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.
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, it paints a good picture of what we're trying to do with this.
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.
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.
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.