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

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

#31

Post by devoutsalsa » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:07 PM UTC

shireboy wrote: post #27

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 mo…

I’ve had a similar experience trying to fix up the code of someone who learned enough to code up some CRUD pages. They got some basic Rails working, and wanted me to take over. I spent a week fixing shit HTML so I could possibly take a stab at fixing the CSS. After about a week I couldn’t take it anymore.

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

#32

Post by hakanensari » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:09 PM UTC

ReDeiPirati wrote: post #29

> 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 recomme…

Metabase is great for querying and visualising your data but won’t help you collect input like Google Forms, which sounds like what the OP is after.

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

#33

Post by redis_mlc » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:09 PM UTC

For perl programmers, you want CGI::FormBuilder:

https://metacpan.org/pod/CGI::FormBuilder

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

#34

Post by sethjgore » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:16 PM UTC

cfontes wrote: post #17

bizzleDawg wrote: post #11

Someone mentioned https://directus.io/ to me for this use case the other day. I've not used it, but it looks good. Open source and self hostable or SaaS.

This looks great, I need to build a customer request management system for our construction company, it's basically a CRUD and this looks like a perfect fit. Thanks for sharing.

I would not reccomend directus. Ive used it for a project and it always is buggy and SLOOOOWWWWW. It looks like a candy of a database manager but it’s not. Plenty of features missing.

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

#35

Post by adamhp » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:20 PM UTC

Have you looked at Retool? Pretty sure this is the exact use case they built it for.

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

#36

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:25 PM UTC

Nilef wrote: post #14

I keep a list of the best of the best for these tools, aimed at the absolute non-tech end of the market https://nocode.tech/category/internal-tools https://www.nocode.tech/category/app-builders Lists include both SaaS and self-hosted options

[deleted]

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

#37

Post by rajandatta » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:26 PM UTC

Quickbase from Intuit is probably the most mature, easiest longest serving paid, hosted solution. Key is do you want to manage the tool or do you want a turn key approach. MS Power Platform, AirTable are other notables.

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

#38

Post by Dwolb » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:29 PM UTC

arey_abhishek wrote: post #12

I'm a founder of Appsmith that has already been mentioned here. It's an open source project to help you build CRUD UI on top on any database(MySQL, Postgres included) or API. We give UI components to create forms, charts, tables, etc. GitHub link: https://github.com/appsmithorg/appsmith

Appsmith looks incredible thank you for sharing.

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

#39

Post by benjaminjosephw » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:37 PM UTC

oneplane wrote: post #21

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 l…

> if you truly want a 'low-code/no-code' thing, you're stuck with no-logic no-interaction software

I think this used to be the case but the landscape is changing quickly. Deepnote[0], for example, looks like a really interesting programming interface that's not quite traditional programming and lowers the barrier to entry significantly and is (arguably) in the low-code space.

Low-code products for data engineering show that we're not too far away from these sorts of solutions in a more generalized offering. Spreadsheets aren't the only answer.

[0] - https://deepnote.com/

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

#40

Post by bored_hacker » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:37 PM UTC

peytoncasper wrote: post #23

I’ve tried Retool in the past. Really enjoyed it. https://retool.com

+1 on retool, my company uses retool extensively to build out admin tools for our operations and CX teams. It's incredibly straightforward and easy to hook it up directly to DB's for reading, as well as other query/requests.

Coming from building admin tools in ruby on rails previously, this is incredibly easy and straightforward. If I have the money to pay for retool I don't think I would choose another tool in the future

It's even possible to host it yourself which allows highly regulated industries to use it.