Zoho Flow vs Traditional Integration Tools

Zoho Flow is an alternative to building and maintaining custom, point to point integrations by hand. This article compares the two approaches so you can see where a platform like Zoho Flow fits.

How custom integrations work

A custom integration is built and maintained in-house, connecting two systems directly through their APIs. This gives full control and flexibility over the logic involved, but it is time-consuming and expensive: it requires coding, planning and testing, and the integration needs ongoing management and maintenance as the connected apps change over time.

How an integration platform differs

Zoho Flow provides ready-made triggers and actions for popular apps, so a workflow that would take weeks to code can typically be built in minutes using the visual Builder. Because Zoho manages the underlying connections, integrations are easier to scale and need less ongoing maintenance than custom code. Multiple app connections can also be managed in one place rather than as separate, one-off projects.