating Apps

Beyond the Developer Shortage

Algeria has a developer shortage. While the country’s university system produces thousands of computer science graduates each year across more than 20 institutions, that supply falls short for a market of 48 million people and an economy that is digitizing unevenly. For the thousands of Algerian entrepreneurs who have business ideas but cannot code — and cannot afford to hire a freelance developer or agency at 150,000-300,000 DZD per month — the gap between concept and product has historically been insurmountable. Either you knew how to code, or you did not build.

No-code and low-code platforms have changed this equation. Tools like Bubble, Webflow, Glide, Adalo, Airtable, and Zapier allow non-technical users to build functional web applications, mobile apps, databases, and automated workflows using visual interfaces — dragging and dropping components rather than writing code. Gartner projected that 70% of new enterprise applications would use low-code or no-code technologies by 2025, up from less than 25% in 2020. That prediction has largely materialized: Gartner’s updated forecasts now indicate that low-code will account for 75% of new application development in 2026, with 80% of low-code users coming from outside formal IT departments.

In Algeria, a growing community of “citizen developers” has emerged — entrepreneurs, small business owners, freelancers, and students who are building real, revenue-generating products without writing a single line of traditional code. Their projects range from marketplace apps and booking systems to inventory management tools and educational platforms. They represent a new pathway to digital entrepreneurship that bypasses Algeria’s developer talent bottleneck entirely.

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Profiles: Algerian No-Code Builders and Their Projects

Rachid M., a 31-year-old logistics manager in Oran, built a delivery tracking platform using Bubble that connects small merchants with independent delivery drivers. The app handles order creation, route optimization, real-time tracking, and payment recording. It took him four months of evenings and weekends to build, at a total cost of roughly $150 in Bubble subscription fees. A comparable custom-coded application would have cost $5,000-$15,000 from a local development agency. His platform now serves 40+ merchants in Oran and generates $800/month in subscription revenue.

Salima T., a 27-year-old university graduate in Constantine, used Glide to build a tutoring marketplace that connects university students with high school students seeking academic support. The app — built on top of a Google Sheets database — handles tutor profiles, subject matching, scheduling, and review ratings. She launched in three weeks and has 200+ active tutors on the platform. Glide generates progressive web apps from spreadsheet data, supporting Google Sheets, Excel, and Airtable as data sources. That simplicity made it accessible to her despite having no prior technical training beyond basic Excel skills.

Other notable projects include a Webflow-built portfolio and booking site for freelance photographers in Algiers, an Airtable-powered inventory management system for a family-owned textile business in Tlemcen, and a Zapier-automated customer onboarding workflow for a small insurance brokerage in Blida. Ahmed K. in Algiers built a job board for the restaurant industry using Softr and Airtable, generating revenue from restaurant owners who pay to post positions. Fatima Z. created a wedding planning coordination tool using Notion and Tally forms, serving 50+ couples in Setif.

What connects these builders is pragmatism. None of them set out to become “no-code developers” as an identity. They had specific business problems, discovered that no-code tools could solve them, and learned the platforms through YouTube tutorials, online communities, and trial and error. Most describe a learning curve of 2-8 weeks before they could build functional applications.

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Platform Preferences and Algerian-Specific Challenges

The most popular no-code platforms among Algerian builders reflect both global trends and local constraints. Bubble dominates for complex web applications, offering the most flexibility and power among visual development tools. Its free tier allows builders to prototype without payment, which is critical in Algeria where credit card penetration sits at just 2.8% of the adult population. Webflow is the preferred choice for marketing sites and portfolio pages, valued for its design quality. Glide and Softr are popular for simpler mobile-first apps built on top of spreadsheet data — and Softr has recently expanded beyond Airtable to support Google Sheets, Notion, HubSpot, and SQL databases as data sources. Airtable serves as the database layer for many Algerian no-code projects, replacing the need for backend development. Zapier and Make (formerly Integromat) handle automation and integrations.

However, Algerian no-code builders face several platform-specific challenges that their global counterparts do not. Payment integration is the most significant. Algeria’s limited payment infrastructure — severely restricted PayPal (Algerians can send payments but face major barriers receiving funds and cannot withdraw directly to local bank accounts), no direct Stripe access (Algeria is not among Stripe’s 46+ supported countries), and minimal credit card penetration — means that no-code builders cannot easily monetize their applications through in-app payments. Most Algerian no-code apps rely on manual payment collection (CCP transfers, cash on delivery, or BaridiMob via Algeria Post’s EDAHABIA card system) with the no-code platform handling everything except the actual financial transaction. This creates friction and limits scalability.

Arabic right-to-left (RTL) support is another pain point, though the situation is improving. Bubble still lacks native RTL support, requiring developers to apply custom CSS workarounds (such as `direction:rtl`) to achieve Arabic layouts — the experience remains inconsistent and labor-intensive. Webflow, on the other hand, now offers built-in RTL support, automatically applying `dir=”rtl”` to the HTML element for Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew locales, with logical CSS properties that adapt layouts based on text direction. While Algeria’s tech-savvy users are comfortable with French and English interfaces, applications serving the broader population need Arabic support, and the uneven RTL capabilities across platforms limit the addressable market for some Algerian no-code applications.

Performance and hosting present additional challenges. Most no-code platforms host applications on US or European servers, which means Algerian users experience latency. For consumer-facing applications where speed matters, this creates a competitive disadvantage against locally-hosted coded applications. Additionally, no-code platforms’ pricing (Bubble’s paid plans start at $29/month for web-only, Webflow at $14/month) can represent a significant expense for Algerian entrepreneurs whose revenue is in dinars.

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Can No-Code Expand Algeria’s Digital Economy?

The central question is whether no-code represents a genuine expansion of Algeria’s digital economy or merely a tool for building MVPs that will eventually need to be rebuilt in code. The answer is both.

For a significant category of applications — internal business tools, simple marketplaces, booking systems, directory sites, and workflow automation — no-code is the final product, not a prototype. A small business in Algeria that needs an inventory management system does not need a custom React application; an Airtable-based solution with a Softr front-end is perfectly adequate and maintainable by non-technical staff. These applications create real economic value by digitizing processes that were previously manual, reducing errors, saving time, and enabling data-driven decisions.

For more ambitious projects — consumer apps with thousands of users, fintech products, or applications requiring complex real-time features — no-code serves as a validation tool. Building an MVP in Bubble to test market demand before investing $20,000-$50,000 in custom development is rational product strategy. Several Algerian no-code builders reported that their Bubble prototypes attracted enough users to justify rebuilding in code, and the prototype served as a functional specification that reduced development costs by 30-50%.

The broader impact is cultural. No-code is democratizing the idea that building technology products is accessible to anyone with a business problem and the willingness to learn. This shift is happening at a pivotal moment: Algeria’s 2030 Digital Transformation Strategy, unveiled in May 2025, sets an ambitious roadmap for full digitization, and the startup ecosystem raised $650 million in 2024 alone. In a country where the traditional path to tech entrepreneurship requires either a computer science degree or the capital to hire developers, no-code democratization matters. It expands the pool of potential digital entrepreneurs from a few thousand developers to hundreds of thousands of business-minded individuals. Whether that expanded pool produces the next great Algerian tech company or simply creates a healthier ecosystem of small digital businesses, the impact on Algeria’s digital economy is net positive.

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Sources & Further Reading

• Gartner Forecasts on Low-Code Development Market — Kissflow
• Gartner Forecast on Low-Code Development Technologies — ToolJet
• Algeria Population 2026 — Worldometer
• Algeria Startup Ecosystem 2025: Reforms Driving Tech Innovation — Techpression
• Webflow Localization and RTL Support — Webflow Help Center
• Algeria Credit Card Penetration — Trading Economics
• Stripe Global Availability — Stripe
• PayPal Supported Countries — SupportedCountries.com
• BaridiMob and BaridPay Mobile Payment Service — Algerie Poste
• Softr Expands Beyond Airtable Databases — TechCrunch
• The State of Software Engineering in Algeria 2024
• Bubble Visual Web Application Builder
• Glide No-Code App Builder