For larger user counts (and budgets), Salesforce.com is a workhorse. Builds tabs, data views, filters, dashboards, great auditing, security, etc. I've used the force.com platform to track everything from dog daycares to coffee shipments to hospital patients. It's an acquired taste, but it's a huge toolbox that gets the job done.
Ask HN: Which NoCode platforms are fine?
111–120 of 138 posts
Re: Ask HN: Which NoCode platforms are fine?
#112I am one of the maintainers of ToolJet (https://github.com/ToolJet/ToolJet). ToolJet is an open source no-code platform that can connect to all of your existing data sources such as databases and APIs to build applications using a drag and drop interface.
Re: Ask HN: Which NoCode platforms are fine?
#113I am surprised that at ~100 comments the likes of Notion, Coda, TiddlyWiki haven't come up.
Wouldn't you consider Notion and Coda NoCode?
TiddlyWiki I see as more experimental so that simply might not be a 'sensible' platform in terms of the question.
Re: Ask HN: Which NoCode platforms are fine?
#114Related question - any NoCode platforms good for mobile native apps?
Re: Ask HN: Which NoCode platforms are fine?
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I deliberately used the nonspecific term "testing" and avoided "unit tests" because arguments about unit testing vs. integration testing vs. ui vs. functional vs. system vs. [...] are generally not productive, and tangential to the point I was making. > I think that it is more important to be able to control complexity in order to avoid testing, I think that's a worthy ideal to strive for, but it's not so easy to con…
I think you’re assuming people are incapable of determining scope on their own, just like you’re assuming that programmatic testing is a magic bullet for finding software regressions / bugs. Both assumptions are wrong. You are aware that there is such a thing as a Pontiac and such a thing as a Mercedes, right? One is better than the other. Costs more, too. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for both to exist. That…
> I think you’re assuming people are incapable of determining scope on their own, just like you’re assuming that programmatic testing is a magic bullet for finding software regressions / bugs.
You are arguing against a straw man, as I don't assume either of those things. Testing a magic bullet? Ludicrous.
> You are aware that there is such a thing as a Pontiac and such a thing as a Mercedes, right?
Hmm, but both a Pontiac and a Mercedes present the same driving interface.
I would instead compare No Code to DIY tools for (pick your industry: music production, graphic design, etc). I agree that you can go very far and do amazing things with DIY.
Re: Ask HN: Which NoCode platforms are fine?
#116I like appsmith for internal apps. Tried budibase and retool, but feel appsmith is better. They are also ridiculously responsive on discord - fixing bugs, giving advice etc. Not affiliated with any of them.
Out of curiosity, why did you feel appsmith was better than budibase and retool - as a no-code platform?
Appsmith just clicked for me. It just feels nicer to work with appsmith than retool, for example.
I don't think it is just the capabilities of the three tools, I guess they are comparable. Retool has been around for a while, gets a ton of praise, raised a lot of money too (I don't know these info about budibase). It is just that appsmith feels nicer to work with, even though the UI is quite similar to retool.
I know appsmith's support is very very good, I have no clue about the other two.
I am sorry I am not able to give you a concrete answer, beyond the vague I like it :( I guess there might be others who think appsmith sucks and retool rocks. It is one of those things where some people like some UI and the other people hate the same. Another example is clickup, I like the tool in general (I do have complaints) and I pay for it but there are lots of people who hate it.
Re: Ask HN: Which NoCode platforms are fine?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for mentioning Appsmith! We do spend a lot of time on support, glad that you noticed it.
Out of interest, what makes all of these companies pursue 'internal tools' only (i.e. the tools can't be used for customer facing apps)? Is the current sticking point auth & keeping data segregated?
I had assumed it was because people are pickier about look and feel for customer facing stuff than these platforms can support, but the point about auth is interesting.
Re: Ask HN: Which NoCode platforms are fine?
#118I would say "none of the No Code platforms I've seen are fine", because all the ones I'm familiar with have either inadequate testing or no testing at all. The problem is that apps built without testing don't scale past a certain level of complexity — and so complex projects built with No Code tend to fall apart as they become successful. It's not that it can't be done, but that there's probably very little demand fo…
That would be a really cool approach. Start the project by listing, in plain text, test criteria. Build out the app and tie it back to the test criteria in some meaningful way.
Re: Ask HN: Which NoCode platforms are fine?
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you’re assuming people are incapable of determining scope on their own, just like you’re assuming that programmatic testing is a magic bullet for finding software regressions / bugs. Both assumptions are wrong. You are aware that there is such a thing as a Pontiac and such a thing as a Mercedes, right? One is better than the other. Costs more, too. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for both to exist. That…
> I think you’re assuming people are incapable of determining scope on their own, just like you’re assuming that programmatic testing is a magic bullet for finding software regressions / bugs. You are arguing against a straw man, as I don't assume either of those things. Testing a magic bullet? Ludicrous. > You are aware that there is such a thing as a Pontiac and such a thing as a Mercedes, right? Hmm, but both a Po…
> don't scale past a certain level of complexity
I'd say that's a given, both that they're not very complex and not intended to scale past a few users.
> tend to fall apart as they become successful.
There are lots of definitions of success. A dashboard on a phone app so that the boss can see the green lights on his servers is successful. It gave him what he wanted: green lights on his phone.
> By and large the target market for No Code doesn't value testing.
This seems to be your qualifier of why they aren't 'good'. I don't own one, or work for one, or even subscribe to a platform that makes them, I'm just a passer-by here, but I can see the value in them. The only one I have used is open source (NodeRed).
When there's no time and you need to glue two or three API's together in 30 minutes, I see nothing wrong with them. It goes without saying that the result will be fragile and only for a handful of people, probably only one of which will get write access.
Here's my use case: co-founded a disaster relief non-profit in 2017 (hurricanes). Our window of opportunity to do good deeds was about 3-4 days, by then the red cross and fema trucks would arrive. When we need to process data it's probably a job with a roughly $0.00 budget and needs to be done in 30-45 minutes, then there's something else to do.
For that? They are wonderful. I built a phone bar-code scanner that could pull price data from Kroger's API to account for food donations in about an hour and a half. Can anyone else do that writing code by hand? I say no, the UI alone would take longer (however rudimentary that UI is). Was it tested? Yeah, a quick manual once-over and me face-to-face telling the person admining it that if the bar code didn't read just google it and plug the price in by hand, or don't and we'll do it later if that isn't feasible due to volume. We were just trying to do a slightly better job than a pencil and a clipboard could do, not a perfect one.
Re: Ask HN: Which NoCode platforms are fine?
#120I’ve built a significant number of relatively sophisticated applications as internal tools and one public application (which is used daily by ~300 people) using Airtable, Stacker, typeform, carrd, twilio and integromat. I also use MagicBell, Infinity and ApproveIt (a slack approvals tool) By “relatively sophisticated” I mean “would have cost me a significant amount in dev time to do this” and “have useful functionali…
Just out of curiosity, how much do you pay for that stack per year?
Stacker is about $3000 a year; Integromat is about $1500;
Airtable is $240 per user per year and I think I’ve got six users (but you’d only need one to do what I’m doing);
Twilio is pennies - maybe $100 a year;
Carrd is insanely cheap - $49 a year I think;
Typeform is around $600 a year
So I guess I’m laying out somewhere in the region of $5250 a year or $450 a month.
That’s split across several projects.
The beauty is I can prototype an idea in minutes (ok, there was a learning curve, but now it’s super super fast) and then test and push to “production” in hours.
I rebuilt my primary application in about three hours recently, massively improving the user experience.
The costs against the business value are trivial.