Alternatives to Retool logo

Alternatives to Retool

Bubble, Airtable, Superblocks, Blazor, and Google App Maker are the most popular alternatives and competitors to Retool.
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What is Retool and what are its top alternatives?

Retool is the fast way to build internal tools. Drag-and-drop our building blocks and connect them to your databases and APIs to build your own tools, instantly. Built by developers, for developers. Trusted by startups and Fortune 500s.
Retool is a tool in the Low Code Platforms category of a tech stack.

Top Alternatives to Retool

  • Bubble
    Bubble

    It is a visual programming language that lets you build a fully-functional web app without writing code. Users have built marketplaces, CRM tools, social networks. Engineers can focus on new features and add them as plugins with code, while business people can focus on the customer-facing product. ...

  • Airtable
    Airtable

    Working with Airtable is as fast and easy as editing a spreadsheet. But only Airtable is backed by the power of a full database, giving you rich features far beyond what a spreadsheet can offer. ...

  • Superblocks
    Superblocks

    It is a programmable IDE for developers to build any internal app, workflow or scheduled job at a fraction of the time and cost. Save 100s of developer hours building custom internal tools. ...

  • Blazor
    Blazor

    Blazor is a .NET web framework that runs in any browser. You author Blazor apps using C#/Razor and HTML. ...

  • Google App Maker
    Google App Maker

    App Maker lets you develop powerful apps with relative ease. Create a model to manage your data, build a UI in the visual editor, use Apps Script to write some scripts, and you're on your way. ...

  • Microsoft PowerApps
    Microsoft PowerApps

    It is a suite of apps, services, connectors and data platform that provides a rapid application development environment to build custom apps for your business needs. Using Power Apps, you can quickly build custom business apps that connect to your business data stored either in the underlying data platform (Common Data Service) or in various online and on-premises data sources (SharePoint, Excel, Office 365, Dynamics 365, SQL Server, and so on). ...

  • Stamplay
    Stamplay

    The API-based development platform enabling developers to do 80% of the job in 1% of the time thanks to: out of the box APIs for users and data, one-click integration with any API, scalable infrastructure and SDKs. Build Rome in a day. ...

  • Appsmith
    Appsmith

    Open source framework to build, deploy and share internal apps. Use UI widgets like tables, charts, forms, maps, and more. Easily connect to DBs like Postgres, Mongo, MySQL++ or REST API/GraphQL and use JS anywhere. ...

Retool alternatives & related posts

Bubble logo

Bubble

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Build a web app without writing code
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PROS OF BUBBLE
  • 7
    An affordable alternative to Mendix and OutSystems
CONS OF BUBBLE
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    related Bubble posts

    I would like to build a community-based customer review platform for a niche industry where users can sign up for a forum, as well as post detailed reviews of their experience with a company/product, including a rating system for pre-selected features. Something like niche.com or areavibes.com with curated information/data, ratings, reviews, and comparison functionalities.

    Is this possible to build using no-code tools? I have read about the possibility of using Webflow with Memberstack, Airtable, and Elfsight through Zapier / Integromat, which may allow for good design and functionality. Is it possible with Bubble or Bildr?

    I have no problems with a bit of a learning curve as long as what I want is possible. Since I have 0 coding experience, I am not sure how to go about it.

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

    See more
    Khalid Joharji
    Business Developer at Joharji MVPs · | 6 upvotes · 281.3K views
    Shared insights
    on
    WordPressWordPressWebflowWebflowBubbleBubble

    So I've been working as a freelancer building websites using Wordpress, limiting myself to available templates and customizing it (drag and drop no code involvement) and blending between plugins to get the requirements as much as possible. and I have spent my day job doing everything related to web portals (business case, business plans, marketing, back-office operations, project management, product management) but never got my hands into code yet. I heard of zero-code solutions such as Bubble and Webflow and I would like to be able to develop an MVP (Minimal Viable Product) to launch those ideas quickly to make sure that I make some sales before we invest into building a state of the art app.

    Those MVPs are a struggle since most of it has its own unique processes therefore WordPress doesn't come in handy most of the time. This is where Bubble and Webflow come to the fore. Before I start my journey to learn one of these tools, where I imagine I will spend weeks to months learning, I need to know which road I should take while I am standing at the crossroads.

    Objective: 1- Build MVPs with unique workflows to secure sales and transactions to confirm the product is viable

    Requirements: 1- No coding knowledge required 2- Drag and drop workflows 3- Can use RTL (right to left) and build websites in Arabic 4- Cost-effective 5- High-quality online courses (free/paid) are available

    Your advice is much appreciated.

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    Airtable logo

    Airtable

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    Real-time spreadsheet-database hybrid
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    PROS OF AIRTABLE
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      Powerful and easy to use
    • 8
      Robust and dynamic
    • 6
      Quick UI Layer
    • 4
      Practical built in views
    • 3
      Robust API documentation
    • 0
      Great flexibility
    CONS OF AIRTABLE
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      related Airtable posts

      Jason Barry
      Cofounder at FeaturePeek · | 10 upvotes · 332.4K views

      If you're a developer using Google Docs or Google Sheets... just stop. There are much better alternatives these days that provide a better user and developer experience.

      At FeaturePeek, we use slite for our internal documents and knowledge tracking. Slite's look and feel is similar to Slack's, so if you use Slack, you'll feel right at home. Slite is great for keeping tabs on meeting notes, internal documentation, drafting marketing content, writing pitches... any long-form text writing that we do as a company happens in Slite. I'm able to be up-to-date with everyone on my team by viewing our team activity. I feel more organized using Slite as opposed to GDocs or GDrive.

      Airtable is also absolutely killer – you'll never want to use Google Sheets again. Have you noticed that with most spreadsheet apps, if you have a tall or wide cell, your screen jumps all over the place when you scroll? With Airtable, you can scroll by screen pixels instead of by spreadsheet cells – this makes a huge difference! It's one of those things that you don't really notice at first, but once you do, you can't go back. This is just one example of the UX improvements that Airtable has to the previous generation of spreadsheet apps – there are plenty more.

      Also, their API is a breeze to use. If you're logged in, the docs fill in values from your tables and account, so it feels personalized to you.

      See more
      Superblocks logo

      Superblocks

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      IDE for Internal Apps, APIs and Cron Jobs
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      PROS OF SUPERBLOCKS
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        CONS OF SUPERBLOCKS
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          related Superblocks posts

          Blazor logo

          Blazor

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          An experimental web UI framework using C#/Razor and HTML, running in the browser via WebAssembly
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          PROS OF BLAZOR
          • 61
            Uses C#
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            No need to learn separate language or technology
          • 41
            Supports making a single page application
          • 39
            Tight integration with .NET project
          • 37
            Uses .NET standard library
          • 30
            Very little JavaScript required
          • 29
            Components
          • 27
            No need to compile, bundle and deploy separately
          • 27
            Shared classes between client and server
          • 24
            Cross Platform
          • 21
            Has Server AND Client hosting models
          • 18
            Very easy JavaScript interop if required
          • 17
            Third party state management i.e. Blazor-State
          • 14
            App state can be managed singleton objects
          • 4
            Portable Code across Mobile, Web and Desktop
          • 2
            Work with Electron/MAUI
          CONS OF BLAZOR
          • 3
            Initial load time
          • 2
            Hard to inject javascript

          related Blazor posts

          The only two programming languages I know are Python and Dart, I fall in love with Dart when I learned about the type safeness, ease of refactoring, and the help of the IDE. I have an idea for an app, a simple app, but I need SEO and server rendering, and I also want it to be available on all platforms. I can't use Flutter or Dart anymore because of that. I have been searching and looks like there is no way to avoid learning HTML and CSS for this. I want to use Supabase as BASS, at the moment I think that I have two options if I want to learn the least amount of things because of my lack of time available:

          1. Quasar Framework: They claim that I can do all the things I need, but I have to use JavaScript, and I am going to have all those bugs with a type-safe programming language avoidable. I guess I can use TypeScript?, but that means learning both, and I am not sure if I will be able to use 100% Typescript. Besides Vue.js, Node.js, etc.

          2. Blazor and .NET: There is MAUI with razor bindings in .Net now, and also a Blazor server. And as far as I can see, the transition from Dart to C# will be easy. I guess that I have to learn some Javascript here and there, but I have to less things I guess, am I wrong? But Blazor is a new technology, Vue is widely used.

          See more
          Google App Maker logo

          Google App Maker

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          Low-code application development for G Suite
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          PROS OF GOOGLE APP MAKER
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            CONS OF GOOGLE APP MAKER
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              Microsoft PowerApps logo

              Microsoft PowerApps

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              Quickly build and share low-code apps
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              PROS OF MICROSOFT POWERAPPS
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                CONS OF MICROSOFT POWERAPPS
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                  related Microsoft PowerApps posts

                  My company wants to make some relatively small, self-contained web apps to go through specific engineering analysis workflows.

                  Each app would involve:

                  (a) User inputs numbers and tabular data either in a table or from a csv import

                  (b) App makes plots of this data

                  (c) App performs calculations based on user input and outputs results as either plots or numbers or tabular data

                  It seems like there must be zillions of applications where people want these things, so I want a 'low code' approach that already handles a bunch of details so we don't have to. Experience in the past with Angular has involved, in my experience, a lot of low-level coding to 'reinvent the wheel', creating capabilities (like menus to control plotting options like font size) that I'd expect to be very common.

                  Specific wants:

                  (a) Plotting capabilities with prebuilt convenient plotting controls

                  (b) Ability to 'save' and 'load' (as in, you do the analysis and get results and want to save so that you can reopen this save environment with the data and analysis, as if you'd never closed it)

                  (c) For specific components, ability to swap out the built-in components with a customized plot/widget.

                  For example, with (c), we might have a situation where we do want to make a custom plot or tool, and would like to be able to drop that into the general application

                  Question is - does something exist that does what I am describing? What would you recommend? On our list to check out: Microsoft PowerApps , Dash , UI Bakery, Retool , Tibco Spotfire , Outsystems, Zoho, Creatio, or any other suggestions.

                  Other considerations:

                  (a) How easy are these apps to maintain (i.e., do they frequently make non back compatible, breaking updates, like they do with Angular)

                  (b) Need excellent security so I can deploy web apps for large companies

                  (c) General ease of use (would like to be efficient with developer time).

                  See more
                  Stamplay logo

                  Stamplay

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                  API Lego for developers. Build back-end piecing together APIs as building blocks.
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                  PROS OF STAMPLAY
                  • 45
                    Easy to use
                  • 32
                    No code for the backend
                  • 32
                    Out-of-the-box features
                  • 29
                    Easy and fast setup
                  • 25
                    Great customer support
                  • 25
                    Incredibly easy point 'n' click backend logic
                  • 22
                    Ease of back-end development
                  • 18
                    Low learning curve
                  • 13
                    Amazing app :)
                  • 12
                    Breathtaking ux
                  • 4
                    Elegant
                  • 3
                    Allows devs to focus on what makes their app unique
                  • 3
                    Terrific ifttt feature
                  • 2
                    Great features and easy setup
                  CONS OF STAMPLAY
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                    related Stamplay posts

                    Appsmith logo

                    Appsmith

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                    Open source framework to build powerful custom internal apps
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                    PROS OF APPSMITH
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                      CONS OF APPSMITH
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                        related Appsmith posts