4.8/5
Retool vs. Superblocks
Unlike Retool, Superblocks combines the speed of low code with the flexibility of full code ownership, giving you zero vendor lock-in, limitless customization, and freedom from costly, legacy on-premise deployments.
Join 1,000s of Enterprises on Superblocks
“Self-hosting Retool required running 6 RDS databases across 3 VPCs. Switching to the Superblocks On-Premise Agent has allowed us to seamlessly build apps across multiple VPCs with minimal additional overhead, maximizing our ROI.”
Nadeesha Cabral
SVP of Engineering, me&u
Why are enterprises choosing Superblocks over Retool?
Self-hosting without compromising ROI
The Superblocks On-Premise Agent is stateless, simple to
deploy across multiple environments, and requires no
downtime for upgrades.
Zero vendor lock-in
Under the hood, every Superblocks app is just a React project you can modify directly or export and host yourself, ensuring your development investments are always protected.
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Native AI Co-Engineer
The Superblocks AI co-engineer allows you to build your UI, write code, and more using natural language. Simply prompt, review the changes, and apply to your app.
Enterprise support & long-term partnership
Superblocks provides a best-in-class partnership, as evidenced by hundreds of 5-star reviews on G2, a near 100% CSAT, and glowing customer anecdotes.
Why Superblocks is the best alternative to Retool
 | ||
|---|---|---|
Data residency in your VPC with minimal DevOps overhead | ✓ | ✗ |
Export any application to code | ✓ | ✗ |
Designed for multi-environment, multi-cloud, and multi-region | ✓ | ✗ |
Familiar, simple, fully extensible developer experience | ✓ | ✗ |
Edit your app with natural language | ✓ | ✗ |
New features & bug fixes delivered on demand over the air | ✓ | ✗ |
Best-in-class support & partnership | ✓ | ✗ |
Don’t just take our word for it
See what developers think of Superblocks and Retool from reviews on G2 - the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace.
See the feature-by-feature breakdown
Check out the detailed analysis of Superblocks vs Retool across pricing, extensibility, performance, AI, security, SDLC, hosting, and support.
Superblocks | Retool | |
|---|---|---|
| Application Builder | ||
Drag & drop application builder Build internal UIs connected to your data via a drag & drop interface | ||
Integrate with any Database or API Integrate with any standard database or API endpoint | ||
Multi-step application APIs Program your application with multi-step business logic executed on the server-side | Multi-step APIs are composed of data source queries and language steps in NodeJS and Python for processing, all executed server-side with elastic scaling | All application queries are single-step, resulting in excess network requests and latency overhead for business logic execution |
Build real-time streaming applications Build real-time applications based on event-driven architectures like Kafka | Native support for Kafka, Kinesis, Confluent Cloud, AWS MSK, Redpanda, and other streaming platforms | No support to integrate with streaming data sources |
Open-source execution engine | The Superblocks Developer Community can contribute to the open source agent | Closed source. Need to wait on Retool to prioritize additional features |
Multi-page app structure Build complex applications with multiple pages | Feature has unclear release date | |
Static & dynamic URL routing User-defined static and dynamic URL routes for each page in an application | ||
Responsive and customizable application layouts Build responsive apps with horizontal and vertical stacks that adapt to changing screen sizes, data, and component visibility | Only in closed beta and no pixel-level control | |
| Workflow & Scheduled Job Builder | ||
Build webhooks with Workflows Invoke workflows over HTTP as webhooks | ||
Execute scheduled jobs Invoke programmatic workflows on a schedule, replacing cron jobs | ||
Build API endpoints with Workflows Build reusable programmatic workflows which can be called within applications or as REST APIs | | |
Intuitive visual builder for business logic Linear code-like UX to build custom business logic that scales as complexity increases | Convoluted flow diagram is difficult to read, maintain, and debug | |
Self-host Workflows without additional overhead No need to deploy additional services to use workflows when self-hosting | Convoluted flow diagram is difficult to read, must self-host and maintain a temporal cluster for fully on-premise deployment | |
| Extensibility with Code | ||
Write frontend JS Write frontend JavaScript that is executed within the browser | ||
Build custom components in React Augment the built-in component library by developing your own custom components in React | ||
Write backend code in Node.js & Python Write backend code executed on the server-side, as you would for a standard application backend | NodeJS and Python supported within Application APIs and Workflows. Import any library | Application Queries support client-side JS-only, with imports limited to packages bundled for use on the web |
Build custom integrations Integrate with non-standard databases via a custom integration | Extend the open-source agent to build custom integrations | No extensibility due to closed source code |
| Performance | ||
Fast query performance on large datasets Execute queries efficiently as data volume and throughput scales | Multi-step APIs executed server-side provide horizontal scalability and elastic compute, ensuring minimal network requests and data transfer | Client-side code execution is limited by browser CPU and memory, resulting in increased latency & overhead for app loading and query processing |
Global edge caching network Cache applications globally to reduce app latency | Apps are cached at the edge across US West (Oregon), US East (N. Virginia), EU (Ireland), Middle East (Bahrain), & Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) | No edge caching available |
| Generative AI | ||
Fully-featured AI copilot across languages AI Copilot to write, edit, debug, and explain code | JavaScript, Python, SQL, JSON, HTML | JavaScript, SQL |
User-friendly AI integrations Native integration with AI services with user-friendly methods and parameters | ||
Copilot for REST API calls AI Copilot to integrate with REST APIs | GraphQL only | |
Generate mock data with AI Use AI to generate mock data when building applications | ||
| Enterprise Security | ||
Granular permissions (RBAC) Control access to tools granularly with role-based access controls | ||
SSO / SAML / SCIM Use SAML and other protocols for identity and access management & synchronize user management with your IdP using SCIM | ||
Audit logs Retain a history of user actions taken within the platform | ||
Secrets managers with cloud & self-hosting Integrate with your preferred secrets manager to keep credentials secure | AWS Secrets Manager, Google Secret Manager, Hashicorp Vault | Supported for self-hosted, Amazon-based deployments only |
Security extensions Extend with custom security policies | Agent can be extended with custom security layer code | No extensions possible |
Security auditability Audit the platform's source code for bugs and vulnerabilities | Agent source code is available on GitHub. Run your own security scanners, auditable by security teams | Closed source code cannot be audited |
| Software Development Lifecycle | ||
Source control with Git Integrate with your git provider to sync changes for code review and CI/CD | ||
Commit previews Create and preview commits, then deploy to production | Not supported natively. Developers must manually set up separate dev environments and keep them in sync | |
Integrate with multiple environments through a single deployment Configure integrations to dynamically work with multiple development environments and regions without needing to deploy separate instances | Seamlessly leverage Profiles to connect to different environments and regions, enabling apps to query across VPCs | Dedicated Retool on-premise stack must be deployed into each VPC, resulting in large DevOps overhead and expense |
Production observability Integrate tools with observability platforms to track metrics, traces, and logs | Integrate with your preferred observability provider, such as Datadog, Elastic Cloud, AWS OpenSearch, Kafka, Confluent Cloud and more | |
| Hosting | ||
Keep data in customer network Ensure sensitive data never leaves your VPC | Using the Superblocks open-source, stateless On-Prem Agent | Using a fully on-premise installation including custom vendor databases |
US and EU cloud hosting Cloud-hosted offering is available in US and EU regions | US & EU hosting regions | |
On-premise deployment effort The level of effort required to deploy the software | Negligible. 5 min to deploy a lightweight, stateless agent to keep data within your private network | High. Complex on-premise installation that includes managing databases and migrations |
Platform upgrade effort The frequency and level of effort associated with on-premise upgrades | Negligible. Access new features without upgrading your agent. Upgrades are simple, comparable to the initial deployment | High. Full upgrades are required to access new features and critical security and bug fixes. Upgrades are expensive and require complex database migrations with downtime |
| Customer Support | ||
Live chat with technical support from engineer | ||
Extended support hours | ||
Recognized by G2 for best support | ||
