Yep. They demo great, but unless your use case is on the trivial end, you either find yourself making unreasonable compromises or, if the tool provides API escapes, you’re not only coding, but hacking against the tool.
In my view, mainstream languages like Java should offer static metaprogramming for library authors to make tooling like Rails possible and more approachable in IDEs.
The manifold project[1] has something like this for SQL, but it’s obviously providing its own static metaprogramming layer over Java. Shrug.
Funny thing is they stop being great rather quick.
When you configure 10 controls and then you have to do another 10 but slightly different - with code you can mostly copy, paste, modify with search and replace and you are done.
With low code tools usually it is just the same work again and even if you can duplicate stuff with an option in the interface adjusting stuff goes one by one.
Personally I find this to be the worst with ETL tools such as Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS).
Table-to-table mappings are often very mechanical, with a set of simple exceptions or deviations, such as adding one column or skipping one column.
There is nothing fiddlier in this world than repeating these steps over and over with a GUI tool where you have to individually click each column mapping link to open its "properties" one... at... a... time... for hundreds of tables with dozens of columns each.
Like the article said, my experience is that they're Great!™ until they're not, at which point you're painted into a corner.