When IT Becomes a Liability: The Risk of Building Complex Apps Without Low-Code

A CISO I know had an uncomfortable realization last quarter.

During a routine security audit, his team discovered 47 internal applications they didn't know existed. Not SaaS subscriptions. Not shadow IT in the traditional sense. These were custom-built apps created by various IT team members over the years.

Some were still in use. Some hadn't been touched in 18 months but were still running on company servers. A few had database connections to production systems that nobody remembered configuring. One was built by a developer who left the company two years ago, and nobody knew what it actually did anymore.

"We've become a liability to ourselves," he told me over coffee. "We were so focused on building things quickly that we never stopped to think about what we were creating."

This isn't an outlier story. This is happening in IT organizations everywhere, quietly and steadily creating risk that nobody's measuring.

The app sprawl nobody's talking about

When people talk about app sprawl, they usually mean the explosion of SaaS subscriptions. Marketing signed up for six different tools without telling IT. Sales is using three CRM add-ons nobody approved. Finance has spreadsheets connected to cloud services IT has never heard of.

That's definitely a problem. But there's another form of app sprawl that's potentially more dangerous: the proliferation of custom-built internal applications that have escaped governance.

Here's how it happens.

A developer on your team gets a request from a department. It's not strategic enough for the official roadmap, but it's a real need. Being helpful, the developer builds something quickly. Spins up a small app, maybe uses some leftover infrastructure, connects to a couple of databases, deploys it to a server.

The department is thrilled. Problem solved. The developer moves on to the next thing.

Six months later, that app is still running. A year later, it's become essential to that department's workflow. Two years later, the original developer has moved to a different company, and nobody remembers the architectural decisions or where all the integration points are.

Multiply this by every helpful developer on your team over several years, and you end up with that CISO's nightmare: dozens of ungoverned applications creating risk you can't even see.

According to research from Flexera, the average enterprise has 371 applications in their portfolio. But here's the concerning part: most IT leaders can only account for about 60 percent of them. The rest? Unknown, ungoverned, and potentially creating serious risk.

The technical debt time bomb

Every line of custom code is a future obligation. It needs maintenance, updates, security patches, and eventual replacement. When you build applications deliberately and strategically, you account for these obligations in your planning.

But the apps we're talking about weren't built strategically. They were built quickly to solve immediate problems. Which means the technical debt accumulates without anyone planning for it.

The dependency nightmare

That helpful developer who built the quick internal app? They used whatever frameworks and libraries made sense at the time. Maybe it was Node.js with Express and a few popular npm packages. Or Python with Flask and some convenient libraries. Or PHP with a framework that was popular in 2019.

Fast forward to today. Those dependencies have evolved. Some have security vulnerabilities. Some are deprecated. Some require newer versions of underlying languages or platforms that your infrastructure doesn't support.

Now you need to update the app. But the original developer is gone. The documentation is minimal or nonexistent. Nobody on your current team is familiar with the specific combination of technologies used. And the department that relies on it can't afford downtime while you figure it out.

You're stuck maintaining code you don't fully understand, built on dependencies you can't easily update, serving a business function you can't interrupt.

I talked to a CTO recently who discovered that his team was maintaining internal apps built on seven different technology stacks. Not because they had strategic reasons for that diversity. Simply because different developers at different times used whatever they were comfortable with.

"We essentially need a museum curator skillset," he said. "Someone who can maintain code from every era of web development over the last decade."

The integration fragility

These quick-build apps almost always integrate with other systems. That's usually why they exist—to connect data or workflows between systems that don't naturally talk to each other.

But these integrations are often fragile. Hard-coded credentials. Direct database connections. API calls without proper error handling. No monitoring or alerting when things break.

When your core systems change—and they will—these integrations break in unexpected ways. Sometimes silently. Data stops flowing, but nobody notices for weeks because there's no monitoring. Or worse, data flows incorrectly, creating downstream problems in other systems.

One IT director told me about an internal app that had been quietly failing for three months before anyone noticed. It was supposed to sync employee data between their HR system and their access control system. When it broke, new employees weren't getting building access automatically. The facilities team just assumed IT was slow in processing requests and manually created access credentials.

Nobody realized there was a system failure until the original developer happened to check on it months later.

The security exposure you can't see

Here's what keeps security teams up at night: You can't protect what you don't know exists.

Those 47 apps the CISO discovered? How many had proper security reviews? How many followed the organization's security standards? How many were even known to the security team?

The authentication problem

Properly implemented authentication is harder than it looks. SSO integration, password policies, session management, authorization logic—there are a lot of ways to get this wrong.

When developers build quick internal apps, authentication is often an afterthought. Maybe they implement basic username/password. Maybe they reuse credentials from another system. Maybe they hardcode an admin password for convenience.

I've seen internal apps with authentication so weak that any moderately skilled person could gain access. Not because the developers were incompetent, but because they were optimizing for speed and the app was only supposed to be used by five people in one department.

Then the app's usage grows. Suddenly 50 people are using it. Some of them are contractors. Some are accessing it remotely. The security assumptions that made sense for five internal users don't hold anymore.

But nobody went back to strengthen the authentication because nobody was tracking the app's evolution.

The data exposure problem

These quick-build apps often have database access they shouldn't. The developer needed to pull some data, so they gave the app read access to a production database. Then they needed to write data back, so they added write access. Then they needed data from another system, so they added access to that database too.

Before long, you have an ungoverned app with broad database access, weak authentication, and no audit logging. From a security perspective, that's terrifying.

IBM's Cost of a Data Breach report indicates that the average cost of a data breach is now $4.45 million. A significant number of breaches originate from applications with inadequate security controls—exactly the kind of controls that quick-build internal apps often lack.

The compliance gap

If you're in a regulated industry, ungoverned applications create compliance risk you might not discover until an audit.

Those 47 apps the CISO found? How many process customer data? How many handle financial information? How many touch data subject to GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS requirements?

If you can't answer those questions, you have a compliance problem waiting to be discovered.

I know a healthcare organization that found during a HIPAA audit that they had internal tools accessing patient data without proper audit trails, encryption, or access controls. The tools had been built by well-meaning developers to help clinical staff work more efficiently. But they were built without considering HIPAA requirements.

The remediation cost and potential penalties far exceeded what it would have cost to build those tools properly in the first place.

The maintenance burden that scales badly

Here's the insidious part about ungoverned app sprawl: The maintenance burden grows faster than anyone expects.

When you have 10 custom internal apps, managing them is annoying but doable. When you have 50, it becomes a significant portion of your team's capacity. When you have 100+, it can consume more resources than building new capabilities.

The bus factor problem

The "bus factor" is how many people on your team need to get hit by a bus before you lose critical knowledge. For strategically important systems, you try to keep the bus factor high through documentation, knowledge sharing, and multiple people familiar with each system.

But for these quick-build internal apps? The bus factor is often one. Or zero, if the original developer already left.

When something breaks—and things always break eventually—you're stuck reverse-engineering someone else's code under time pressure while a department waits for their critical tool to work again.

One IT manager described it as "archaeological software development." You're trying to understand ancient code with minimal documentation, piecing together the original developer's intent from comments and commit messages, hoping you don't break something you don't understand.

That's not a good use of your team's time or expertise.

The update cascade

When you update a core system or infrastructure component, you need to test everything that depends on it. With well-governed applications, you know what those dependencies are. You can plan the testing, identify potential issues, and manage the update process systematically.

With ungoverned app sprawl, you don't know what will break until it breaks.

I watched an IT team struggle with this when they needed to upgrade their database servers. They knew about their major applications and tested those carefully. What they didn't anticipate was the 30+ internal apps with direct database connections that broke after the upgrade.

Some failed immediately and obviously. Others failed subtly—data stopped syncing correctly, reports showed incorrect numbers, workflows hung at unexpected points. It took weeks to identify and fix all the issues.

The infrastructure update that should have been straightforward became a months-long remediation project.

The opportunity cost nobody measures

All of this technical debt, maintenance burden, and security risk comes with an opportunity cost that organizations rarely quantify.

Every hour your team spends maintaining ungoverned internal apps is an hour they're not spending on strategic initiatives. Every bug fix for an undocumented application is time not spent building new capabilities. Every security remediation for a quick-build tool is effort not directed toward innovation.

One CTO calculated that roughly 35 percent of his development team's capacity was going to maintaining internal apps that had escaped governance. When he actually looked at the business value those apps created versus the maintenance cost, the ROI was terrible.

"We were running a museum of technical debt disguised as an IT department," he said.

That's the real cost. Not just the direct expense of maintenance, but the strategic capacity you're losing.

Where low-code changes the equation

I know what you're thinking: "Great, another problem to worry about. How do we fix this?"

The solution isn't to stop building internal apps. Your business needs them. The solution is to stop building them in ways that create ungoverned sprawl.

This is where modern low-code platforms fundamentally change the risk equation.

Standardization by design

When you build internal apps on a low-code platform, you're working within a standardized environment. Same architecture. Same security model. Same integration patterns. Same authentication mechanisms.

You're not introducing a new technology stack with each app. You're not creating unique snowflakes that require specialized knowledge to maintain. You're building on a consistent foundation that any team member can understand.

When that helpful developer builds a quick app to solve a department's problem, they're building it on your governed platform using your security standards. Not spinning up their own infrastructure with their preferred tech stack.

The app is automatically part of your known application portfolio. You can see it. You can audit it. You can govern it.

Security and compliance built in

Low-code platforms designed for enterprise use provide security controls by default. Authentication integrates with your SSO. Authorization follows role-based access patterns. Data access respects your security policies. Audit logging happens automatically.

The developer building that quick departmental app isn't responsible for implementing authentication from scratch. It's already there, already connected to your identity management, already following your security standards.

When you need to audit what apps access sensitive data, you can do it centrally through the platform. You don't need to track down individual applications and hope their documentation is accurate.

Compliance becomes manageable because you have visibility and control.

Maintenance that doesn't scale with app count

Here's the really important part: When your internal apps are built on a low-code platform, maintenance happens at the platform level, not the app level.

Security patches? The platform vendor handles them. Framework updates? Happens centrally. Infrastructure upgrades? Test once, deploy everywhere.

You're not maintaining 50 different technology stacks. You're maintaining one platform that hosts 50 applications.

The maintenance burden scales much better. Adding another app to the platform doesn't add another technology stack to your portfolio. It's just another app on the same foundation.

Governance that actually works

Low-code platforms give you visibility that's impossible with organic app sprawl. You can see every app that exists. Who built it. Who uses it. What data it accesses. What systems it integrates with.

You can set policies about what types of apps require review. What integrations need approval. What data classifications need special handling.

Governance isn't something you try to impose after the fact. It's built into the development process.

Real scenarios where this matters

Let me give you some concrete examples of organizations that fixed their app sprawl problem with low-code.

The financial services firm with 80+ internal tools

They had internal tools built by different teams over eight years. Multiple technology stacks. No central visibility. Security team couldn't track what accessed sensitive financial data. Maintenance was consuming 40 percent of development capacity.

They migrated their internal tools to a low-code platform over 18 months. Not all at once—they started with new tools and migrated legacy tools as maintenance needs arose. Within two years, they had consolidated 80+ internal tools onto a single platform.

Results: Development capacity reclaimed. Security team could finally audit data access comprehensively. Compliance reporting went from weeks to hours. Maintenance burden dropped by over 60 percent.

The healthcare network with compliance problems

During a routine audit, they discovered internal tools accessing patient data without proper controls. Some had been built by well-meaning developers who didn't fully understand HIPAA requirements. Remediation was expensive and embarrassing.

They implemented a low-code platform with healthcare-specific compliance controls built in. Made it the mandatory platform for any internal tool accessing patient data. Provided training to department champions so they could build their own tools within the governed platform.

Results: Eliminated the compliance gap. Made it easier for departments to get the tools they needed because they could build within proper boundaries. Turned a compliance liability into a competitive advantage.

The manufacturer with integration fragility

They had dozens of internal apps with brittle integrations to their ERP and manufacturing execution systems. Every time they updated core systems, internal tools broke in unexpected ways. Testing was incomplete because they didn't even know all the integration points.

They standardized on a low-code platform for internal tools and built proper integration layers. All apps went through the same integration framework. When core systems updated, they updated the integration layer once and tested it systematically.

Results: Infrastructure updates that used to take months now take weeks. Breaking changes get caught in testing instead of production. Integration monitoring actually works because there are defined integration points to monitor.

The path forward for your organization

If you're realizing you might have an app sprawl problem, here's how to address it systematically.

Step 1: Get visibility

You can't govern what you don't know exists. Start with discovery. Survey your infrastructure. Talk to your team. Ask departments what internal tools they're using.

Create an inventory. Don't judge or criticize—just understand what's out there. Application name, purpose, technology stack, who built it, who uses it, what systems it integrates with, what data it accesses.

This won't be fun. You'll probably discover things that make you uncomfortable. But you need to know what you're dealing with.

Step 2: Assess risk

Not all apps in your portfolio carry the same risk. Prioritize based on what matters most to your organization.

Which apps access sensitive data? Which have security concerns? Which have compliance implications? Which are business-critical but poorly documented? Which have high maintenance burden?

Create a risk matrix. Focus your attention where the risk is highest.

Step 3: Establish standards going forward

Before you try to fix the past, stop creating new problems. Establish standards for new internal application development.

Designate an approved low-code platform for departmental apps. Set clear policies about when apps need formal review. Define security and integration standards. Make it easy to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing.

The goal isn't to prevent innovation. It's to channel innovation into governed paths.

Step 4: Address high-risk apps first

Start remediation with your highest-risk applications. Apps with security concerns, compliance issues, or critical business functions with poor documentation.

Consider whether these apps should be rebuilt on your low-code platform, properly secured where they are, or retired and replaced with better alternatives.

Don't try to fix everything at once. Prioritize ruthlessly and work through the list systematically.

Step 5: Migrate opportunistically

For lower-risk apps, migrate them to your low-code platform as maintenance needs arise. When an app needs significant updates or is causing maintenance problems, that's a good time to rebuild it properly.

This spreads the migration effort over time and ensures you're not spending resources on apps that might not even be needed anymore.

Some apps in your portfolio are probably no longer used. When you investigate, you'll find the department stopped using it months ago but nobody told IT. Those apps can simply be retired.

The strategic imperative nobody wants to face

Here's the uncomfortable truth: If you don't get your internal application portfolio under control, it will eventually become a strategic liability.

Your competitors are figuring out how to move faster. They're empowering departments to build their own tools within governed platforms. They're consolidating their application portfolios onto standardized foundations. They're eliminating technical debt instead of accumulating it.

Meanwhile, if you're spending 40 percent of your development capacity maintaining ungoverned app sprawl, you're falling behind. Not because your team isn't skilled, but because you're carrying technical debt your competitors aren't.

The organizations that figure out how to enable innovation while maintaining governance are the ones that will move faster. The ones still dealing with app sprawl five years from now will be struggling to keep up.

This isn't optional. It's a strategic imperative that too many IT leaders are ignoring until it becomes a crisis.

From liability to asset

The good news? This is fixable. You can transform your internal application portfolio from a liability into an asset.

It requires commitment. You need to invest in the right platform, establish proper governance, train your team, and systematically address your existing app sprawl.

But the ROI is clear. Reduced maintenance burden. Better security posture. Improved compliance. Reclaimed development capacity. Faster delivery of new capabilities.

Most importantly, you stop accumulating technical debt and start building on a foundation that will serve you for years to come.

That CISO I mentioned at the beginning? His organization is 18 months into this transformation. They've consolidated most of their internal apps onto a low-code platform. They know what exists in their portfolio. They can audit comprehensively. Their maintenance burden has dropped significantly.

"We went from not knowing what risks we had to actually managing them," he told me recently. "That's a pretty important transformation for a security leader."

It's an important transformation for any IT leader. The question is whether you'll address it proactively or wait until it becomes a crisis.

Turn app sprawl into strategic advantage

Kissflow provides the governance and standardization that prevents app sprawl while enabling innovation. Build internal applications on a platform that gives you visibility, security, and maintainability by design. Stop accumulating technical debt and start building on a foundation you can actually govern.

Security controls built in. Compliance frameworks established. Integration patterns standardized. Maintenance burden minimized. All while enabling your business departments to move faster.