What it means to be recognized in the 2025 Forrester Wave™

Recently, Forrester named OutSystems a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Low-Code Development Platforms For Professional Developers, Q2 2025.¹ The report mentions our goal to transcend traditional software development market categories with a platform designed for application generation. It also notes that our roadmap balances core improvements with AI enhancements and plans for technical differentiation, particularly in mobile development.

This is great news for OutSystems, of course. But in practical terms, it wouldn’t be unusual to wonder what this means for companies evaluating low-code or generative AI platforms. In this blog, I explain why analyst reports matter more than ever and why it’s important that Forrester recognized OutSystems as a Leader.

Why analyst recognition matters more than ever

Here’s the thing about analyst reports. People either ignore them completely or treat them like gospel. Both approaches are wrong. The reality is that analyst recognition, when viewed strategically, can be the difference between choosing a platform that transforms your development capabilities and getting stuck with a tool that overpromises and underdelivers. And to be honest, who has the time to become an expert in the more than 200 platforms that bill themselves as low-code? You can't personally test every platform, attend every vendor demo, or dig through every technical specification. That’s where analyst recognition becomes your competitive advantage.

So, while you’re managing enterprise applications and keeping legacy systems running, analysts are spending their entire careers becoming vendor specialists. In the case of low-code, they’re evaluating platform capabilities, testing development speeds, and comparing vendors. Analysts have access to vendor briefings, detailed platform demonstrations, and extensive customer interviews that give them insights you simply can’t get from marketing materials. They’re asking the tough questions about scalability, security, and governance that your procurement team needs answered.

Therefore, when Forrester publishes a Wave report on low-code platforms, it’s based on the entire market’s dynamics, technology trends, and enterprise requirements. In addition, Forrester’s rigorous evaluation process cuts through vendor noise to focus on real-world performance, customer satisfaction, and platform maturity. They’re not swayed by flashy demos or aggressive sales pitches.

The bottom line is that respected firms like Forrester offer comprehensive validation that can dramatically improve your platform selection process and stakeholder confidence. Using their insights as part of your evaluation is super smart.

Key evaluation criteria: What Forrester looked for

When it comes to naming Leaders, Forrester invests a great deal of time and effort. Their 2025 Wave evaluation was methodical, comprehensive, and frankly, pretty demanding. They looked at 39 different criteria in two main categories: what platforms can actually do today (Current Offering) and where they’re headed tomorrow (Strategy).

The heavyweights for today

Here’s what’s interesting about their approach. Forrester weighted different capabilities based on what actually matters to enterprise buyers right now. The biggest priorities? Data modeling and management, integration capabilities, and digital process automation, each carrying 10% of the total weight.

This makes sense. If you’re going to bet your application development strategy on a platform, you need it to handle complex data relationships, connect to your existing systems seamlessly, and automate the business processes that keep your company running. Forrester completely gets this. UX development tools and mobile capabilities are also big, because if your apps don’t deliver great user experiences, you’re creating expensive digital paperweights instead of solving real business problems.

But Forrester didn’t stop at core development features. Spoiler alert: They wanted platforms that support the entire application lifecycle. They evaluated everything from version control and CI/CD capabilities to quality assurance and testing tools.

The strong contenders for tomorrow

For strategy evaluation, Forrester focused heavily on three areas that each carried 25% of the weight: vision, innovation, and roadmap. It’s important to Forrester that platforms have credible plans for staying ahead of market demands.

The vision component examined whether platforms understand where enterprise application development is heading. Do they get that AI integration isn’t optional anymore? Do they understand the shift toward citizen development while maintaining enterprise governance? Innovation and roadmap evaluations dig into whether platforms are actually delivering on future promises or just talking a good game.

What’s smart about Forrester's approach is that they weighted practical capabilities more heavily than experimental features. They care more about rock-solid integration tools than AI experiments that might not work in production. This evaluation framework separates platforms that can handle real enterprise complexity from those that just look good in demos.

Where OutSystems led and why it matters to your business

When I look at how OutSystems performed across these criteria, I see a clear pattern. The platform consistently received the highest possible scores in the categories Forrester weighted most heavily. In data modeling and management, integration development, and digital process automation—those three 10% weighted categories—OutSystems scored 5.00 across the board.

The strategy scores tell an equally compelling story: 5.00 in vision, 5.00 in innovation, and 5.00 in roadmap. This is what separates platforms that talk about enterprise readiness from platforms that actually deliver it.

But scores only tell part of the story.

The scale problem most platforms can’t solve

Here’s what I’ve seen after years in this space: most low-code platforms promise enterprise capabilities but fall apart when you try to build anything beyond basic departmental apps. OutSystems consistently scores top marks in areas like data modeling and integration because the platform was architected from day one to handle real enterprise complexity.

When you need applications that serve millions of users or integrate with dozens of legacy systems, you can’t afford to discover your platform’s limitations after you’ve already committed to it.

User experience isn’t optional anymore

The reason OutSystems excels in UX development capabilities comes down to understanding that if your applications don’t offer exceptional user experiences, nobody will use them. I’ve watched too many companies build functional apps that employees ignore because they’re painful to navigate.

With OutSystems, you have what you need to build applications that users actually want to use, whether they're customers interacting with your brand or employees trying to get work done efficiently.

AI that solves real problems

While other vendors are still figuring out how to bolt AI features onto existing platforms, OutSystems has integrated AI capabilities that actually speed development without sacrificing quality, governance, or control. This approach to AI-assisted development focuses on practical value, not flashy demos, but under one cohesive tech stack—fully governed, scalable, and extensible.

To learn more, read The Forrester Wave™: Low-Code Development Platforms For Professional Developers, Q2 2025.

¹The Forrester Wave™: Low-Code Development Platforms For Professional Developers, Q2 2025