12 ms·

Show HN: Open-source alternative to Retool

420 points by shuaihan 4y ago

rlnorthcutt 4y ago
Wow! It is great to see another low code, open source platform being launched. I’ve been involved with open source for over 25 years, and I am a big believer in the power of open source to accelerate development and empower people all over the world to build amazing things. I have built a career on OSS, and millions of others have as well. It is a game changer. In full transparency, I am the Head of DevRel at Appsmith, which is an alternative tool to Open Blocks, and a source for some of Open Block’s code (https://github.com/openblocks-dev/openblocks/search?q=appsmith https://github.com/openblocks-dev/openblocks/search?q=appsmi...). However, that is not really what I want to discuss here. As long as I have been involved in open source, I have dealt with FUD about OSS from investors, executives, and business people who don’t “get it”. These folks have usually been highly resistant to open sourcing code or making contributions because they think it will hurt the business. “Why would I want to share code that can be used to compete against us?” This could even apply to a young engineer or maintainer of a growing open-source project who’s deciding to startup and thinking whether to build an OSS company. We have seen a huge boom in open source business models, and this is a GREAT thing. But, what can we do to ensure that we don’t prove the naysayers right? My concern is that as we see a rise in competition among open source businesses, we will also see a rise in competitive businesses (open source and proprietary) that use previous work to accelerate their advantage… which is one of the central features to open source. But, in theory, open source also has advantages for those who provide code - attribution, contribution, funding, shared resources, etc. There are also different licensing models that have strengths and weaknesses. We decided to go with a permissive license so that people can use Appsmith in all environments, and sometimes this works against us because competitors can build on top of Appsmith. But hey, that’s the nature of the game right? So - what can we or should we do as a community to ensure that open source business models can be successful without tarnishing the reputation of open source in general? Should we be more clear with attribution? Should we partner and make shared libraries for common functionality? Maybe do nothing? What do you think?
- vicsomething 4y ago
  Lol, you should check this one too. Here: https://github.com/illacloud/illa-builder https://github.com/illacloud/illa-builder
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    To be clear, this post is to his own tool.
    - alexthon87 4y ago
      this one has a 1:1 UI of retool
  - rlnorthcutt 4y ago
    While I think it is important to share new projects and even brag a bit about our own, I'm not clear on how this adds to the conversation? Illa has been mentioned multiple times here, so at this point it feels a bit spammy. As a developer, I feel like a little bit of self-promotion goes a long way. Hope this helps.
- naj1n 4y ago
  I think this will lead to OSS becoming a "finite game".
  - rlnorthcutt 4y ago
    Can you expand on that a bit more? Do you think that more open source business models will lead to more rehashing of the same code/concepts over an over again? I'm also curious how you think this may apply to the rise in AI coding projects. In theory, it will become possible to create complex software by simply describing it well, and much of that code from the AI training is open source.
    - naj1n 4y ago
      First, it's gorgeous to be the first open-source alternative to xxx in different industry segments. In comparison, it's just commercial competition that more and more OSS alternatives to the same project. ⁣ ⁣ Then, it's difficult for me to have a good discussion with u on the AI coding project. There are so many problems, such as licenses, trademarks, and secrets of contribution behind AI coding. ⁣ ⁣ Thk u.
afhammad 4y ago
I use Retool extensively at work for internal tooling (A.K.A Backoffice). It's really good in that I don't have to think about it much. There seems to be a new open-source competitor popping up every month, which is great, but I really wish people would get behind one or two of them and make them much stronger contenders. The comparisons listed (other than being OSS) are mostly superficial and in some cases already available in Retool, perhaps released since that was written. A better benchmark to aim for would be https://www.palantir.com/platforms/foundry/ https://www.palantir.com/platforms/foundry/ which is way more powerful.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Foundry is a terrible comparison, if only for the fact that I still have no clue what it does after reading that page (something with analytics?)
- sevazhidkov 4y ago
  It's very hard to understand what Foundry actually is from the provided landing page. Would you be able to describe it? Is it like Retool, but with more data sources and blocks? Can you actually drag-n-drop new applications in it or it's customized by Palantir only?
- rubenfiszel 4y ago
  I'm an ex-palantir (left 3y ago, things might have changed) that worked on Foundry and building Windmill [1] which is an open-source framework that would actually be closer to Foundry except we do workflows and not data pipelines. I do not think the comparison stands between Retool, or this tool and Foundry. There is indeed a sub-product in Foundry called 'Slate' which is an UI builder but it's a small part of Foundry. Foundry is mostly about data pipelines, to do spark transforms on large ETL, and then having lots of product on top of it to make it easy to make Spark work in an enterprise environment such as a UI builder (the slate mentioned above), a graph viewer of the ETL (monocle), a report builder, RBAC, a timeseries processor, data lineage, versioning of the code, a webeditor and so on. [1]: https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill
  - 4y ago
rubenfiszel 4y ago
Congrats on the launch! The app builder looks amazing and seems indeed very inspired by Retool. We are building a tool in the same space with Windmill, also open-source [1]. The goal is not to hijack this thread since I do not believe we are that competitive. We focus on workflows and more backendy/complex logic by converting automatically Python, Typescript, Go, Bash into endpoints and workflow modules that you can run at scale on workers that are deployable on one's own infra. We are currently also finishing an UI builder [2] but because it is not our prime focus, it will always be a much simpler alternative to what you and Retool are building. Hence, I see a lot of potential for integrations/collaboration for users with need of UIs similar to retool while needing more complex logic than REST or raw database queries. In any case, congrats, I have played with the tool and you guys did an amazing job. [1]: https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill [2]: https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill/pull/886 https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill/pull/886
- raju 4y ago
  Correct URL to windmill on GitHub https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill (Or @rubenfiszel could edit their post)
- Brajeshwar 4y ago
  You missed an "l" with 1. https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill/ https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill/ Even for the simplest and my own sites, I usually typed it out in the browser and copy-paste. :-)
  - rubenfiszel 4y ago
    fixed, thanks :)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
xnorswap 4y ago
https://github.com/openblocks-dev/openblocks/blob/1c5846d04987ffb113f4833e31786943a0cbd3a1/client/packages/openblocks/src/utils/browser.ts https://github.com/openblocks-dev/openblocks/blob/1c5846d049... Disappointing to see Firefox flagged as a "Not supported browser".
- rubenfiszel 4y ago
  I tried quickly the app builder with Firefox and it seemed to mostly work fine. I would bet it's just that the devs use chrome and didn't have time to test extensively all their advanced features on all browsers.
  - xnorswap 4y ago
    What advanced features would be supported by a 3 year old Safari, a 4 year old Chrome, but not by Firefox? It's a kind of laziness that does the open web great harm by putting unnecessary barriers in front of Firefox users when they shouldn't be there. Feature detection for any newer APIs is far better. If you know you rely on a particular API set then you can test for precisely that. Otherwise let browsers be instead of putting banners up recommending "best in IE". It just harms the web.
    - alvis 4y ago
      It's unfair to call the dev lazy on this ground. Even modern browsers are far better than the old days, there remain many discrepancies between browsers and they are still hard to come up with solutions that fit all platforms. Making a static web page work on different browsers is much easier than making a web app work on all the browsers. For a web app, even 1% of the API doesn't work, the whole app is a failure. Can you accept an app only work 99% of the time? I've no idea what makes it incompatible with Firefox, but without knowing the reason, it's an offence to call it laziness.
      - BeefWellington 4y ago
        > I've no idea what makes it incompatible with Firefox, but without knowing the reason, it's an offence to call it laziness. If they didn't bother documenting the compatibility issues, even if only so that future roadmaps can review and take stock of any changes in browser functionality down the road -- or to allow others to work on/around the problem, that's laziness and it's fair to call it out as such.
Multrex 4y ago
Is it stable? I really want to ditch appsmith, tried ToolJet but didn't hook me. Yours look promising, i hope you continue the development of it.
- raviparikh 4y ago
  What about Appsmith/Tooljet fell short for you?
  - Multrex 4y ago
    Appsmith you can't create good looking apps and the responsiveness is not good. Tooljet is good but it didn't click me. Basically I'm not developer but i know good SQL and WordPress. I really want something like Elementor page builder but with low code functionalities.
- shuaihan 4y ago
  Thanks for your appreciation. It's stable. We write a lot of tests to make sure everything works.
- foxbee 4y ago
  Have you tried Budibase? For reference, I am the cofounder of Budibase and we're planning 2023 so I am super-eager for feedback. https://github.com/Budibase/budibase https://github.com/Budibase/budibase
  - kwerk 4y ago
    Fwiw BigQuery support is what kept me from testing budibase and using retool for a project just 2 weeks ago.
    - foxbee 4y ago
      Ahhh. We have a plugin repo now and there's a plugin for BigQuery: https://github.com/marblekirby/budibase-big-query-plugin https://github.com/marblekirby/budibase-big-query-plugin
truetraveller 4y ago
pricing for the cloud version?
- shuaihan 4y ago
  It's free for early adopters. We don't have pricing plan yet.
  - dzikimarian 4y ago
    It's AGPL so might be bit hard to adapt outside of homelab (unless that's the intention for the free version).
    - zurn 4y ago
      How does the AGPL apply in this case, does it apply to the apps you build?
  - hanniabu 4y ago
    That's awesome, I think I'll definitely be using it for ove of my open source projects
p10jkle 4y ago
See also https://budibase.com/ https://budibase.com/ https://www.appsmith.com/ https://www.appsmith.com/
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
pvsukale3 4y ago
Related: Tooljet is also an open source alternative to Retool https://github.com/ToolJet/ToolJet https://github.com/ToolJet/ToolJet
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tylersgordon 4y ago
  Yeah, I really love Tooljet. Super extendable and easy to use. I really hope they take off.
deleted 4y ago
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amendegree 4y ago
This looks super promising. We've been looking for a good all in one internal tool builder, gonna invesitage this now. Anyone have any other alt's they found useful?
- Closi 4y ago
  AppSmith!
- abdhass 4y ago
  Budibase.com
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rubenfiszel 4y ago
  Windmill.dev
  - sumoboy 4y ago
    This looks more like pipedream.com for automation scripts than a tool builder.
- Rafsark 4y ago
  Definitely recommend Windmill.dev!
- alexarena 4y ago
  Founder of https://interval.com https://interval.com here. We're somewhere in-between Retool and Windmill which was mentioned on this thread. Like Windmill, Interval is heavily code-focused. Our model lets you define tools in your existing TypeScipt/JavaScript codebase. Like Retool, you can use Interval to build complete internal dashboards that handle the "view stuff" side of things, not just the script/workflow "do stuff" pieces.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
ckluis 4y ago
All of these "internal tool builders" don't excite me as much as the concept of a "saas building builder" - I think https://saasrock.com https://saasrock.com (bias since I'm helping) has unique potential.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- paxys 4y ago
  They are very different use cases. Retool & the like are for building stuff used by yourself/your company. You can connect to internal data sources/APIs and build dashboards. SaaS builders are for building your app for a broader audience. They mainly offer features like authentication, user management, CRM, marketing, subscriptions, billing.
  - ckluis 4y ago
    I think of it differently. The internal tool building companies focus on 1 of the 3 legs of building. 1. building 2. marketing 3. managing A lot of internal tools would be externally viable as well (not all).
datalopers 4y ago
Can I import my JSON config export from Retool?
- CSDude 4y ago
  Yes this would make switches much more possible
- antonyl 4y ago
  I'm a Retool user and going to try writing a script now... Edit: hmmm, it's pretty hard. I was trying to export a pretty simple app but it looks like there's a ton of features not supported here. (I guess it's pretty hard to build a full development environment with GUIs.) For example, I have a simple table in Retool where I'm doing inline editing. Unfortunately Openblock's table is read-only. So I guess I'll have to manually add a form. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to easily add validations to the form, and it seemed a bit buggy when submitting it too (maybe not properly debouncing?). Also, it looks like the permissioning system is much more rigid, and doesn't support, for example, showing different things in the app depending on the user group? Looking forward to seeing it mature, but it does feel like there is a lot of surface area. I've tried a few other OSS builders, and I think Retool still comes out ahead when it comes to building actual production use cases. Like another comment said, I do wonder whether there will ever be a true OSS version? Seems like everything is "free for now, will charge for enterprise features later". At that point you might as well just use Retool, since the product is a lot better? It’s great to see more options out there, though...
Nimsical 4y ago
This is cool and in some world where the company becomes massive and basically commit to properly maintaining the product I could see it being a player. I'm skeptical of open-sourcing UI and workflow builders. The upsides are that you enable a community to build connectors and the UI builder + maintain them, but the downside is that you have to manage the community well enough that enterprises can trust the connectors and the UI builder. The challenge of maintaining the community + maintaining some sort of an SLA is very hard. This type of software is extremely hard to test for –writing integration tests are much harder for the frontend than they are for something like a database (e.g. MongoDB) because of the permutations of use-cases). The OSS+managed model seems to have succeeded in areas where very you can regression tests are much easier to maintain and there are clear benchmarks to test the community's output against. As a buyer (we recently bought SuperBlocks (https://www.superblocks.com/ https://www.superblocks.com/) which is just a managed version of the same idea) it's hard to commit to an open-source version of something like this given the problems above. I may be totally wrong – I've never run an OSS+managed business, and as much as I love the ethos, I still have to not care about the stability of an internal tool builder that my company is being built on top of.
- jokethrowaway 4y ago
  Like for normal OSS you'll end up using a few massive projects which get maintained regularly and then write custom for everything else
- rlnorthcutt 4y ago
  You have a good point about enterprise requirements and the challenge of wrapping an SLA around open source which is entirely or primarily made from community contributions. I ran into this all the time when I worked at Acquia which provides a platform for Drupal. One thing to note - proprietary does not necessarily mean it is any safer or more stable than OSS. Superblocks is actually a closed source fork of Appsmith, so the code is very close to the open source version, but now it is not visible. In my experience, proprietary vs OSS is not the issue, but maturity and support. Most newer software either has undiscovered bugs, or develops them as they grow and become complex. More mature software tends to be more stable in general, and OSS projects with commercial backing tend to have the resources (and incentive) to focus on security and stability. This is why I am so interested in the explosion of Open Source business models. In theory, it provides a more stable product and commercial support, while still being transparent about its code and being open to community contributions.
T3RMINATED 4y ago
chachra 4y ago
Looks promising for sure! I know its hard to fund etc. but it'd be nice if truly 100% open-source options existed! Even the ones that are open-source, then have pricing for SSO etc. which is disappointing. I see the same in the headless CMS space where tools like Strapi, make it very hard to adopt without paying $$$.
- jroes 4y ago
  I feel like charging for SSO is a reasonable request of enterprises when adopting open source software. Most enterprises require SSO as policy (and should). Most enterprises also don't contribute financially to the sustainability of open source software, so this is one way to ensure that happens.
  - eropple 4y ago
    The problem is that everyone should have SSO, and that includes small orgs. If you don't want your stuff used by small orgs that can't afford to pay, that's a totally reasonable standpoint. At the same time, though, if it's good they probably will use it despite not having SSO, and so that decision makessecurity (something that, by and large, benefits everyone) into an opt-in luxury good. Speaking only for me, I'd be uncomfortable espousing that as a philosophy.
    - jroes 4y ago
      I agree that orgs of all sizes should use SSO. The pricing should scale appropriately. But as we have seen, companies are not doing enough to secure the sustainability of the open source software they rely on for their businesses, and I think a balance needs to be struck.
      - eropple 4y ago
        They are not. I agree. SSO isn't where to try to bleed that pig though, I think, to the point where for team-based systems it is probably more proper to disallow anything else (and maybe make them pay for guest access outside of their domain!).
AlphaWeaver 4y ago
Could this also be an open source replacement for Airtable?
- blacksoil 4y ago
  Have you heard of baserow.io? It's open source airtable
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
fulafel 4y ago
Anyone have a retool-less explanation of what this is?
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Drag and drop internal app builder
necatiozmen 4y ago
We have open source React framework alternative for Retool and other similar tools. Repo: https://github.com/refinedev/refine https://github.com/refinedev/refine It is headless by default and supports Material UI, AntDesign, Chakra UI, and Mantine. It also has connectors for 15+ backend services including REST API, GraphQL, NestJs CRUD, Airtable, Strapi, Strapi v4, Strapi GraphQL, Supabase, Hasura, Nhost, Appwrite, Firebase.. You can compare with Retool and other similar tools https://refine.dev/docs/comparison/ https://refine.dev/docs/comparison/
- hipjiveguy 4y ago
  wow... never came across this - looks great!
- vicsomething 4y ago
  Hey mate, you guys are building a really great project there. Take a look at ours here: https://github.com/illacloud/illa-builder https://github.com/illacloud/illa-builder
upen946 4y ago
Nice to see that. I have been building Flezr.com that runs on Google Sheets/Supabase. I know how much effort it takes to build something like this. Good luck!!
fdeth 4y ago
Left menu navigation, finally! I’m canceling my Retool subscription immediately.
- donqu1xote1 4y ago
  [flagged]
pragmatick 4y ago
Looks great. Are there any more advanced example projects?
thecleaner 4y ago
These things keep popping up left and right. I can think of atleast 6 no-code / low-code platforms all focussed on internal tools. Somehow they are all profitable, retool a bit more since it went to a "better school". Interesting space.
_justlilian 4y ago
Looking sleek! I wish you luck on building this ;) How do you plan to fund it?
vinibrito 4y ago
I would like to see an open source alternative to Bubble.
jerryxumaomao 4y ago

420 points by shuaihan 4y ago

Wow! It is great to see another low code, open source platform being launched. I’ve been involved with open source for over 25 years, and I am a big believer in the power of open source to accelerate development and empower people all over the world to build amazing things. I have built a career on OSS, and millions of others have as well. It is a game changer. In full transparency, I am the Head of DevRel at Appsmith, which is an alternative tool to Open Blocks, and a source for some of Open Block’s code (https://github.com/openblocks-dev/openblocks/search?q=appsmith https://github.com/openblocks-dev/openblocks/search?q=appsmi...). However, that is not really what I want to discuss here. As long as I have been involved in open source, I have dealt with FUD about OSS from investors, executives, and business people who don’t “get it”. These folks have usually been highly resistant to open sourcing code or making contributions because they think it will hurt the business. “Why would I want to share code that can be used to compete against us?” This could even apply to a young engineer or maintainer of a growing open-source project who’s deciding to startup and thinking whether to build an OSS company. We have seen a huge boom in open source business models, and this is a GREAT thing. But, what can we do to ensure that we don’t prove the naysayers right? My concern is that as we see a rise in competition among open source businesses, we will also see a rise in competitive businesses (open source and proprietary) that use previous work to accelerate their advantage… which is one of the central features to open source. But, in theory, open source also has advantages for those who provide code - attribution, contribution, funding, shared resources, etc. There are also different licensing models that have strengths and weaknesses. We decided to go with a permissive license so that people can use Appsmith in all environments, and sometimes this works against us because competitors can build on top of Appsmith. But hey, that’s the nature of the game right? So - what can we or should we do as a community to ensure that open source business models can be successful without tarnishing the reputation of open source in general? Should we be more clear with attribution? Should we partner and make shared libraries for common functionality? Maybe do nothing? What do you think?

vicsomething 4y ago
Lol, you should check this one too. Here: https://github.com/illacloud/illa-builder https://github.com/illacloud/illa-builder
- dotancohen 4y ago
  To be clear, this post is to his own tool.
  - alexthon87 4y ago
    this one has a 1:1 UI of retool
- rlnorthcutt 4y ago
  While I think it is important to share new projects and even brag a bit about our own, I'm not clear on how this adds to the conversation? Illa has been mentioned multiple times here, so at this point it feels a bit spammy. As a developer, I feel like a little bit of self-promotion goes a long way. Hope this helps.
naj1n 4y ago
I think this will lead to OSS becoming a "finite game".
- rlnorthcutt 4y ago
  Can you expand on that a bit more? Do you think that more open source business models will lead to more rehashing of the same code/concepts over an over again? I'm also curious how you think this may apply to the rise in AI coding projects. In theory, it will become possible to create complex software by simply describing it well, and much of that code from the AI training is open source.
  - naj1n 4y ago
    First, it's gorgeous to be the first open-source alternative to xxx in different industry segments. In comparison, it's just commercial competition that more and more OSS alternatives to the same project. ⁣ ⁣ Then, it's difficult for me to have a good discussion with u on the AI coding project. There are so many problems, such as licenses, trademarks, and secrets of contribution behind AI coding. ⁣ ⁣ Thk u.

afhammad 4y ago

I use Retool extensively at work for internal tooling (A.K.A Backoffice). It's really good in that I don't have to think about it much. There seems to be a new open-source competitor popping up every month, which is great, but I really wish people would get behind one or two of them and make them much stronger contenders. The comparisons listed (other than being OSS) are mostly superficial and in some cases already available in Retool, perhaps released since that was written. A better benchmark to aim for would be https://www.palantir.com/platforms/foundry/ https://www.palantir.com/platforms/foundry/ which is way more powerful.

Aeolun 4y ago
Foundry is a terrible comparison, if only for the fact that I still have no clue what it does after reading that page (something with analytics?)
sevazhidkov 4y ago
It's very hard to understand what Foundry actually is from the provided landing page. Would you be able to describe it? Is it like Retool, but with more data sources and blocks? Can you actually drag-n-drop new applications in it or it's customized by Palantir only?
rubenfiszel 4y ago
I'm an ex-palantir (left 3y ago, things might have changed) that worked on Foundry and building Windmill [1] which is an open-source framework that would actually be closer to Foundry except we do workflows and not data pipelines. I do not think the comparison stands between Retool, or this tool and Foundry. There is indeed a sub-product in Foundry called 'Slate' which is an UI builder but it's a small part of Foundry. Foundry is mostly about data pipelines, to do spark transforms on large ETL, and then having lots of product on top of it to make it easy to make Spark work in an enterprise environment such as a UI builder (the slate mentioned above), a graph viewer of the ETL (monocle), a report builder, RBAC, a timeseries processor, data lineage, versioning of the code, a webeditor and so on. [1]: https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill
- 4y ago

rubenfiszel 4y ago

Congrats on the launch! The app builder looks amazing and seems indeed very inspired by Retool. We are building a tool in the same space with Windmill, also open-source [1]. The goal is not to hijack this thread since I do not believe we are that competitive. We focus on workflows and more backendy/complex logic by converting automatically Python, Typescript, Go, Bash into endpoints and workflow modules that you can run at scale on workers that are deployable on one's own infra. We are currently also finishing an UI builder [2] but because it is not our prime focus, it will always be a much simpler alternative to what you and Retool are building. Hence, I see a lot of potential for integrations/collaboration for users with need of UIs similar to retool while needing more complex logic than REST or raw database queries. In any case, congrats, I have played with the tool and you guys did an amazing job. [1]: https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill [2]: https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill/pull/886 https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill/pull/886

raju 4y ago
Correct URL to windmill on GitHub https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill (Or @rubenfiszel could edit their post)
Brajeshwar 4y ago
You missed an "l" with 1. https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill/ https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill/ Even for the simplest and my own sites, I usually typed it out in the browser and copy-paste. :-)
- rubenfiszel 4y ago
  fixed, thanks :)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

xnorswap 4y ago

https://github.com/openblocks-dev/openblocks/blob/1c5846d04987ffb113f4833e31786943a0cbd3a1/client/packages/openblocks/src/utils/browser.ts https://github.com/openblocks-dev/openblocks/blob/1c5846d049... Disappointing to see Firefox flagged as a "Not supported browser".

rubenfiszel 4y ago
I tried quickly the app builder with Firefox and it seemed to mostly work fine. I would bet it's just that the devs use chrome and didn't have time to test extensively all their advanced features on all browsers.
- xnorswap 4y ago
  What advanced features would be supported by a 3 year old Safari, a 4 year old Chrome, but not by Firefox? It's a kind of laziness that does the open web great harm by putting unnecessary barriers in front of Firefox users when they shouldn't be there. Feature detection for any newer APIs is far better. If you know you rely on a particular API set then you can test for precisely that. Otherwise let browsers be instead of putting banners up recommending "best in IE". It just harms the web.
  - alvis 4y ago
    It's unfair to call the dev lazy on this ground. Even modern browsers are far better than the old days, there remain many discrepancies between browsers and they are still hard to come up with solutions that fit all platforms. Making a static web page work on different browsers is much easier than making a web app work on all the browsers. For a web app, even 1% of the API doesn't work, the whole app is a failure. Can you accept an app only work 99% of the time? I've no idea what makes it incompatible with Firefox, but without knowing the reason, it's an offence to call it laziness.
    - BeefWellington 4y ago
      > I've no idea what makes it incompatible with Firefox, but without knowing the reason, it's an offence to call it laziness. If they didn't bother documenting the compatibility issues, even if only so that future roadmaps can review and take stock of any changes in browser functionality down the road -- or to allow others to work on/around the problem, that's laziness and it's fair to call it out as such.

Multrex 4y ago

Is it stable? I really want to ditch appsmith, tried ToolJet but didn't hook me. Yours look promising, i hope you continue the development of it.

raviparikh 4y ago
What about Appsmith/Tooljet fell short for you?
- Multrex 4y ago
  Appsmith you can't create good looking apps and the responsiveness is not good. Tooljet is good but it didn't click me. Basically I'm not developer but i know good SQL and WordPress. I really want something like Elementor page builder but with low code functionalities.
shuaihan 4y ago
Thanks for your appreciation. It's stable. We write a lot of tests to make sure everything works.
foxbee 4y ago
Have you tried Budibase? For reference, I am the cofounder of Budibase and we're planning 2023 so I am super-eager for feedback. https://github.com/Budibase/budibase https://github.com/Budibase/budibase
- kwerk 4y ago
  Fwiw BigQuery support is what kept me from testing budibase and using retool for a project just 2 weeks ago.
  - foxbee 4y ago
    Ahhh. We have a plugin repo now and there's a plugin for BigQuery: https://github.com/marblekirby/budibase-big-query-plugin https://github.com/marblekirby/budibase-big-query-plugin

truetraveller 4y ago

pricing for the cloud version?

shuaihan 4y ago
It's free for early adopters. We don't have pricing plan yet.
- dzikimarian 4y ago
  It's AGPL so might be bit hard to adapt outside of homelab (unless that's the intention for the free version).
  - zurn 4y ago
    How does the AGPL apply in this case, does it apply to the apps you build?
- hanniabu 4y ago
  That's awesome, I think I'll definitely be using it for ove of my open source projects

p10jkle 4y ago

See also https://budibase.com/ https://budibase.com/ https://www.appsmith.com/ https://www.appsmith.com/

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pvsukale3 4y ago

Related: Tooljet is also an open source alternative to Retool https://github.com/ToolJet/ToolJet https://github.com/ToolJet/ToolJet

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tylersgordon 4y ago
Yeah, I really love Tooljet. Super extendable and easy to use. I really hope they take off.

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amendegree 4y ago

This looks super promising. We've been looking for a good all in one internal tool builder, gonna invesitage this now. Anyone have any other alt's they found useful?

Closi 4y ago
AppSmith!
abdhass 4y ago
Budibase.com
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rubenfiszel 4y ago
Windmill.dev
- sumoboy 4y ago
  This looks more like pipedream.com for automation scripts than a tool builder.
Rafsark 4y ago
Definitely recommend Windmill.dev!
alexarena 4y ago
Founder of https://interval.com https://interval.com here. We're somewhere in-between Retool and Windmill which was mentioned on this thread. Like Windmill, Interval is heavily code-focused. Our model lets you define tools in your existing TypeScipt/JavaScript codebase. Like Retool, you can use Interval to build complete internal dashboards that handle the "view stuff" side of things, not just the script/workflow "do stuff" pieces.
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ckluis 4y ago

All of these "internal tool builders" don't excite me as much as the concept of a "saas building builder" - I think https://saasrock.com https://saasrock.com (bias since I'm helping) has unique potential.

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paxys 4y ago
They are very different use cases. Retool & the like are for building stuff used by yourself/your company. You can connect to internal data sources/APIs and build dashboards. SaaS builders are for building your app for a broader audience. They mainly offer features like authentication, user management, CRM, marketing, subscriptions, billing.
- ckluis 4y ago
  I think of it differently. The internal tool building companies focus on 1 of the 3 legs of building. 1. building 2. marketing 3. managing A lot of internal tools would be externally viable as well (not all).

datalopers 4y ago

Can I import my JSON config export from Retool?

CSDude 4y ago
Yes this would make switches much more possible
antonyl 4y ago
I'm a Retool user and going to try writing a script now... Edit: hmmm, it's pretty hard. I was trying to export a pretty simple app but it looks like there's a ton of features not supported here. (I guess it's pretty hard to build a full development environment with GUIs.) For example, I have a simple table in Retool where I'm doing inline editing. Unfortunately Openblock's table is read-only. So I guess I'll have to manually add a form. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to easily add validations to the form, and it seemed a bit buggy when submitting it too (maybe not properly debouncing?). Also, it looks like the permissioning system is much more rigid, and doesn't support, for example, showing different things in the app depending on the user group? Looking forward to seeing it mature, but it does feel like there is a lot of surface area. I've tried a few other OSS builders, and I think Retool still comes out ahead when it comes to building actual production use cases. Like another comment said, I do wonder whether there will ever be a true OSS version? Seems like everything is "free for now, will charge for enterprise features later". At that point you might as well just use Retool, since the product is a lot better? It’s great to see more options out there, though...

Nimsical 4y ago

This is cool and in some world where the company becomes massive and basically commit to properly maintaining the product I could see it being a player. I'm skeptical of open-sourcing UI and workflow builders. The upsides are that you enable a community to build connectors and the UI builder + maintain them, but the downside is that you have to manage the community well enough that enterprises can trust the connectors and the UI builder. The challenge of maintaining the community + maintaining some sort of an SLA is very hard. This type of software is extremely hard to test for –writing integration tests are much harder for the frontend than they are for something like a database (e.g. MongoDB) because of the permutations of use-cases). The OSS+managed model seems to have succeeded in areas where very you can regression tests are much easier to maintain and there are clear benchmarks to test the community's output against. As a buyer (we recently bought SuperBlocks (https://www.superblocks.com/ https://www.superblocks.com/) which is just a managed version of the same idea) it's hard to commit to an open-source version of something like this given the problems above. I may be totally wrong – I've never run an OSS+managed business, and as much as I love the ethos, I still have to not care about the stability of an internal tool builder that my company is being built on top of.

jokethrowaway 4y ago
Like for normal OSS you'll end up using a few massive projects which get maintained regularly and then write custom for everything else
rlnorthcutt 4y ago
You have a good point about enterprise requirements and the challenge of wrapping an SLA around open source which is entirely or primarily made from community contributions. I ran into this all the time when I worked at Acquia which provides a platform for Drupal. One thing to note - proprietary does not necessarily mean it is any safer or more stable than OSS. Superblocks is actually a closed source fork of Appsmith, so the code is very close to the open source version, but now it is not visible. In my experience, proprietary vs OSS is not the issue, but maturity and support. Most newer software either has undiscovered bugs, or develops them as they grow and become complex. More mature software tends to be more stable in general, and OSS projects with commercial backing tend to have the resources (and incentive) to focus on security and stability. This is why I am so interested in the explosion of Open Source business models. In theory, it provides a more stable product and commercial support, while still being transparent about its code and being open to community contributions.

T3RMINATED 4y ago

chachra 4y ago

Looks promising for sure! I know its hard to fund etc. but it'd be nice if truly 100% open-source options existed! Even the ones that are open-source, then have pricing for SSO etc. which is disappointing. I see the same in the headless CMS space where tools like Strapi, make it very hard to adopt without paying $$$.

jroes 4y ago
I feel like charging for SSO is a reasonable request of enterprises when adopting open source software. Most enterprises require SSO as policy (and should). Most enterprises also don't contribute financially to the sustainability of open source software, so this is one way to ensure that happens.
- eropple 4y ago
  The problem is that everyone should have SSO, and that includes small orgs. If you don't want your stuff used by small orgs that can't afford to pay, that's a totally reasonable standpoint. At the same time, though, if it's good they probably will use it despite not having SSO, and so that decision makessecurity (something that, by and large, benefits everyone) into an opt-in luxury good. Speaking only for me, I'd be uncomfortable espousing that as a philosophy.
  - jroes 4y ago
    I agree that orgs of all sizes should use SSO. The pricing should scale appropriately. But as we have seen, companies are not doing enough to secure the sustainability of the open source software they rely on for their businesses, and I think a balance needs to be struck.
    - eropple 4y ago
      They are not. I agree. SSO isn't where to try to bleed that pig though, I think, to the point where for team-based systems it is probably more proper to disallow anything else (and maybe make them pay for guest access outside of their domain!).

AlphaWeaver 4y ago

Could this also be an open source replacement for Airtable?

blacksoil 4y ago
Have you heard of baserow.io? It's open source airtable

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fulafel 4y ago

Anyone have a retool-less explanation of what this is?

renewiltord 4y ago
Drag and drop internal app builder

necatiozmen 4y ago

We have open source React framework alternative for Retool and other similar tools. Repo: https://github.com/refinedev/refine https://github.com/refinedev/refine It is headless by default and supports Material UI, AntDesign, Chakra UI, and Mantine. It also has connectors for 15+ backend services including REST API, GraphQL, NestJs CRUD, Airtable, Strapi, Strapi v4, Strapi GraphQL, Supabase, Hasura, Nhost, Appwrite, Firebase.. You can compare with Retool and other similar tools https://refine.dev/docs/comparison/ https://refine.dev/docs/comparison/

hipjiveguy 4y ago
wow... never came across this - looks great!
vicsomething 4y ago
Hey mate, you guys are building a really great project there. Take a look at ours here: https://github.com/illacloud/illa-builder https://github.com/illacloud/illa-builder

upen946 4y ago

Nice to see that. I have been building Flezr.com that runs on Google Sheets/Supabase. I know how much effort it takes to build something like this. Good luck!!

fdeth 4y ago

Left menu navigation, finally! I’m canceling my Retool subscription immediately.

donqu1xote1 4y ago
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pragmatick 4y ago

Looks great. Are there any more advanced example projects?

thecleaner 4y ago

These things keep popping up left and right. I can think of atleast 6 no-code / low-code platforms all focussed on internal tools. Somehow they are all profitable, retool a bit more since it went to a "better school". Interesting space.

_justlilian 4y ago

Looking sleek! I wish you luck on building this ;) How do you plan to fund it?

vinibrito 4y ago

I would like to see an open source alternative to Bubble.

jerryxumaomao 4y ago