8 ms·

Firetable – Spreadsheet-like UI for Firestore

208 points by anindha 6y ago

SeriousM 6y ago
Firetable, not Airtable
- hardwaresofton 6y ago
  I think the implication is that Firetable is an open source "Airtable".
  - yawnxyz 6y ago
    Do you remember / Firetable launched in September / insert some database joke/rhyme I'm too lazy to come up with right now about Airtable/Firetable/Earthtable/Windtable
hardwaresofton 6y ago
For those who aren't necessarily familiar with "Firestore" (I'd heard of Firebase but didn't know what Firestore was): https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore > Use our flexible, scalable NoSQL cloud database [called Firestore] to store and sync data for client- and server-side development. Getting back to what the actual post was about, my first instinct is to find out a way to replace Firebase/Firestore as a dependency of Firetable though -- does anyone know of any API-compatible replacements for Firebase with pluggable backends (minio[0] is to S3 as <something> is to Firebase/Firestore). I also... kind of think this might be good tech to spin a whole SaaS out of. It'd be unthinkable to try and compete with Airtable if I had to build their frontend but... hosting a database, giving access to shared/private instances of firetable, and trying to out-maneuver (or just undercut) airtable seems like it might not be a completely fool's errand. [0]: https://min.io/ https://min.io/
- random_savv 6y ago
  CouchDB: its APIs are not a 1-1 match but it feels the closest in spirit. Would love to know if there is another one.
  - hardwaresofton 6y ago
    It definitely might be the closest in spirit, but if the idea is just read and write documents in a document store, there is a lot of value in extracting the interface and allowing for multiple implementations. I am an expert yak shaver, so it would have probably been one of the first things on my mind.
- shams95 6y ago
  Shams, the creator here. We built the MVP using Firestore but support for other DBs are on the roadmap.
  - tzury 6y ago
    should you exclude files such as https://github.com/AntlerVC/firetable/blob/master/www/.env.enc https://github.com/AntlerVC/firetable/blob/master/www/.env.e... from the repo?
    - anaganisk 6y ago
      Its encrypted
  - hardwaresofton 6y ago
    Just want to say thanks for open sourcing this, there is an immense amount of value in here, surprised no one at Antler wanted to productize this!
  - phemartin 6y ago
    This is amazing! I'd suggest keeping focusing on Firestore until PMF and than expand to other dbs.
  - andig 6y ago
    Really great to have something that feels a lot like Airtable open source. If I had a wish I'd say decouple the database layer instead of providing support for more databases. Let the community help build abstractions and that way also open Firetable for non-public or embedded data stores/ data bases.
input_sh 6y ago
I'm honestly really excited by this. Airtable transformed my spreadsheet experience, and I've long wished for something I can self host locally to be able to store more sensitive data (like bank statements).
- shafyy 6y ago
  Another open-source alternative to Airtable is Baserow. Looks like it's a bit more basic than Firetable, but they have a good road map posted on their website.
  - eitland 6y ago
    Opened sourced in July it seems: https://gitlab.com/bramw/baserow https://gitlab.com/bramw/baserow (alternativeto had a comment from June saying it was closed source.)
- eitland 6y ago
  > and I've long wished for something I can self host locally to be able to store more sensitive data (like bank statements). Heads up: This seems to be built on top of Firestore. I'm not saying security can't be good[0], but it seems it can't be hosted locally. [0]: In fact I guess in the long run the security of Firestore will be better than anything most of us can do at home.
  - input_sh 6y ago
    The dev here commented that Firestore was used for the MVP and that they're planning on supporting other DBs in the future: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636238 That's why I'm not taking it for a spin just yet.
neximo64 6y ago
Whats the table library used here?
- shams95 6y ago
  React-data-grid
  - vaughan 6y ago
    How was your experience with react-data-grid? I've heard it can be painful to work with sometimes?
namanyayg 6y ago
I'm still confused by what usecases Airtable or this has. Are there any for project management/app design and dev that can't be done by Trello/Notion?
- fouc 6y ago
  Airtable is basically more like an online version of MS Access/dBase/FoxPro, database + forms/presentation. So it's very customizable and you can essentially roll your own project management app, or CRM or whatever you can think of.
- input_sh 6y ago
  As someone who used all of those notes: 1. You can embed Airtables. Combine that with a Markdown editor and you have a powerful note taking device similar to Notion. 2. Public forms. Basically you can turn the table into a form and the data users enter into it become rows in an Airtable. Not achievable with Trello/Notion. 3. It has a functioning API, unlike Notion. I can add/retrieve/modify data via scripts/IFTTT/Zapier. 4. Org charts and Gantt charts.
anindha 6y ago
This is open source under Apache-2.0 License.
koopuluri 6y ago
Beautiful. Our entire back-end is powered by FireStore and the admin UI is... lacking. We've been writing custom scripts and were even planning to build a bare-boned web app to easily let us perform certain actions without having to run a script. Adding / editing in the Firebase admin UI is also time consuming. The spreadsheet abstraction feels effective. I'm really looking forward to playing around with this. (Also, seems like there's some confusion about the Firestore reference: https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore). I wouldn't quite compare this with Airtable because even thought the abstraction may look the same, the audience is very different: FireStore's audience is technical, while only a small fraction of Airtable's is technical, which leads to a different set of product priorites and likely a very different long-term roadmap.
pgt 6y ago
I loved using Firebase & Firestore to build MVPs, but I would advise anyone tempted to use it, to avoid it. Every time I've embraced it, I ended up having to rewrite apps shortly thereafter. Your app becomes unavoidably coupled to it.
- koopuluri 6y ago
  What were the downsides of the coupling? Pricing? Lack of flexibility in the ways you could morph it? Asking because we started off with FireStore, getting a bit of traction now, but I can't see any good reason for us to switch away any time soon.
  - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
    I've heard that it's very expensive.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    For our use case: - Lack of schema makes it really easy write bad data without realising it. I inherited a 3 year old firebase/firestore codebase and database was FULL of inconsistent data. This was not helped by our application being in JavaScript meaning bad data could roundtrip all the way through our without triggering any errors. Only later causing obscure and hard to debug issues. - Lack of query flexibility or joins make some use cases either impossible or very inefficient - Connecting directly from client apps makes it very difficult to make backwards compatible changes. You can fix this by making everything go through backend APIs, but then you lose realtime which is the main benefit of firestore in the first place. We're halfway through a port to Postgres+Hasura, and our app is much more reliable and responsive now.
    - esprehn 6y ago
      An architecture I've seen work is to have reads be direct from the client, but writes be through cloud functions. You can then do migrations and denormalization in the functions and the client sees the sync events as the write completes. I do wish they'd add actual migration support though. Firebase has always needed some kind of document views like feature to allow backwards compat, but still allow changing the schema.
krimpenrik 6y ago
Will definitely try this
cnaut 6y ago
So this was something built internally inside a VC firm and then opensourced?
- harinijan 6y ago
  Hi Harini here, I lead technology at Antler, a global VC. We built this for internal use at Antler and decided to open source it as we felt lot of startups can benefit from it and avoid having to built yet another admin portal. We are actively working on adding features and improving the project.
stephen_cagle 6y ago
I recently took a look at glideapps.com which I thought was quite cool. It really surprised me how much of an app you can build with nothing more than a spreadsheet. This seems similar.

208 points by anindha 6y ago

SeriousM 6y ago

Firetable, not Airtable

hardwaresofton 6y ago
I think the implication is that Firetable is an open source "Airtable".
- yawnxyz 6y ago
  Do you remember / Firetable launched in September / insert some database joke/rhyme I'm too lazy to come up with right now about Airtable/Firetable/Earthtable/Windtable

hardwaresofton 6y ago

For those who aren't necessarily familiar with "Firestore" (I'd heard of Firebase but didn't know what Firestore was): https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore > Use our flexible, scalable NoSQL cloud database [called Firestore] to store and sync data for client- and server-side development. Getting back to what the actual post was about, my first instinct is to find out a way to replace Firebase/Firestore as a dependency of Firetable though -- does anyone know of any API-compatible replacements for Firebase with pluggable backends (minio[0] is to S3 as <something> is to Firebase/Firestore). I also... kind of think this might be good tech to spin a whole SaaS out of. It'd be unthinkable to try and compete with Airtable if I had to build their frontend but... hosting a database, giving access to shared/private instances of firetable, and trying to out-maneuver (or just undercut) airtable seems like it might not be a completely fool's errand. [0]: https://min.io/ https://min.io/

random_savv 6y ago
CouchDB: its APIs are not a 1-1 match but it feels the closest in spirit. Would love to know if there is another one.
- hardwaresofton 6y ago
  It definitely might be the closest in spirit, but if the idea is just read and write documents in a document store, there is a lot of value in extracting the interface and allowing for multiple implementations. I am an expert yak shaver, so it would have probably been one of the first things on my mind.
shams95 6y ago
Shams, the creator here. We built the MVP using Firestore but support for other DBs are on the roadmap.
- tzury 6y ago
  should you exclude files such as https://github.com/AntlerVC/firetable/blob/master/www/.env.enc https://github.com/AntlerVC/firetable/blob/master/www/.env.e... from the repo?
  - anaganisk 6y ago
    Its encrypted
- hardwaresofton 6y ago
  Just want to say thanks for open sourcing this, there is an immense amount of value in here, surprised no one at Antler wanted to productize this!
- phemartin 6y ago
  This is amazing! I'd suggest keeping focusing on Firestore until PMF and than expand to other dbs.
- andig 6y ago
  Really great to have something that feels a lot like Airtable open source. If I had a wish I'd say decouple the database layer instead of providing support for more databases. Let the community help build abstractions and that way also open Firetable for non-public or embedded data stores/ data bases.

input_sh 6y ago

I'm honestly really excited by this. Airtable transformed my spreadsheet experience, and I've long wished for something I can self host locally to be able to store more sensitive data (like bank statements).

shafyy 6y ago
Another open-source alternative to Airtable is Baserow. Looks like it's a bit more basic than Firetable, but they have a good road map posted on their website.
- eitland 6y ago
  Opened sourced in July it seems: https://gitlab.com/bramw/baserow https://gitlab.com/bramw/baserow (alternativeto had a comment from June saying it was closed source.)
eitland 6y ago
> and I've long wished for something I can self host locally to be able to store more sensitive data (like bank statements). Heads up: This seems to be built on top of Firestore. I'm not saying security can't be good[0], but it seems it can't be hosted locally. [0]: In fact I guess in the long run the security of Firestore will be better than anything most of us can do at home.
- input_sh 6y ago
  The dev here commented that Firestore was used for the MVP and that they're planning on supporting other DBs in the future: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636238 That's why I'm not taking it for a spin just yet.

neximo64 6y ago

Whats the table library used here?

shams95 6y ago
React-data-grid
- vaughan 6y ago
  How was your experience with react-data-grid? I've heard it can be painful to work with sometimes?

namanyayg 6y ago

I'm still confused by what usecases Airtable or this has. Are there any for project management/app design and dev that can't be done by Trello/Notion?

fouc 6y ago
Airtable is basically more like an online version of MS Access/dBase/FoxPro, database + forms/presentation. So it's very customizable and you can essentially roll your own project management app, or CRM or whatever you can think of.
input_sh 6y ago
As someone who used all of those notes: 1. You can embed Airtables. Combine that with a Markdown editor and you have a powerful note taking device similar to Notion. 2. Public forms. Basically you can turn the table into a form and the data users enter into it become rows in an Airtable. Not achievable with Trello/Notion. 3. It has a functioning API, unlike Notion. I can add/retrieve/modify data via scripts/IFTTT/Zapier. 4. Org charts and Gantt charts.

anindha 6y ago

This is open source under Apache-2.0 License.

koopuluri 6y ago

Beautiful. Our entire back-end is powered by FireStore and the admin UI is... lacking. We've been writing custom scripts and were even planning to build a bare-boned web app to easily let us perform certain actions without having to run a script. Adding / editing in the Firebase admin UI is also time consuming. The spreadsheet abstraction feels effective. I'm really looking forward to playing around with this. (Also, seems like there's some confusion about the Firestore reference: https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore). I wouldn't quite compare this with Airtable because even thought the abstraction may look the same, the audience is very different: FireStore's audience is technical, while only a small fraction of Airtable's is technical, which leads to a different set of product priorites and likely a very different long-term roadmap.

pgt 6y ago

I loved using Firebase & Firestore to build MVPs, but I would advise anyone tempted to use it, to avoid it. Every time I've embraced it, I ended up having to rewrite apps shortly thereafter. Your app becomes unavoidably coupled to it.

koopuluri 6y ago
What were the downsides of the coupling? Pricing? Lack of flexibility in the ways you could morph it? Asking because we started off with FireStore, getting a bit of traction now, but I can't see any good reason for us to switch away any time soon.
- ZephyrBlu 6y ago
  I've heard that it's very expensive.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  For our use case: - Lack of schema makes it really easy write bad data without realising it. I inherited a 3 year old firebase/firestore codebase and database was FULL of inconsistent data. This was not helped by our application being in JavaScript meaning bad data could roundtrip all the way through our without triggering any errors. Only later causing obscure and hard to debug issues. - Lack of query flexibility or joins make some use cases either impossible or very inefficient - Connecting directly from client apps makes it very difficult to make backwards compatible changes. You can fix this by making everything go through backend APIs, but then you lose realtime which is the main benefit of firestore in the first place. We're halfway through a port to Postgres+Hasura, and our app is much more reliable and responsive now.
  - esprehn 6y ago
    An architecture I've seen work is to have reads be direct from the client, but writes be through cloud functions. You can then do migrations and denormalization in the functions and the client sees the sync events as the write completes. I do wish they'd add actual migration support though. Firebase has always needed some kind of document views like feature to allow backwards compat, but still allow changing the schema.

krimpenrik 6y ago

Will definitely try this

cnaut 6y ago

So this was something built internally inside a VC firm and then opensourced?

harinijan 6y ago
Hi Harini here, I lead technology at Antler, a global VC. We built this for internal use at Antler and decided to open source it as we felt lot of startups can benefit from it and avoid having to built yet another admin portal. We are actively working on adding features and improving the project.

stephen_cagle 6y ago

I recently took a look at glideapps.com which I thought was quite cool. It really surprised me how much of an app you can build with nothing more than a spreadsheet. This seems similar.