Ask HN: Best low-/no-code solution for simple web-based database frontends

If there is no logic to be needed, wouldn't any of the RDBMS web-management things work out? (think: phpmyadmin etc.)

Alternatively, FileMaker still exists, including a direct web interface option.

I often find that if you truly want a 'low-code/no-code' thing, you're stuck with no-logic no-interaction software. As soon as you start adding logic, you're essentially migrating from programming in a somewhat re-usable language into 'programming' in the form of pictures and application-specific interfaces, which essentially requires the same effort but is much less reusable.

Unless the 'thing' is really a 'table' with some CRUD operations you're gonna en up in a messy situation where some undocumented macro-filled spreadsheet becomes a lynchpin.

I’ve tried Retool in the past. Really enjoyed it.

https://retool.com

You should check out Stacker: https://stackerhq.com

Your data is hosted in an Airtable or Google Sheet that you control, not in a SQL database, though I'd say this is actually a huge advantage for your goal of a no-code CRUD web app that non-developers can work with easily. It is paid.

Disclosure: I work at Stacker, and we're a YC company. Email in my profile if you have any questions.

I’ve explored lots of these and implemented a few with customers who wanted their “business analysts” to be able to build apps. My experience has been the “non technical” people can’t do these either and wind up getting developers to try, who are then frustrated with lock-in to a relatively unknown tool or expensive BPM suite. To a developer, these are often “death by a thousand clicks”. Even Visual Studio for the most part has abandoned the “Visual”.

I keep hoping that there’s ways to make low-code work without those drawbacks, and plan to try some new ones I see in this thread. In my mind it has to be a designer that a “non technical” uses to output quality code that a dev can then tweak, but not break the designer.

> I'm currently looking for a solution to provide (non-technical) team members with a way to interact with a SQL database ... While I'm generally willing to pay, I'd really prefer an open and self-hosted solution.

You should definitively check Metabase [0] then: it's open source, very easy to self-host, and democratize data access inside your team. We started using it for the same reason 3 years ago, I cannot recommend it more.

[0] https://github.com/metabase/metabase