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Ask HN: Anybody used Retool for production, user-facing app?

50 points bootstrpppin | 10 comments | 14 Nov 24 00:26 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom

Bootstrapped founder here.

I'm planning to build a SaaS product loosely in the B2B logistics space - it needs to be relatively low cost to build/maintain, look slick and be extensible.

It would be customer facing, meaning each customer would need a login/account (or perhaps many, if a whole team is using our product).

I've looked at Retool and it looks quite epic but it looks like it's designed primarily for internal apps.

Has anybody used, or attempted to use Retool for a production, user-facing app?

Would really appreciate advice, war stories or recommendations.

1. thrw42A8N ◴[14 Nov 24 00:38 UTC] No.42131875[source]▶
If you're bootstraped, does that mean you already have something? What is it and why do you want to replace it? Beware of large greenfield remake projects, these often fail spectacularly.
replies(1): >>42131924 #
2. bootstrpppin ◴[14 Nov 24 00:46 UTC] No.42131924[source]▶
Hey thrw42A8N,

I've done a large greenfield rebuild before, which was a success - but I will never do that again. It ate my life.

I do have a bootstrapped product already in the market, but this is a second, unrelated product for a different audience....a new project entirely.

First project is Node + React but considering Retool for a v1 for this next project.

replies(3): >>42131968 #>>42189255 #>>42201976 #
3. thrw42A8N ◴[14 Nov 24 00:54 UTC] No.42131968[source]▶
PayloadCMS was recently front page

Can't speak about Retool but I wouldn't want to go away from standard software development life cycle with version control, release management and testing... And I definitely would want to avoid a proprietary platform. Isn't there an open source alternative?

replies(2): >>42132009 #>>42180070 #
4. bootstrpppin ◴[14 Nov 24 00:59 UTC] No.42132009{3}[source]▶
Thanks for that - I hadn't come across PayloadCMS.

Retool seems to support basics like version control, release mgt etc but the platform risk of a proprietary platform is certainly a concern.

replies(1): >>42180133 #
5. selcuka ◴[19 Nov 24 04:18 UTC] No.42180070{3}[source]▶
I believe Appsmith is open source, and self-hostable. Never used it, so I'm not sure if it's fully or partially open.
replies(1): >>42183871 #
6. lurker_72 ◴[19 Nov 24 04:38 UTC] No.42180133{4}[source]▶
I would also recommend looking at Directus (https://directus.io).

We evaluated PayloadCMS to drive the backend of a mobile app and eventually settled on Directus because it supported heterogeneous collections which was something we had to have.

Directus also has a template for a multi-tenant app which sounds like something you might need.

7. snowe2010 ◴[19 Nov 24 14:36 UTC] No.42183871{4}[source]▶
Lowcoder is fully open source and self hostable.
8. wayoverthecloud ◴[19 Nov 24 23:39 UTC] No.42189255[source]▶
Curious, why do you want to start another product, especially on a new stack if you have one already in the market? Doesn't it make sense to put focus all in the one you've launched? I am also trying to figure out this bootstrapping thing so got curious.
replies(1): >>42203499 #
9. gprakhar ◴[21 Nov 24 07:32 UTC] No.42201976[source]▶
Given your first project is in Node + React, you might find Toolpad (https://mui.com/toolpad/) worth considering. It’s a set of components designed to build React dashboards. It's built on top of Material UI and is fully extensible. Also, it’s open source and free to use regardless of scale.
10. bootstrpppin ◴[21 Nov 24 12:06 UTC] No.42203499{3}[source]▶
yeehhh thats a very good question - we've been asking ourselves the same thing.

We've got one product in the market, but launching that product and talking to customers has given us insight into a potentially larger, more lucrative problem to solve.

So we're currently allowing idea #1 to tick over, while validating idea #2.

We plan to only focus on one of the two ideas going forward, but are first trying to do enough discovery on idea #2, so that we can choose the best one to take forward.