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Great launch but curious, why would I use this over Retool? I’m an engineer and the thing I love about Retool is the low-code UI components (saves time sourcing

Great launch but curious, why would I use this over Retool? I’m an engineer and the thing I love about Retool is the low-code UI components (saves time sourcing those same libs) + everything done on Retool so I don’t need to dedicate local disk space to my non-important internal app.

solias99 2y ago
Retool is a great solution if you like low-code, so I think it mostly depends on what you like. For us it's 2 reasons: 1. I had trouble with low-code builders when building more complex apps, so I had to fall back to code. In that sense, we aim to be a thin wrapper around code (by making sure you don't write things like authentication, RBAC etc.) 2. We have an AI offering that allows you to create your tool with just a prompt, and iterate on it. It works more often than not because we're heavily opinionated on what components to use and how our app should be setup. The feedback loop is also faster than low-code because you're just iterating with prompts, so there's lesser cognitive effort.
- badrequest 2y ago
  > 2. We have an AI offering that allows you to create your tool with just a prompt and iterate on it IIRC Retool also offers this functionality: https://retool.com/products/ai https://retool.com/products/ai
- codegladiator 2y ago
  > I had trouble with low-code builders when building more complex apps Can you elaborate on this ? Which trouble you came across while using which low-code builder to build what kind of complex app ?
  - artathred 2y ago
    I second this, the whole point of Retool is that you can build complex apps that you couldn’t with pure no code solutions (i.e Airtable/Notion). Retool replaced a pain point (devs don’t want to code internal apps) that is now being brought back with a solution like this.
    - aerhardt 2y ago
      I’ve tried Retool a few times and can’t get into it. I simply don’t feel comfortable in a web UI… I’m primarily a Django/React dev and I would love to see the Django Admin panel philosophy in the React world: quick to build, but editable code all the way down (and in the same repo as my core apps!). I totally see the appeal of this, I’m bookmarking it and I’m eager to give it a whirl.
      - jimmyechan 2y ago
        Co-founder of Dropbase here. We're a better fit for you given your comments about Django and being in the same repo. We are an internal tools builder that works with your existing Python codebase, in the same repo as your core app. You can call/use your exiting Django models from Dropbase UI components, and build fullstack internal tools with just Python.
  - aurareturn 2y ago
    I couldn’t imagine building our internal tool with retool. For example, complicated business logic form validation that requires calls to the database or external api. We tried it. Retool ended being much more complicated and restrictive than our Next.js internal tool app. We went back. I even remember reading on the official retool documentation website saying you should probably not use it if your internal tool is fairly complex. It was honest.
  - solias99 2y ago
    Sure, bear with me for this might be a long answer. I'll start with some of my own use cases I tried and then expand into where I think this space is going. With Retool, I tried building a form where if I change one input, the other input needs to conditionally change. I struggled a little with figuring this out, more than I should have. I also find it unwieldy to do any complex state management with a low-code builder (as in the case above), so it was a no-no for me. At the same time, I understand that this feels like "writing code all over again". The reason we don't believe so is because there's a hidden cost (cognitive effort) associated with picking the right component library, the right framework, etc. Eventually, you won't be writing too much code either way for CRUD because of AI. Let's say you want to edit some of the styling. Instead of writing some TailwindCSS, you will just ask our AI to say "move this graph to the right of the table" and it will just do it. We're opinionated to the point of having our own CSS rule engine, to make sure that the padding is always the same when adding new elements on to the screen, so the goal is for you to not write code as far as possible. Have a look at https://v0.dev https://v0.dev, it paints a good picture of what we're trying to do with this.
aerhardt 2y ago
Local disk space for internal apps is a concern for you? I’ve never thought to measure the amount of space that a Django Admin app or a custom-built React admin app might take in my hard drive… At any rate I know I prefer having every environment locally and not only in the cloud, and I suspect I’m not the only one.
- artathred 2y ago
  it’s not only about the space, it’s about the management. When you’re an enterprise managing hundreds of internal apps, it’s way easier to just go to retool.com and find everything vs it all being stored local. It’s an internal app, nobody wants to dedicate more $$ and hours than they need to managing/building it. Again, whole reason why Retool even took off in the first place.

solias99 2y ago

Retool is a great solution if you like low-code, so I think it mostly depends on what you like. For us it's 2 reasons: 1. I had trouble with low-code builders when building more complex apps, so I had to fall back to code. In that sense, we aim to be a thin wrapper around code (by making sure you don't write things like authentication, RBAC etc.) 2. We have an AI offering that allows you to create your tool with just a prompt, and iterate on it. It works more often than not because we're heavily opinionated on what components to use and how our app should be setup. The feedback loop is also faster than low-code because you're just iterating with prompts, so there's lesser cognitive effort.

badrequest 2y ago
> 2. We have an AI offering that allows you to create your tool with just a prompt and iterate on it IIRC Retool also offers this functionality: https://retool.com/products/ai https://retool.com/products/ai
codegladiator 2y ago
> I had trouble with low-code builders when building more complex apps Can you elaborate on this ? Which trouble you came across while using which low-code builder to build what kind of complex app ?
- artathred 2y ago
  I second this, the whole point of Retool is that you can build complex apps that you couldn’t with pure no code solutions (i.e Airtable/Notion). Retool replaced a pain point (devs don’t want to code internal apps) that is now being brought back with a solution like this.
  - aerhardt 2y ago
    I’ve tried Retool a few times and can’t get into it. I simply don’t feel comfortable in a web UI… I’m primarily a Django/React dev and I would love to see the Django Admin panel philosophy in the React world: quick to build, but editable code all the way down (and in the same repo as my core apps!). I totally see the appeal of this, I’m bookmarking it and I’m eager to give it a whirl.
    - jimmyechan 2y ago
      Co-founder of Dropbase here. We're a better fit for you given your comments about Django and being in the same repo. We are an internal tools builder that works with your existing Python codebase, in the same repo as your core app. You can call/use your exiting Django models from Dropbase UI components, and build fullstack internal tools with just Python.
- aurareturn 2y ago
  I couldn’t imagine building our internal tool with retool. For example, complicated business logic form validation that requires calls to the database or external api. We tried it. Retool ended being much more complicated and restrictive than our Next.js internal tool app. We went back. I even remember reading on the official retool documentation website saying you should probably not use it if your internal tool is fairly complex. It was honest.
- solias99 2y ago
  Sure, bear with me for this might be a long answer. I'll start with some of my own use cases I tried and then expand into where I think this space is going. With Retool, I tried building a form where if I change one input, the other input needs to conditionally change. I struggled a little with figuring this out, more than I should have. I also find it unwieldy to do any complex state management with a low-code builder (as in the case above), so it was a no-no for me. At the same time, I understand that this feels like "writing code all over again". The reason we don't believe so is because there's a hidden cost (cognitive effort) associated with picking the right component library, the right framework, etc. Eventually, you won't be writing too much code either way for CRUD because of AI. Let's say you want to edit some of the styling. Instead of writing some TailwindCSS, you will just ask our AI to say "move this graph to the right of the table" and it will just do it. We're opinionated to the point of having our own CSS rule engine, to make sure that the padding is always the same when adding new elements on to the screen, so the goal is for you to not write code as far as possible. Have a look at https://v0.dev https://v0.dev, it paints a good picture of what we're trying to do with this.

aerhardt 2y ago

Local disk space for internal apps is a concern for you? I’ve never thought to measure the amount of space that a Django Admin app or a custom-built React admin app might take in my hard drive… At any rate I know I prefer having every environment locally and not only in the cloud, and I suspect I’m not the only one.

artathred 2y ago
it’s not only about the space, it’s about the management. When you’re an enterprise managing hundreds of internal apps, it’s way easier to just go to retool.com and find everything vs it all being stored local. It’s an internal app, nobody wants to dedicate more $$ and hours than they need to managing/building it. Again, whole reason why Retool even took off in the first place.