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Show HN: Sortabase, a collaborative, visual database builder for communities
We built Sortabase to let communities collaborate on visual databases of the things they know and care about.
The fields of each database are defined by its moderators using a no-code drag-n-drop interface, and the resulting database is easy to search, filter, sort, and contribute to.
The platform is 100% free to use - take a look, and feedback is appreciated!
- tikkun 3y agoSmart, seems like a great way to make some money on affiliate commissions and provide a useful product to the creators and the end users at the same time. Nice!
- marwis 3y agoWhat's the license on the data? Needs grid view and export/api.
- sl-dolt 3y agoWe're doing something a bit similar at DoltHub, where databases are managed with a GitHub like workflow, and where you get the pros and cons of that kind of system. Our hospital price database (work ongoing daily) is community built: https://www.dolthub.com/repositories/dolthub/transparency-in-pricing/data/main/rate https://www.dolthub.com/repositories/dolthub/transparency-in... (context: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NifwgKHBCeF35ZRZsfpgg4bErvlgsPnJBzPLvztwXLU/edit# https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NifwgKHBCeF35ZRZsfpgg4bE...)
- replwoacause 3y agoWhat’s up with the name? A ‘dolt’ is a stupid person, at least in the English language.
- pjm331 3y ago“git” is also a stupid person - and dolt is git for data
- melx 3y agoMy mate used to say "git" to say something is fine/good (to him).
- DemocracyFTW2 3y agoThat's just the British pronunciation of 'perfect'.
- melx 3y agoYes, but English wasn't our first language back then (in ~2005).
- sl-dolt 3y agoWe're trying to reclaim the word
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- esafak 3y agoedit: Dumb question. deleted
- 16bitvoid 3y agoDo you mind elaborating? I don't get how they're comparable. Vetted.ai uses AI to rank products based on user reviews and check prices across retailers. OP's project is a community-based, collaborative database (almost a fusion of Reddit and Airtable) where anyone can contribute to a database, which also isn't limited to products.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pbronez 3y agovery cool. UI to compare items is a little clunky. Would like to select multiple items to compare from the main grid view. Right now it jumps me to the dedicated compare screen as soon as I select one item, and then I have to search to add new ones. I want to filter a list through facets and select a subset of the items on that list for detailed comparison.
- taw1516 3y agowow this looks amazing. Do you mind shedding some light on how you built this? especially how you organize taxonomy and product metadata for each category I am working on an e-commerce platform that would benefits a lot from your experience here
- Trayja-Peter 3y agoThe taxonomy and metadata, as you put it, is defined by the moderators/community of each database. We just give them drag-and-drop tools to do so :)
- taw1516 3y agoah i meant to ask how it was designed in the backend
- Trayja-Peter 3y agoI won't get too deep into our architecture, but needless to say letting users dynamically edit/add/remove fields in their databases is not easy. We use Postgres + Prisma as our ORM, and I'm fairly happy with its DX re: handling this level of complexity
- melx 3y agoI would put everything in JSON(b) column since you're using Postgres anyway....
- 16bitvoid 3y agoThis feels like a combination of Airtable (before the push to be a no-code app platform) and Reddit. This seems way better than the public Google Sheets that make their way around the latter site. I'm curious though. How do you plan to make money from this project (premium subscription option, affiliate links for product-focused databases, etc.)? Will it remain free to use? Regardless, it seems like an interesting project!
- Trayja-Peter 3y agoIt will always be free to use; affiliate links for product-focussed databases is a strong possibility
- gorkemcetin 3y agoIs there a way to view each group of cards as a list? Just like what Airtable or Retable has for example?
- Trayja-Peter 3y agoNot at the moment, but I'm very open to adding new views to the UI!
- nitish1998 3y agoLooks super cool. I am working on something similar.
- Trayja-Peter 3y agoThanks :) Care to share your project?
- LunarAurora 3y agoOn HN months ago, I made a list [1] on publishing small databases, and I remember that I could not find a good service under "List sharing" (maybe one). Yours fills that slot perfectly. I have some suggestions: For initiating the DB, offering import (csv/sheets...) would help creators jump in. Then, for collaboration, you could offer the option to add without any account at all (just send the "under review" form to the moderators), or maybe also add more signup alternatives. As for monetization, I suggest in the future you limit only "private" DBs (= me and other moderators) , so people can still create unlimited public ones (good for spreading the word). Good luck! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34561292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34561292
- bcjordan 3y agoRight, maybe Airtable is to Slack as Sortabase is to Discord
- Trayja-Peter 3y agoI remember that post! I had commented on it, back when this project was still very early and using a different name. I agree with all your suggestions, and we've considered most of them. Importing CSVs presents some challenges, particularly with trying to infer the type and valid values of each column.
- ObscureScience 3y agoSince you did not address the monetization suggestion; I hope that there will be some mechanism to prevent open DBs to just become closed/paywalled over night. If such a premium content is implemented, similar to free software there should be clear limits to how an initiator can take the work of volunteer collaborators and privatize it. Not sure if viable, but I would much rather prefer a kind of donation system with some kickback to valued collaborations.
- omgmajk 3y agoFinally, a good source of penguin repellent. Now I can get rid of the penguins in my basement and get my herring back! [*] https://www.sortabase.com/PenguinRepellent https://www.sortabase.com/PenguinRepellent
- koboll 3y agoThis is so beautiful. Lost it at Marv
- skybrian 3y agoThis is pretty cool, except that every database looks like a commerce site. It might be good to have some different layouts available that look less commercial? There are some databases that have entries with a long text description. Putting a snippet of that up front would make that clearer. Also, a single-column layout would look more like a blog. Compare with an archive page on Substack.
- monlockandkey 3y agoThe website looks really good! For the search criteria filters, are you using a library or did you make that yourself? The closest thing I can think of is https://react-select.com/home https://react-select.com/home
- Trayja-Peter 3y agoWe're using Ant Design https://ant.design/ https://ant.design/
- koboll 3y agoThis is the thing that reddit should have done years ago. Great product.
- refulgentis 3y agoThis is really cool
- NationOfJoe 3y agoI like it, Can the list of databases also be a database? like can it have the same interface and sort able features? Also what does a user get i they login/sign up? is that just to create databases or do you get a subscribe feature or something?