Is there a 100% open source alternative to retool?
Budibase is a great open source alternative:
https://github.com/Budibase/budibase
It's got a few things Retool doesn't too
Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
131–140 of 153 posts
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#132My pet peeve for retool is not integrating easily with Office365, thus making it not a first choice for us
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#133If you're interested in an open source alternative to Retool, checkout Budibase. On top of a drag and drop visual builder, Budibase comes with an automation platform (like zapier) , internal db, and a lot more flexibility when it comes to design. We launched our cloud product 7/8 months ago and we just hit the 40,000 companies using Budibase. Budibase is open source and you can run it on Docker, K8s, Digital Ocean, R…
So is there anything which Retool provides over Budibase?
Yes. I have not tried it in a while, but it's live eval when binding was better than Budibase, and it has some components Budibase does not (report generator, scanner, signature).
Retools UX is different from Budibase. Budibase separates the dev process into 3 stages; data, design, automate - where Retool is sort of like visual basic (everything in one). We used Visual Basic a lot in previous roles and we decided we could build something uniquely better.
One other thing Budibase has is a public API, which allows you to use Budibase as a backend (with different frontends including Next js, Svelte). It's also great for inter-operability.
With Retool, you must write JS to build an internal tool. With Budibase, writing code is optional. Our main goal with Budibase is to make it as accessible and flexible as possible. Open source is a great driver of this.
Once again, it's been a while since I touched Retool and it is a very solid platform and I am sure there are more things it provides over BB.
Budibase is tackling the same problem in a different way, from being open source and a different UX, to barrier to entry. We feel this is a better strategy in the long-run.
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#134If you're interested in an open source alternative to Retool, checkout Budibase. On top of a drag and drop visual builder, Budibase comes with an automation platform (like zapier) , internal db, and a lot more flexibility when it comes to design. We launched our cloud product 7/8 months ago and we just hit the 40,000 companies using Budibase. Budibase is open source and you can run it on Docker, K8s, Digital Ocean, R…
I wanted to try budibase in order to evaluate and compare it without hosting it myself, is that something I can do for free on the cloud product?
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#135I dont understand how an apparently billion dollar company still requires to raise 45 million. Can someone ELI5 the economics of this?
Because "human capital" (no matter how dehumanizing it sounds) is the best one, people with money want to invest in people with great minds. Otherwise investors's money will evaporate because of for example inflation. Also, throwing couple of millions into a growing company means "i want to be part of it and take back some revenue hoping it'll be huge".
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#136If you're interested in an open source alternative to Retool, checkout Budibase. On top of a drag and drop visual builder, Budibase comes with an automation platform (like zapier) , internal db, and a lot more flexibility when it comes to design. We launched our cloud product 7/8 months ago and we just hit the 40,000 companies using Budibase. Budibase is open source and you can run it on Docker, K8s, Digital Ocean, R…
I wanted to try budibase in order to evaluate and compare it without hosting it myself, is that something I can do for free on the cloud product?
Yes. You can build and deploy up to 4 apps for free with as many users as you need, for free.
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you used a RAD tool in the 1990s you know what a rich and underserved market that continues to be. SMB need little more than this. They could run for decades.
Agreed! This is why I love retool - it's like all those great things that OP mentioned but re-geared for a web-first world. Having said that, the commercial model of Retool doesn't work for my use-case so I use Appsmith now which is also incredible!
Have you tried Budibase?
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#138No post body was provided.
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait, how new is the new free plan? A co-worker of mine linked me this recently saying it might be good for some internal tooling (which I totally agree!) and I wanted to hack around with it in anger on my own first before being comfortable making any sort of pitch internally for it but when I checked the free plan (at the time) it put me off. But now it looks like quite a bit more friendly...
Hi! It’s hot off the press— we just launched it today!
Awesome! Super excited to try this out properly now.
Re: Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just to say that we're actively switching away from retool because you insist on charging £10 a month users who are a simply view form thats already built. I can understand charging for building and launching a form, I can understand charging something for a view only, but the same as builder? na I think not. Good luck with your pricing
I'm sorry; we are actively working on our pricing model right now. (We today launched a 5-seats-for-free plan: https://retool.com/blog/new-free-plan-2022/ .) I think charging for end-users does make sense, but we need to think about exactly how much (as you note). Thank you for your feedback! Oh, while we are actively thinking about pricing, if Retool is out of budget for you, please do reach out to david AT. We are…
I think charging for end users does make sense too in the context of building internal tools, it just means that other use cases (e.g. building public apps) is not possible.
Love retool! This new 5-seat plan will mean we can get started with Retool internally properly now on a trial basis, and hopefully upgrade in the future when we decide to roll it out!
(Although there do seem to be some bugs with the new plan - it keeps repeatedly telling me that i'm not licenced to edit things and that my trial is over so I can't quite start using it yet).
Also I can't use it for my personal projects as the commercial model doesn't quite work, so I use AppSmith for that.