Another tool to the list - Outsystems?

My New Year resolutions:-  

1. Learn some new stuff.
2. Finish my personal projects (Arcade, game development and writing).
3. Try and get better at golf!

Let's kick off #1 :-)

Revisiting Outsystems: Free Developer Tier and Familiar Parallels

I’ve been experimenting with Outsystems on and off for a while.

• First tried it back in 2019.

• Revisited in March 2025.

• Challenges: environments only lasted 10 days (though there were workarounds), and everything was in a shared space—meaning my work was visible to other newcomers. At one point I even accidentally updated someone else’s tutorial models!

Hot News

As of October 1, 2025, Outsystems now offers a 100% free developer tier that doesn’t expire. Even better, it’s your own private environment—not shared. As long as you revisit it periodically (no exact timeframe specified), your training instance will remain available.

This feels like the right time to revisit the technology, both personally and professionally.

Pricing Caveat

Once you move beyond the free tier, Outsystems is priced for enterprise use. The entry point is around $36k, with additional costs for resources, capacity, user counts (internal and external), and multiple applications. Think of it as a pricing model similar to Salesforce. If you’re coming from Synon or Plex, the structure will feel familiar.

Observations While Exploring

1. Community Energy The Outsystems community reminds me of the old Synon days in the mid-90s. Take a look at the conference highlights reel. I remember attending Synon Europe in London around 1997, with Vigil on stage talking about advanced patterns. The energy in the room was incredible, and it looks like Outsystems developers are experiencing that same buzz today.

2. Architectural Parallels The concepts, approach, and terminology in Outsystems development tools feel very familiar to anyone from the 2E and Plex ecosystems. I’d even hazard a guess that there’s some crossover of ideas. You can see more in their evaluation guide.

Looking Ahead

I’ll continue exploring Outsystems and share direct comparisons to Synon 2E and Plex where appropriate. Some tutorials (like the Horse Racing Model) aren’t available, but overall I’m impressed with what I’ve seen so far.

Subscribe to the blog for updates, or follow the Outsystems label. After this, I may also look at other low-code platforms—Appian, Salesforce, Mendix—and see how those ecosystems align.

Thanks for reading the

Synon 2E and Plex Emporium by Lee Dare (A developer blog). 

Lee.

👉 Have you tried Outsystems or another low-code platform? Share your experiences in the comments—I’d love to hear them.