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5 Retool Alternatives to Supercharge Your Internal Tooling in 2024

Superblocks Team

The Superblocks Team

Updated March 21, 2024

6 min read

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Whether you are evaluating Retool for the first time or are a current Retool customer dissatisfied with functionality, performance, or price, this list is for you.

We have extensively researched the internal tools development space and ranked the 5 best alternatives to Retool in 2024 based on product functionality, generative AI capabilities, extensibility with code, enterprise-readiness, pricing, maintenance costs, security, and customer support.

This list includes both proprietary and open-source alternatives to Retool, so you can comprehensively evaluate which Retool alternative best meets your specific business requirements.

5 Best Retool Alternatives & Competitors in 2024

With the market for internal tooling platforms constantly evolving, top vendors have continuously improved their application builders as well as introduced new features around automated workflows, AI, extensibility, and more.

The top 5 alternatives to Retool in 2024 are:

  1. Superblocks: Best enterprise-grade solution to build any internal app or automated workflow
  2. Appsmith: Good for smaller organizations with a strong preference for fully open-source offerings
  3. UI Bakery: Suitable for smaller teams with less complex requirements
  4. DronaHQ: Viable for organizations on a limited budget
  5. Budibase: Appropriate for companies looking for a no-code, open-source solution

Rank

Company

Headquarters

Product suite

AI capabilities

Last Round Funding

Superblocks

🇺🇸  USA

Apps

Workflows

Scheduled Jobs

$37M (Aug 2022) Jobs

Appsmith

🇮🇳  India

Apps

$41MM  (June 2022)

UI Bakery

🇱🇹  Lithuania

Apps

Workflows

Scheduled Jobs

Not publicly available

DronaHQ

🇮🇳  India

Apps

Workflows

Scheduled Jobs

$0.5MM (February 2018)

BudiBase

🇬🇧  UK

Apps

Workflows

Scheduled Jobs

None

$7MM (November 2022)

What is Retool?

Retool is a development platform for building custom internal software. Founded in 2017, Retool is well established in the internal tooling market.

Retool's platform enables teams to build web apps, automated workflows, and mobile apps, embed Retool apps in tools built outside of Retool, and store data in a managed Postgres database.

Retool’s strengths include:

  • Component library: Retool offers a vast library of pre-built UI components which can be used to build web and mobile apps
  • Integration library: Retool offers an extensive library of integrations with databases and APIs, allowing businesses to connect to their data sources
  • Frontend JavaScript: Developers can use JavaScript in app frontends to customize component behavior and manipulate data
  • AI apps: Retool provides native AI functionality to connect to external AI models like ChatGPT from apps and workflows, as well as a managed vector database to store unstructured text for use in AI
  • AI assistant: Retool offers pair programming with an AI assistant for JavaScript, SQL, and GraphQL
  • Granular permissions (RBAC): Retool supports role-based access controls, enabling granular access to tools
  • Version control: Retool supports version control via Git syncing and supports creating and previewing different versions
  • Enterprise features: Retool offers a number of enterprise features such as SSO, audit logging, and an enterprise support team
  • Self-hosting: Retool can be self-hosted via a legacy full on-premise deployment

To learn more, check out this Retool deep dive.

Limitations of Retool

Despite the company’s early entry to the internal tooling market, Retool has a number of shortcomings which should be well understood by prospects and customers. These limitations, as of January 2024, include:

  • Limited extensibility with code: Retool's limited extensibility in code - including lack of language support beyond JavaScript in applications as well as limited support for writing custom components - poses potential roadblocks for developers.
  • Lackluster performance: Retool apps often suffer from poor performance due to browser-based code execution, single-step queries, and the lack of global edge caching.
  • High cost of ownership when self-hosting: Retool's legacy on-premise deployment is resource-intensive and complex, impeding businesses from accessing new features and security fixes and increasing total cost of ownership for enterprises with stringent data security requirements.
  • No streaming support: Retool does not support event-driven architectures like Kafka, Confluent, or Kinesis, preventing businesses from building real-time streaming apps. As a result, operations teams cannot benefit from real-time insights and CTOs cannot use Retool to maximize ROI on streaming technologies.
  • Limited observability: Monitoring and observability of Retool Apps is limited to sending audit logs to Datadog, preventing developers from usig Splunk, New Relic, or other popular observability platforms to detect errors and view logs.
  • Slow feature rollouts for on-premise: There are often significant delays before new features are made available in self-hosted Retool versions, hindering businesses wanting to leverage new technologies in their internal tooling with their preferred deployment model.
  • Closed-source code: Retool's codebase is entirely closed source, preventing code audits by security teams and does not allow for extensibility.
  • Flowchart-based Workflows UX: Retool employs a flowchart canvas for its Workflow UI, which quickly becomes unwieldy as logical complexity increases, making the logic challenging to understand, iterate on, and debug.
  • Security breach in August 2023: Retool had a significant data breach in August 2023, with many customers’ accounts being compromised, resulting in leakage of sensitive data and reported losses of up to $15MM for a single customer.

Read more about each of these shortcomings below to better understand why many companies are considering alternatives to Retool.

The 5 Best Retool Alternatives in 2024

Of the many alternatives to Retool in 2024, Superblocks is the superior option, besting competitors with its robust feature set, generative AI capabilities, extensibility with code, self-hosted agent architecture, and optimization for enterprise security and scale for mission critical applications. Appsmith, UI Bakery, DronaHQ and Internal.io are also strong alternatives to Retool, especially within the SMB segment, each with its own set of strengths and weaknesses, as covered in detail in this article.

For a feature-by-feature comparison of each vendor, see the matrix included below.

Speak to a Superblocks expert

1. Superblocks

Superblocks is an enterprise ready low-code without limits platform for building custom internal applications, automated workflows, and scheduled jobs. Developers can extend Superblocks infinitely with code, build faster with an AI Copilot, self-host without the overhead, and deliver performant apps at scale, all while adopting affordably across their organization.

Strengths
Infinite Extensibility with Code: Superblocks is infinitely extensible with code, allowing developers to write complex backend APIs with NodeJS and Python, leverage Javascript on the front-end, and build custom components with React within their own IDE and filesystem.
Architected for Enterprise Scale & Performance: Superblocks application front-ends are multi-threaded for smooth UI rendering, while back-end queries scale elastically with on-demand cloud compute - critical for the enterprise.
Generative AI Native: The context-aware Superblocks AI Copilot supercharges development, with support to generate, explain, and debug SQL, JavaScript, Python, JSON, and HTML, as well as integrate with REST APIs.
Self-Hosted Agent Architecture: The Superblocks On-Premise Agent is lightweight, stateless, simple to deploy, and new App Builder features are instantly available from the cloud, while ensuring that customer data never leaves your network.
Production Monitoring & Observability: Superblocks integrates with observability providers like Datadog, Splunk and New Relic, so you can view metrics, traces, and logs within your preferred provider.
Real-Time Streaming Apps: Superblocks natively supports event-driven architectures like Kafka, Confluent, and Kinesis, enabling developers to operationalize real-time insights without any streaming expertise.
Weaknesses
Newer Entrant: Superblocks was founded in 2021. However, Superblocks has seen rapid growth, having raised $37,000,000 in a Series A round led by Kleiner Perkins.
No Support for Native Mobile Apps: Superblocks does not support building native mobile applications for iOS or Android. However, Superblocks does support building mobile-responsive web applications.
User Analytics in Private Beta: The ability to view user analytics for usage of your applications, such as number of views, time spent in an app, and more is currently in private beta, as of March 2024.
No Air-Gapped Deployments: Superblocks does not support an air-gapped deployment model, as businesses self-host Superblocks with an agent architecture rather than a legacy on-premise model.

Conclusion: Superblocks is the #1 alternative to Retool and the only vendor offering a fully-featured low-code internal tooling platform without limits. Some notable benefits of Superblocks compared to Retool include:

  • Greater Extensibility with Code: Retool apps support client-side JS only, while Superblocks supports React, JS, Node, & Python. Retool Custom Components rely on one HTML file, with web-based imports limited to an iframe, while Superblocks provides full extensibility with React.
  • Scalable Architecture & Better Performance: Application front-ends in Superblocks are multi-threaded for smooth UI rendering, while back-end queries scale elastically with on-demand cloud compute. Retool JS queries are executed in the browser, and thus limited by browser CPU & memory, causing major latency for large apps.
  • Drastically Less Overhead When Self-Hosting: Superblocks offers a lightweight, stateless On-Premise Agent, which is simple to deploy and provides access to new App Builder features instantly from the cloud. Self-hosted Retool is a legacy on-premise deployment, requiring dedicated infrastructure and heavy DevOps upgrades with downtime to access any bug fix or new feature.
  • Support for Real-Time Streaming Apps: Superblocks integrates natively with streaming platforms like Kafka, Kinesis, Confluent, OpenAI, making it easy to build apps for real-time fraud alerting, live gameplay dashboards, best-in-class AI chatbots, and more. Retool lacks native support for streaming, preventing organizations from harnessing real-time insights.
  • Production Monitoring & Observability: Superblocks integrates with observability providers like Datadog, Splunk, New Relic, and more, providing visibility into metrics, traces, and logs from internal tools within your preferred provider. Retool's observability is limited to sending audit logs to Datadog.
  • Best-in-class customer support: Superblocks provides exceptional support across tiers, as evidenced by its position as the #1 support rating amongst low-code platforms on G2, compared to Retool's lower support rating.
Compare Superblocks vs Retool head-to-head

2. Appsmith

The second place Retool alternative is Appsmith, an India-based open source internal tooling platform. Appsmith provides feature parity with much of the Retool application builder, though it notably does not support automated workflows or scheduled jobs. Appsmith has a growing developer community on Github and provides both a cloud and fully on-premise deployment that can be air-gapped.

Strengths
Open Source: Developers can audit the entire Appsmith codebase, and contribute to the Appsmith platform.
Community on Github: The Appsmith repository has ~28k Github stars and over 200 contributors.
Styling Customization in App Builder: Appsmith enables developers to customize the styling of components by exposing a variety of styling properties for most components.
Source Control with Git: Appsmith offers Git-based source control via integrations with GitHub, GitLab, & Bitbucket, allowing businesses to manage app versions directly in their preferred Git provider.
Weaknesses
No Backend APIs: Any code written on Appsmith is executed in the browser; developers cannot write backend APIs, which results in limited extensibility and degraded performance.
No Workflows & Scheduled Jobs: Appsmith does not have a workflows offering, so businesses would need to contract with another vendor to handle programmatic workflows.
Limited Extensibility with Code: Appsmith only supports client-side JavaScript, limiting developers' ability to extend the platform with custom logic and functionality.
No US-Based Support: Appsmith is based in India and does not have US-based support, which is often critical to US-based enterprises.

Conclusion: Appsmith is a good alternative to Retool for building internal applications, especially if a business strongly prefers a fully open-source vendor. However, Appsmith does not offer support for automated workflows or scheduled jobs; without workflows or multi-step backend application APIs, Appsmith does not provide fast query performance when working with large data sets or complex business logic, making it unsuitable for mission-critical business applications in the enterprise.

See how Appsmith compares to Superblocks

3. UI Bakery

UI Bakery lands in third place, offering a less expensive alternative to Retool intended primarily for small and midsize businesses. UI Bakery includes an application builder as well as support for workflows and scheduled jobs. UI Bakery supports multi-step application APIs, enabling businesses to build out complex business logic. The UI Bakery team is based in Lithuania and is comprised of ~12 employees.

Strengths
Less Expensive at Scale: UI Bakery’s pricing is reasonably affordable at scale, with their premium offering being priced at a flat rate of $249/month plus $19 for each additional user after the first 10.
Workflows & Scheduled Jobs: UI Bakery offers a workflow builder with a sequential step interface that is simple to use. These workflows are available as part of the self-hosted & cloud offerings.
Multi-Step APIs: Developers can build APIs which run multiple steps, minimizing overhead and making program logic easier to understand and debug.
Python Support: UI Bakery supports Python which runs on the server-side, providing greater flexibility to developers.
Weaknesses
No Streaming Support: UI Bakery's lack of real-time data streaming support is a major shortcoming for use cases requiring active data processing. This is particularly challenging for applications that depend on responsive data and immediate analysis. 
Legacy On-Prem Deployment: Self-hosting UI Bakery requires an full on-premise deployment, which may result in heightened maintenance expenses and added complexity.
Company Size: UI Bakery currently has ~12 employees on Linkedin and no publicly available funding information.
No US-Based Support: UI Bakery’s team is based in Lithuania and does not have US-based support, which is often critical to US-based enterprises.

Conclusion: UI Bakery is suitable for smaller businesses looking for a lower-cost alternative to Retool. UI Bakery’s Workflow & Scheduled Jobs offerings are available to both Cloud and On-Premise customers. While UI Bakery’s lack of US-based support and small team may make it less appealing for enterprises than Retool, UI Bakery does offer some of the same capabilities, and thus may be sufficient for less complex use cases, at a lower price tag.

4. DronaHQ

DronaHQ comes in fourth place, as another India-based player in the internal tooling space, offering a narrower feature set at a lower cost. DronaHQ provides an application builder with a wide variety of built-in components, as well as a Workflow & Scheduled Job builder. DronaHQ’s pricing model does not distinguish between developers and end-users, charging a flat rate for all users.

Strengths
Low Price Per Developer: DronaHQ is cheaper than alternatives on a per-developer basis, since their pricing is a flat fee per user and does not distinguish between developers and end-users.
Workflows & Scheduled Jobs: DronaHQ offers support for automated workflows & scheduled jobs.
Vast Component Library: DronaHQ boasts over 150 built-in components, with many long-tail components supported out of the box.
Native Mobile Apps: DronaHQs provides a dedicated offering for building native mobile apps.
Weaknesses
Limited Deployment Control and Previews: DronaHQ does not offer deployment control with commits and previews. Previewing changes in DronaHQ requires publishing to a dedicated environment.
No US-based Customer Support: US-based Enterprises typically required US-based customer support and DronaHQ’s support team is not US-based. 
Limited Extensibility with Code: DronaHQ lacks Python support and the ability to implement custom components, which is limiting for engineering teams.
Inflexible Per User Pricing: DronaHQ’s flat rate per user does not distinguish between developers and viewers of tools, resulting in a higher bill for organizations with many viewers of internal tools.

Conclusion: DronaHQ is another alternative internal tooling platform which provides an application builder as well as support for automated workflows and scheduled jobs. DronaHQ has some notable feature gaps compared to Retool, and is generally less user-friendly. DronaHQ’s pricing model does not distinguish between developers and end-users; however, their per-user cost is relatively low compared to Retool, so for organizations with more developers than end-users, DronaHQ may be a cost effective option.

5. Budibase

Budibase, a UK-based company established in 2019, enters the list as the final alternative. This open-source, no-code platform is designed for internal tooling, providing automated workflows and a diverse component library. It enables users to swiftly deploy tools with considerable out-of-the-box functionality.

Strengths
Open-Source: Budibase is completely open source, enhancing platform transparency and collaborative opportunities.
Rich UI Library: Leveraging Adobe Spectrum, Budibase's extensive library simplifies how users design their user interfaces to get up and running quickly. 
Automated Workflows: The platform's Automation feature streamlines backend tasks and integrates with external platforms, to increase operational efficiency with minimal manual input.
Ready-Made Templates: Budibase provides OOTB templates to speed up development, enabling rapid deployment of applications with pre-designed features and designs.
Weaknesses
Full On-Premise Deployment: Budibase can only be self-hosted via a legacy on-premise deployment, increasing ownership costs and delaying updates for security-conscious enterprises that must keep data inside their VPC.
No Version Control: Budibase lacks Git-based version control, hindering developers from managing, previewing, or reverting their internal application versions.
Lack of Observability: Without native integrations with tools like Datadog, Splunk, or New Relic, Budibase makes it difficult to detect issues across applications.
No AI copilot: The absence of an AI copilot in Budibase slows down application development due to lack of code generation and optimization assistance.

Conclusion: Budibase positions itself as a viable Retool alternative, particularly for organizations that prefer no-code to low-code and favor open-source platforms. However, Budibase may be less suitable for the enterprise, as it lacks critical features such as Git-based version control as well as an AI Copilot for development.

Feature Breakdown by Low-Code Vendor

Retool

Superblocks

Appsmith

UI Bakery

DronaHQ

BudiBase

Pricing

Pricing

Pricing Model

Per Creator, User

Per Creator, User, Light User

Per Hour Per User

Flat Monthly Rate

Per User

Per User

No Self-Hosted Fees

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Application Builder

Drag & Drop App Builder

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Integrate with any Database or API

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Multi-Step Application APIs

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

Build Streaming Applications

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Native Mobile Apps

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

No

Open Source Execution Engine

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Workflows & Scheduled Jobs

Build Webhooks with Workflows

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Execute Scheduled Jobs

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Build API Endpoints with Workflows

No

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

Intuitive Visual Builder for Business Logic

No

Yes

No

Limited

No

Yes

Self-Host Workflows Without Additional Overhead

No

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

Extensibility with Code

Write Frontend JS

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Write Backend Code with NodeJS

Workflows Only

Yes

No

Workflows Only

Workflows Only

Workflows Only

Write Backend Python

Workflows Only

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

Build Fully-Featured Custom
Components with React

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Build Custom Integrations

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Performance

Fast Query Performance on Large
Datasets

No

Yes

No

Limited

No

No

Global Edge Caching Network

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Generative AI

User-Friendly AI Integrations

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Limited

Copilot for Code

Javascript, SQL

JavaScript,
Python, SQL, JSON, HTML

Javascript, SQL

No

SQL

No

Copilot for REST API Calls

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Generate Mock Data with AI

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Enterprise Security

Granular Permissions (RBAC)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

SSO / SAML

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

SCIM

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

Audit Logs

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

Secrets Manager Integrations

Self-Hosted Only

Yes

No

No

No

No

Security Extensions

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Security Auditability

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Software Development Lifecycle

Commits & Previews

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

Source Control with Git for Both Cloud & Self-Hosted

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Integrate with Multiple VPCs through a
Single Deployment

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Production Observability

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Hosting

Keep Data in Customer's Network

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

US & EU Cloud Hosting

US & EU Hosting Regions

US & EU Hosting Regions

US-only

Not disclosed

Not disclosed

US-only

Self-Hosted Deployment Effort

High (Legacy On-Premise)

Negligible (Lightweight Stateless Agent)

High (Legacy On-Premise)

High (Legacy On-Premise)

High (Legacy On-Premise)

High (Legacy On-Premise)

Platform Upgrade Effort

High (Legacy On-PremiHigh (Full upgrades with downtime required to access new features, critical security and bug fixes)se)

Negligible (New App Builder features available instantly from Cloud)

High (Full upgrades with downtime required to access new features, critical security and bug fixes)

High (Full upgrades with downtime required to access new features, critical security and bug fixes)

High (Full upgrades with downtime required to access new features, critical security and bug fixes)

High (Full upgrades with downtime required to access new features, critical security and bug fixes)

Enterprise Support

In-App Live Chat with Technical Support Engineer

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Extended Support Hours

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Recognized by G2 for Best Support

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Top open-source alternatives to Retool

Retool's entire codebase is proprietary and closed source, preventing security teams from auditing the codebase for vulnerabilities and non-Retool developers from contributing to the codebase.

Appsmith and Budibase, which are both covered in detail above, are worth strong consideration as open-source alternatives to Retool. While both vendors require commercial licenses for many key features, their entire codebases are available on Github as open-source projects.

Superblocks is also a viable alternative to Retool for teams with a strong preference for open-source software. The Superblocks On-Premise Agent, used for querying data sources and executing backend business logic, is completely open source.

Why Look for Alternatives to Retool?

1. Limited extensibility with code

While Retool promotes itself as developer-friendly, it lacks essential features needed for comprehensive code extensibility, exposing developers to potential roadblocks when functionality is not supported. Key limitations include:

  • JavaScript Only Application Queries: Application queries in Retool are JavaScript only; other common languages such as Python are not supported.
  • Limited Support for Custom Components: Retool’s Custom Components offering is limited, as discussed in more detail below.

Retool’s Custom Components offering allows developers to bring custom UI components to Retool Applications. However, in practice, this offering comes with significant limitations:

  • Styles Limited to Iframe: Styles are limited to the iframe, making it impossible to build custom modals, slideouts, and popovers.
  • Separate Sandbox Per Component: Each Retool custom component is a separate sandbox, limiting developers ability to write shared code, such as sharing state across components (ex: Redux); each component's state must be independently managed, resulting in degraded performance and scalability, and complicating application-wide consistency.
  • Poor Developer Experience: Retool’s Custom Components are authored within a single HTML within the browser, preventing developers from bundling multiple files. Developers can write React code by inserting a script tag, but the development experience is hacky and ignores best practices.
  • Dependencies Must Be Bundled for Use on the Web: Third-party libraries must be bundled for use on the web to be available for use in Retool Custom Components, impeding access to the NPM ecosystem and local packages. Reusing existing libraries is cumbersome, necessitating maintenance of packages on a CDN, with an undesirable alternative of copying existing code directly into each Retool component HTML file.
  • Performance Impact of Importing Packages on the Web: Libraries imported via script tags cannot use module bundlers like Webpack or Rollup, eliminating advantages like tree shaking, code splitting, and transpilation. This approach forces Retool to load entire libraries, negatively impacting performance.
  • Unable to Extend Built-in Components: Developers cannot easily extend built-in components, which means any custom component must be built entirely from scratch.

2. Lackluster performance

Businesses leveraging Retool often complain about poor performance within Retool apps. Retool’s performance issues can be attributed to a few notable architectural shortcomings:

  • Browser-Based Code Execution: All Retool application queries written in Javascript are executed in the browser. This architecture restricts processing capacity to the browser's CPU and memory, unlike traditional server-based applications that can manage query loads and scale as needed.
  • Single-Step Queries: Application queries in Retool run as single steps, which means that data from each query must be returned to the browser for any subsequent processing; this architecture results in excess network requests and data traffic.
  • Lack of Global Edge Caching: Retool does not utilize global edge caching. As a result, each time a user accesses an application, the tool definitions must be fetched from Retool's servers (or a business's own servers if deploying Retool on-premise), increasing loading times and negatively impacting application performance.

3. Self-hosting costs and overhead

Many businesses must ensure sensitive data stays within their network to meet security and compliance requirements. To satisfy these requirements, businesses must self-host Retool. Self-hosted Retool is a resource-intensive legacy on-premise deployment with infrastructure, DevOps, and downtime costs. Moreover, if a business operates across multiple data regions or uses several cloud providers, they must deploy unique Retool instances in each virtual private cloud (VPC), multiplying complexity.

Furthermore, in order to access new features or security patches, Retool’s deployment model requires that businesses perform exhaustive upgrades; this requirement not only extends the period during which the platform is outdated, but also exposes businesses to avoidable security threats and hampers their agility in responding to shifting market needs.

The overall complexity of deploying Retool on-premise means businesses will often need to reallocate resources from shipping internal tools to maintaining their Retool infrastructure.

4. Expensive software & platform fees

Retool's enterprise tier may only be available to self-host at a fixed platform fee with a set number of users, rather than based on usage. Additionally, some features may be only available to purchase as add-ons to the Enterprise package, driving up the average cost per user.

For more information, read this deep dive on Retool's pricing.

5. No streaming support

Retool does not offer native support to integrate with event-driven streaming platforms like Kafka, Kinesis, and Confluent. Without native support for event-driven architectures, businesses cannot easily build apps on top of these core infrastructure providers. Users are thus limited to batch updates and cannot get real-time insights from apps built with Retool.

6. Lack of observability in apps

Retool recently released the ability to send audit logs to Datadog. However, Retool does not integrate with New Relic, Splunk, or any other popular observability providers. Without these integrations, developers cannot easily debug Retool apps, view logs, or receive proactive notifications when errors arise in mission-critical internal apps.

7. Slow feature rollout for self-hosted

Retool is often slow to roll out new features to customers self-hosting Retool. Features are commonly available in cloud-hosted Retool for multiple months before they are made available in a self-hosted version, as evidenced by their changelog.

Once a feature is made available as part of a self-hosted Retool version, DevOps teams must undertake the arduous upgrade process of their deployment, resulting in further delays before new features and bug fixes are available to users.

8. Closed Source Code

Retool is completely closed source, which comes with significant downside. First, code cannot be audited by security teams. This opaque, potentially buggy and vulnerable code has access to production databases and, when self-hosting Retool, is running entirely inside a business’s network; thus, there are limited preventative measures a business can take to mitigate the risk of exposing a business’s VPC to vulnerabilities and unintentionally impacting production databases. Additionally, the closed source nature of Retool means that the platform is inherently less extensible; businesses must wait for Retool to implement new features, slowing pace of development compared to open-source offerings.

9. Flowchart-based Workflows UX

Developers build automations in Retool Workflows using a flowchart-style UI. While this approach is common amongst low-code workflow automation tools, it quickly becomes difficult to parse the logical flow as the number of nodes and paths expands with complexity. As a result, workflows built on Retool are difficult to maintain and debug for enterprise use cases.

10. Security breach in 2023

Retool had a significant data breach in August 2023, during which many customers’ accounts being compromised. Since businesses run mission-critical software on Retool, hackers obtained access to sensitive data, resulting in reported losses of up to $15MM for a single customer.

Superblocks - The #1 Retool Alternative

Superblocks is the #1 alternative to Retool and the only vendor offering a fully-featured low-code internal tooling platform without limits. Compared to Retool, Superblocks allows businesses to extend tools further with code, self-host without the overhead, build real-time streaming apps, and deliver more performant apps at scale - all while scaling affordably across the organization. Start building with Superblocks today!

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