9 ms·

Retool Database

205 points by antonyl 4y ago

sa46 4y ago
Looks super snazzy: Can I point Retool Database to an existing Postgres database? If not, do y'all have any plans to add support? How's it work under the hood? Custom extensions?
- stronglikedan 4y ago
  Just helping OP keep up: https://docs.retool.com/docs/retool-database-self-hosted https://docs.retool.com/docs/retool-database-self-hosted
- jimmyechan 4y ago
  Curious to know your use case. Were you hoping to use Retool Database with your existing Postgres as a schema builder or as a data editor via their spreadsheet UI?
- tjsavage511 4y ago
  (PM at Retool) For self-hosted deployments, you can point an existing Postgres DB (v14.3 or later) to Retool Database - though it’s more specifically designed to quickly evolve a new database. For cloud customers, we currently don’t support pointing your own database but it’s something we’re thinking about! No custom extensions - we wanted to make it a lightweight and effective layer on top of Postgres. So it’s just a vanilla Postgres database under the hood. The UI gives you access to a lot of the power of Postgres, and for anything that you can’t do via the UI you can use the connection string directly: e.g. create triggers, create compound unique keys, etc.
calvinmorrison 4y ago
I think Retool is awesome - though last time I think I didn't see a way to allow clients to have access to certain views. We have some databases we'd love to generate views for client access, but we don't need them to have full blown accounts. Is that something on the horizon?
- rubenfiszel 4y ago
  We have clients solving this pattern using supabase (storing the client's credentials on supabase and then using RLS) and our open-source solution Windmill to solve this exact problem.
- antonybello 4y ago
  (PM at Retool) Yes! We recently shipped Retool Embed to enable you to build settings pages, dashboards, and UIs in Retool and embed them securely into your client-facing apps. You can learn more about Embed here and sign up for the beta: https://retool.com/products/embed https://retool.com/products/embed We’re also working on a solution to let you build full-stack client portals in Retool. I’m antony@retool.com if you want to chat!
  - calvinmorrison 4y ago
    Love it. Especially for software that is database driven, but not necessarily well exposed to UI concepts, it's been very cool to mock up and play with.
  - richarlidad 4y ago
    I think this will be a killer feature - thanks guys
- roozbeh18 4y ago
  I wish retool had two things, more granular permissions for users on team plan. right now this is reserved for enterprise. I can not simply share only specific apps to certain users. I wish to be able to pay yearly. We are on a hosted solution.
  - tommycollison 4y ago
    (Retool employee here.) Based on how we see companies using the different plans, we have a couple of delineations between the monthly and yearly plans. Happy to chat with you about your specific use case and discuss pricing/plan options! I’m tommy@retool.com
jallmann 4y ago
This is good news. Retool-local storage was a big missing piece of the puzzle for us. For self-hosted customers, is the database still on-premises? Or does it live in the Retool cloud?
- sikan_ 4y ago
  For self-hosted customers, Retool Database operates more like a front-end for your own DB (though we do require specific versions of Postgres for it all to work smoothly). Docs here: https://docs.retool.com/docs/retool-database-self-hosted https://docs.retool.com/docs/retool-database-self-hosted
sikan_ 4y ago
Hi HN! I’m the lead engineer on Retool Database. Spreadsheets are often used as “poor man’s databases”—they’re quick to get started, but fall apart when you need data integrity, validation, and the ability to query/filter data. This is why I am so excited about this launch - Retool Database gives you the power of Postgres with the “getting started” speed of a spreadsheet. No setup required. We've also spent a lot of time on the UI for interacting with the database as well. You can create and edit tables, columns, and rows quickly without writing SQL. You should be able to get the same speed of iteration as spreadsheets, but you are also starting from the get-go that can handle the increasing complexity of your data and scale much better with app development. We’re giving you 5GB free storage for the first year + connection strings so you can access your data outside Retool. Lots of learnings as we built this—happy to answer any question you have!
- ithrow 4y ago
  Can Retool Database be self-hosted stand-alone without Retool? I can see using this as a replacement for excel on some things.
  - sikan_ 4y ago
    We agree! The UI can be really helpful to make quick changes to schema, data, etc. You can’t run the UI without a Retool account though. We have a self-hosted Retool that works with your own Postgres database that you connect to Retool. Docs here: https://docs.retool.com/docs/retool-database-self-hosted https://docs.retool.com/docs/retool-database-self-hosted
  - dmarble 4y ago
    Check out: NocoDB (https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb) - works w/ MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, SQLite, MariaDB Baserow (https://gitlab.com/bramw/baserow https://gitlab.com/bramw/baserow) - PostgreSQL based APITable (https://github.com/apitable/apitable https://github.com/apitable/apitable) - MySQL based
    - ithrow 4y ago
dblooman 4y ago
Are there good video resources for Retool in general, I looked at some youtube videos and found mostly creating a basic database view with a form. Any more substantial examples?
- kwhinnery 4y ago
  Hey there! We are actually working on a video course for Retool that covers more of the breadth of the platform. Definitely more to come. One more substantial example we released recently is this bookstore application, which uses about every part of the platform [1]. It's the app demoed at this virtual event, Retool Developer Day [2]. 1: https://github.com/tryretool/bookstore_sample_app https://github.com/tryretool/bookstore_sample_app 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmLPdHqC0uQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmLPdHqC0uQ
- anyfactor 4y ago
  I wish retool produced more tutorial videos. There is this one operation, I have been trying to do for couple of weeks. There are some URLs on a table, I want to select them and I want to make an API call to the selected URLs. There are a few discussions on their community website and all point to one documentation piece. I still haven't figured out how to do this. I don't want open a thread because I know I am going to be asked to read the documentation. Google "multiple api request retool".
  - kwhinnery 4y ago
    Sorry to hear this has been challenging - were you trying to do something like this, where you select a row in the table, and then make another API request with data from that row? https://retoolhacks.retool.com/embedded/public/17eebce9-96f3-4886-90d8-9696ab4e37a5 https://retoolhacks.retool.com/embedded/public/17eebce9-96f3... If this is close to what you're looking for, you can import this sample app from this JSON export: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/kwhinnery/4fed2a80788f4295f088e1dc736891cc/raw/3a80b6ac44fbf6059d507225473ac45f1b8c9b10/monster-browser.json https://gist.githubusercontent.com/kwhinnery/4fed2a80788f429...
- nyadesu 4y ago
CaliAlec 4y ago
Looks cool, I'm just wondering how this compares to Google Tables?
- sikan_ 4y ago
  Google tables is similar to Airtable, they are proprietary databases. You cannot query them and interface with them easily from another application like a regular database. Retool Database has that friendly table UI but also give you the full query capability via SQL (we even give you the Postgres connection string that let you connect to it externally with your favorite tool).
taylorfinley 4y ago
I've been using Retool Database inside a Retool Workflow and I find my update queries don't seem to resolve in the workflow, although I can see the updates in the table. I've just chalked it up to beta status, but since y'all are here I thought I might ask if this is a known issue or if I should reach out to support. Edit to add: really killer addition to the product, keep up the great work
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dvdhsu 4y ago
  Hi Taylor! (David here, CEO @ Retool.) I've reached out over email; this sounds like a bug on our end. We will fix it. Thanks for using Retool!
richarlidad 4y ago
Thanks - this will improve my life
_fat_santa 4y ago
I think building this as a tool on top of Postgres was a very good idea. Is there anything special Retool DB does on top of Postgres or is it basically just a nice UI for interacting with your tables?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- sikan_ 4y ago
  Nothing special under the hood!
fblp 4y ago
Can this sync to an air table database or only import from it?
- sikan 4y ago
  Both ways if you use our Workflow product to create background jobs that calls the Airtable REST API https://retool.com/products/workflows/ https://retool.com/products/workflows/
babelfish 4y ago
Very cool, can you give any details about how this was built? Just a massive Postgres cluster with programmatic schema creation? Or a primary/replica hosted on K8s for each user and offloaded to blob storage after some period of inactivity?
moneywoes 4y ago
Can I sync a google sheet to this
- mokshjawa 4y ago
  (Eng at Retool Database) You can export your Google Sheet as a CSV and upload it to Retool Database. We're thinking about enabling to syncing your sheets to Retool Database but that also opens up a host of complexity in repeatedly parsing the sheet over time and maintaining it as a DB table. We'd hope after a one-time upload, Retool Database would be similar enough to a spreadsheet to allow you to continue operations there.
lysecret 4y ago
Hey just wanted to take this chance to thank the Retool people. Retool was absolutely essential for our last startup. And they have been super responsive with bugs. A great product!
austinjp 4y ago
Congrats. Looks like it will be useful for plenty of folks. Can you outline how it compares with e.g. NocoDB [0] and others mentioned in another comment [1]? As for "getting started" speed and general data tinkering, I find little beats Gnumeric -> CSV -> SQLite query [2] although I appreciate that solo developers aren't your target market :) [0] https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35381252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35381252 [2] https://til.simonwillison.net/sqlite/one-line-csv-operations https://til.simonwillison.net/sqlite/one-line-csv-operations

205 points by antonyl 4y ago

sa46 4y ago

Looks super snazzy: Can I point Retool Database to an existing Postgres database? If not, do y'all have any plans to add support? How's it work under the hood? Custom extensions?

stronglikedan 4y ago
Just helping OP keep up: https://docs.retool.com/docs/retool-database-self-hosted https://docs.retool.com/docs/retool-database-self-hosted
jimmyechan 4y ago
Curious to know your use case. Were you hoping to use Retool Database with your existing Postgres as a schema builder or as a data editor via their spreadsheet UI?
tjsavage511 4y ago
(PM at Retool) For self-hosted deployments, you can point an existing Postgres DB (v14.3 or later) to Retool Database - though it’s more specifically designed to quickly evolve a new database. For cloud customers, we currently don’t support pointing your own database but it’s something we’re thinking about! No custom extensions - we wanted to make it a lightweight and effective layer on top of Postgres. So it’s just a vanilla Postgres database under the hood. The UI gives you access to a lot of the power of Postgres, and for anything that you can’t do via the UI you can use the connection string directly: e.g. create triggers, create compound unique keys, etc.

calvinmorrison 4y ago

I think Retool is awesome - though last time I think I didn't see a way to allow clients to have access to certain views. We have some databases we'd love to generate views for client access, but we don't need them to have full blown accounts. Is that something on the horizon?

rubenfiszel 4y ago
We have clients solving this pattern using supabase (storing the client's credentials on supabase and then using RLS) and our open-source solution Windmill to solve this exact problem.
antonybello 4y ago
(PM at Retool) Yes! We recently shipped Retool Embed to enable you to build settings pages, dashboards, and UIs in Retool and embed them securely into your client-facing apps. You can learn more about Embed here and sign up for the beta: https://retool.com/products/embed https://retool.com/products/embed We’re also working on a solution to let you build full-stack client portals in Retool. I’m antony@retool.com if you want to chat!
- calvinmorrison 4y ago
  Love it. Especially for software that is database driven, but not necessarily well exposed to UI concepts, it's been very cool to mock up and play with.
- richarlidad 4y ago
  I think this will be a killer feature - thanks guys
roozbeh18 4y ago
I wish retool had two things, more granular permissions for users on team plan. right now this is reserved for enterprise. I can not simply share only specific apps to certain users. I wish to be able to pay yearly. We are on a hosted solution.
- tommycollison 4y ago
  (Retool employee here.) Based on how we see companies using the different plans, we have a couple of delineations between the monthly and yearly plans. Happy to chat with you about your specific use case and discuss pricing/plan options! I’m tommy@retool.com

jallmann 4y ago

This is good news. Retool-local storage was a big missing piece of the puzzle for us. For self-hosted customers, is the database still on-premises? Or does it live in the Retool cloud?

sikan_ 4y ago
For self-hosted customers, Retool Database operates more like a front-end for your own DB (though we do require specific versions of Postgres for it all to work smoothly). Docs here: https://docs.retool.com/docs/retool-database-self-hosted https://docs.retool.com/docs/retool-database-self-hosted

sikan_ 4y ago

Hi HN! I’m the lead engineer on Retool Database. Spreadsheets are often used as “poor man’s databases”—they’re quick to get started, but fall apart when you need data integrity, validation, and the ability to query/filter data. This is why I am so excited about this launch - Retool Database gives you the power of Postgres with the “getting started” speed of a spreadsheet. No setup required. We've also spent a lot of time on the UI for interacting with the database as well. You can create and edit tables, columns, and rows quickly without writing SQL. You should be able to get the same speed of iteration as spreadsheets, but you are also starting from the get-go that can handle the increasing complexity of your data and scale much better with app development. We’re giving you 5GB free storage for the first year + connection strings so you can access your data outside Retool. Lots of learnings as we built this—happy to answer any question you have!

ithrow 4y ago
Can Retool Database be self-hosted stand-alone without Retool? I can see using this as a replacement for excel on some things.
- sikan_ 4y ago
  We agree! The UI can be really helpful to make quick changes to schema, data, etc. You can’t run the UI without a Retool account though. We have a self-hosted Retool that works with your own Postgres database that you connect to Retool. Docs here: https://docs.retool.com/docs/retool-database-self-hosted https://docs.retool.com/docs/retool-database-self-hosted
- dmarble 4y ago
  Check out: NocoDB (https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb) - works w/ MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, SQLite, MariaDB Baserow (https://gitlab.com/bramw/baserow https://gitlab.com/bramw/baserow) - PostgreSQL based APITable (https://github.com/apitable/apitable https://github.com/apitable/apitable) - MySQL based
  - ithrow 4y ago

dblooman 4y ago

Are there good video resources for Retool in general, I looked at some youtube videos and found mostly creating a basic database view with a form. Any more substantial examples?

kwhinnery 4y ago
Hey there! We are actually working on a video course for Retool that covers more of the breadth of the platform. Definitely more to come. One more substantial example we released recently is this bookstore application, which uses about every part of the platform [1]. It's the app demoed at this virtual event, Retool Developer Day [2]. 1: https://github.com/tryretool/bookstore_sample_app https://github.com/tryretool/bookstore_sample_app 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmLPdHqC0uQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmLPdHqC0uQ
anyfactor 4y ago
I wish retool produced more tutorial videos. There is this one operation, I have been trying to do for couple of weeks. There are some URLs on a table, I want to select them and I want to make an API call to the selected URLs. There are a few discussions on their community website and all point to one documentation piece. I still haven't figured out how to do this. I don't want open a thread because I know I am going to be asked to read the documentation. Google "multiple api request retool".
- kwhinnery 4y ago
  Sorry to hear this has been challenging - were you trying to do something like this, where you select a row in the table, and then make another API request with data from that row? https://retoolhacks.retool.com/embedded/public/17eebce9-96f3-4886-90d8-9696ab4e37a5 https://retoolhacks.retool.com/embedded/public/17eebce9-96f3... If this is close to what you're looking for, you can import this sample app from this JSON export: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/kwhinnery/4fed2a80788f4295f088e1dc736891cc/raw/3a80b6ac44fbf6059d507225473ac45f1b8c9b10/monster-browser.json https://gist.githubusercontent.com/kwhinnery/4fed2a80788f429...
nyadesu 4y ago

CaliAlec 4y ago

Looks cool, I'm just wondering how this compares to Google Tables?

sikan_ 4y ago
Google tables is similar to Airtable, they are proprietary databases. You cannot query them and interface with them easily from another application like a regular database. Retool Database has that friendly table UI but also give you the full query capability via SQL (we even give you the Postgres connection string that let you connect to it externally with your favorite tool).

taylorfinley 4y ago

I've been using Retool Database inside a Retool Workflow and I find my update queries don't seem to resolve in the workflow, although I can see the updates in the table. I've just chalked it up to beta status, but since y'all are here I thought I might ask if this is a known issue or if I should reach out to support. Edit to add: really killer addition to the product, keep up the great work

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dvdhsu 4y ago
Hi Taylor! (David here, CEO @ Retool.) I've reached out over email; this sounds like a bug on our end. We will fix it. Thanks for using Retool!

richarlidad 4y ago

Thanks - this will improve my life

_fat_santa 4y ago

I think building this as a tool on top of Postgres was a very good idea. Is there anything special Retool DB does on top of Postgres or is it basically just a nice UI for interacting with your tables?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sikan_ 4y ago
Nothing special under the hood!

fblp 4y ago

Can this sync to an air table database or only import from it?

sikan 4y ago
Both ways if you use our Workflow product to create background jobs that calls the Airtable REST API https://retool.com/products/workflows/ https://retool.com/products/workflows/

babelfish 4y ago

Very cool, can you give any details about how this was built? Just a massive Postgres cluster with programmatic schema creation? Or a primary/replica hosted on K8s for each user and offloaded to blob storage after some period of inactivity?

moneywoes 4y ago

Can I sync a google sheet to this

mokshjawa 4y ago
(Eng at Retool Database) You can export your Google Sheet as a CSV and upload it to Retool Database. We're thinking about enabling to syncing your sheets to Retool Database but that also opens up a host of complexity in repeatedly parsing the sheet over time and maintaining it as a DB table. We'd hope after a one-time upload, Retool Database would be similar enough to a spreadsheet to allow you to continue operations there.

lysecret 4y ago

Hey just wanted to take this chance to thank the Retool people. Retool was absolutely essential for our last startup. And they have been super responsive with bugs. A great product!

austinjp 4y ago

Congrats. Looks like it will be useful for plenty of folks. Can you outline how it compares with e.g. NocoDB [0] and others mentioned in another comment [1]? As for "getting started" speed and general data tinkering, I find little beats Gnumeric -> CSV -> SQLite query [2] although I appreciate that solo developers aren't your target market :) [0] https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35381252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35381252 [2] https://til.simonwillison.net/sqlite/one-line-csv-operations https://til.simonwillison.net/sqlite/one-line-csv-operations