SAP Low-Code/No-Code: Mendix versus Ruum

During SAP TechEd 2017 in Las Vegas, Mendix (powered by Siemens) was announced as the low-code/no-code platform of choice for developers on SAP Cloud Platform. At the time, SAP employee Michelle Huang wrote in her blog, “I am very excited about the news that Bjoern Goerke shared in his Las Vegas keynote this morning – a low code development tool, called SAP Cloud Platform Rapid Application Development by Mendix, that accelerates the delivery of applications and expands who can develop apps for the platform.“ Mendix itself seemed just as enthusiastic, publishing a press release titled, “Mendix Announces Global Reseller Agreement with SAP, Providing Enterprises Low-Code Development for Building Enterprise Apps at Speed and Scale”. Couldn’t have been better, right?

The man behind the announcement, Bjoern Goerke left SAP over one year ago and resurfaced at Volkswagen. Not to be outdone, new SAP CTO Juergen Mueller announced something similar during the virtual SAP TechEd 2020, encompassed in a press release titled, “SAP Empowers Developers with Low-Code/No-Code Tools and Further Enhancements to SAP Business Technology Platform”.

These new offerings include low-code/no-code tools, a free tier model for SAP Cloud Platform, exclusive free learning opportunities and further updates to SAP Business Technology Platform. The SAP Ruum solution allows business users with no coding skills to create departmental processes in hours instead of days and weeks.

While the openness towards low-code/no-code generally means good news for SAP customers, I can’t help but wonder why SAP pivoted to Ruum. Mendix is still on the price list. So, should customers use Mendix on SAP Cloud Platform and Ruum on the Business Technology platform? Everything that Ruum promises customers and that Juergen Mueller so excitedly announced during SAP TechEd 2020 has been available through Mendix since 2017. What’s the news, then?