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Unlike Retool, Superblocks is the preferred platform to build production-grade internal tools. You can extend further with code, match Figma with pixel-level design controls, self-host without the overhead, and deliver performant apps at scale – all while democratizing development across your teams.
Trusted by 1,000s of enterprise teams
Top enterprises use Superblocks to deliver custom operational software at blazing speed, while meeting increasingly stringent security, compliance, scalability, and uptime requirements.
"As CTO of a high growth operationally intensive business, we chose Superblocks because it was simple to deploy, billed by usage and intuitive for our engineering teams to build a suite of tooling for our global partner network."
"Superblocks is ideal for Fintech companies where KYC, fraud and risk are critical tooling areas that evolve weekly. The on-prem agent is a unique low-overhead solution to keep our customer data within our VPC."
"Superblocks has saved us 100s of engineering hours on internal tools and reduced support ticket resolution time by 50%."
“We built apps on Superblocks for Support teams to troubleshoot our enterprise AI platform without involving Engineering. As a result, we can resolve customer issues faster, increase adoption, and deliver a superior chatbot experience.”
Superblocks is the only low-code platform with all the capabilities enterprises need to build secure, scalable, and extensible internal tools.
Retool JS queries are limited by browser CPU & memory, causing major latency for large apps. Superblocks application front-ends are multi-threaded for smooth UI rendering, while back-end queries scale elastically with on-demand cloud compute.
Self-hosted Retool is a legacy on-premise deployment, requiring dedicated infrastructure, DevOps engineering, and downtime for upgrades. The Superblocks On-Premise Agent is stateless, simple to deploy, and new App Builder features are instantly available from the cloud.
Unlike Retool’s limited UI builder, Superblocks enables developers to build modern, high-fidelity user interfaces with no front-end experience. While Retool apps are limited to a single page and leverage a restrictive 12-pixel fixed grid, Superblocks supports multi-page apps with dynamic URL routing, a dynamic layout system for building responsive UI, and pixel-level styling controls.
Superblocks integrates with observability providers like Datadog, New Relic and Splunk, so you can view metrics, traces, and logs from your internal tools within your preferred provider. Retool does not have observability, leaving you blind when errors arise.
Superblocks provides exceptional support across tiers - customers consistently highlight responsiveness and dedication to customer satisfaction in G2 testimonials. Retool’s support is limited to the enterprise tier and has mixed reviews.
"Previously we were using Retool but found the self-hosted version challenging to deploy and expensive to maintain, as it required running 6 RDS databases in clusters across three VPCs. The pricing model was also limiting for our scale. Moving to the Superblocks On-Premise Agent made it much simpler to deploy the data plane as a stateless container, and build apps for multiple VPCs with Profiles. In addition, the pricing flexibility enabled us to roll out Superblocks to hundreds of Support agents in a cost effective way."
See the full feature breakdown between Superblocks and 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 | ||
Write Backend Code in NodeJS & 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 fully-featured custom components Augment the built-in component library by developing your own custom components in React | Build fully-featured components in React, with full DOM control and the ability to share component state. Develop locally in your IDE, import any package, and bundle multiple files | React-based components are still in beta. Live custom components are written in a single HTML file in the browser, limited to an iframe with no ability to share state or interact with the DOM. Imports are 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 Manager Integrations for Cloud & Self-Hosted 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 | ||
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 | |
Source Control with Git Integrate with your git provider to sync changes for code review and CI/CD | ||
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 |
See the comparison between Superblocks and Appsmith from reviews on G2 - the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace.