Form to DB

https://www.formtodb.com/

by donjh • 2 years ago

210 128 2 years ago

formtodb.com

interlocutor2• 2 years ago

This does a better job: https://visualdb.com/

KRAKRISMOTT• 2 years ago

There's also https://www.airsequel.com/

And

https://airforms.com/

throwaway-42808• 2 years ago

https://airforms.com/ and https://visualdb.com/ appear to be the same thing?

bieberChen• 2 years ago

I build a better one https://teable.io/ and plan to open source it next week

nathanstitt2• 2 years ago

teable looks very interesting, I hope you do follow through on open sourcing it.

raphinou• 2 years ago

I'll share my own project: https://www.myowndb.com/, running since 2006. I neglected the project for a couple of years but recently launched the new version. It's open source: https://gitlab.com/myowndb/myowndb

I enjoy the technical side, but I'm struggling to commercialise it so don't hesitate to give me your feedback here or on https://www.myowndb.com/contact.html which is of course powered by a myowndb public form :-)

nathanstitt2• 2 years ago

heh, I'll throw my formial (https://github.com/nathanstitt/formial) project onto this thread. I probably need to update it a bit but it's been working well in production for 2+ years now.

Where were all these alternatives when I was looking for a WYSIWYG form builder?

mceoin• 2 years ago

Strange the URL for this isn’t retool.com/formtodb

pryelluw• 2 years ago

Would be nice if there was some kind of demo or docs. Like this is basic landing page stuff at this point.

cuffe6• 2 years ago

Here are the docs: https://docs.retool.com/apps/forms. Just added a link to them from the landing page. Agree we should also add a quick demo to the landing page

james-bcn• 2 years ago

And pricing! When this kind of service doesn't make its pricing clear it immediately puts me off.

cuffe6• 2 years ago

Retool Forms is completely free. No arbitrary limits on the number of users, forms or submissions. I'll make this clearer on the landing page.

For building Retool Apps/Workflows, our pricing is here: https://retool.com/pricing

willsmith72• 2 years ago

cool idea, i'm always curious about the customer logo sections.

i assume for amazon, mercedes, etc. it's talking about retool? or are there some employees using formtodb?

cuffe6• 2 years ago

Hi all, engineer who worked on forms @ Retool here. Excited to get HN’s feedback on a new product I’ve been working on: Retool Forms. There are a ton of form builders out there (e.g. Typeform, Google Forms, Airtable Forms, etc.) and honestly we weren’t really looking to build another one. But as a developer, I wanted my data in my database, not in another SaaS app (which probably has a shoddy API, like every example I listed above). Surprisingly, the only way to build a form on top of my database was by a) building my own backend (probably via node), and b) building my own frontend (probably via React, and then maybe via formik). There was no “one click” form-on-top-of-my-database tool available.

So we decided to build a form builder. It allows you to:

1. Send data directly to your database (Postgres in our case), your data warehouse, or wherever else you want it

2. Write JS almost anywhere on the front-end, including libraries like moment and lodash, for custom validations, conditional logic, and data parsing

3. Run any arbitrary code in form submission (or validation), via our Workflows product

4. Store it in our database (where we give you a connection string), or your own database

5. Self-host it in your own VPC

And it’s free with no arbitrary limits on the number of users, forms or submissions.

I’m hoping to ship a bunch more features like integration to any REST API, more styling options, etc. If you have any feedback please let me know!

breadwinner5• 2 years ago

There was no “one click” form-on-top-of-my-database tool available.

Does this count: https://airforms.com/

a_subsystem• 2 years ago

Interesting. 'Automatic database diagrams'. How does that work in a db without primary/foreign keys?

mrcwinn• 2 years ago

So, you didn’t feel comfortable relying on “another SaaS” app, and then go on to suggest Retool Workflows, which is itself part of another paid SaaS app? All those “shoddy” alternatives also have free tiers.

quickthrower22• 2 years ago

Not sure that is fair? The difference seems to be the data is squarely in your own DB. You can use their SaaS for validation. You might pay for something (surprise?).

no_wizard• 2 years ago

When you say on the website that Amazon uses this product, is Amazon a paying customer or is it simply an engineer (or a few I suppose) are using it?

I’m curious how to interpret the “trusted by” statement here

dvdhsu5• 2 years ago

Amazon pays us more than $1M annually. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37426191

hans_castorp• 2 years ago

There is no download link, so how can this be self-hosted?

hk__26• 2 years ago

+1, and the "self-hosted" page on their documentation is… empty.

https://docs.retool.com/education/labs/self-hosted

Edit: the right page seems to be https://docs.retool.com/self-hosted but it’s about Retool in general; I doubt you need 8 vCPUs and 16GB of RAM to host forms [1].

[1] https://docs.retool.com/self-hosted/quickstarts/docker#vm-co...

cuffe6• 2 years ago

You can self-host here: https://retool.com/self-hosted. Most people deploy it as a docker container on an EC2 instance but there’s various options

rmbyrro5• 2 years ago

Congrats on the launch, looks neat!

and b) building my own frontend (probably via React, and then maybe via formik)

There's also a new technology called HTML. It comes with a <form> tag, <input> field tags, and even a <button> to submit!

Although new, they managed to get all browsers on board to support it.

You will not need to import 150kb of JavaScript, though, which is sad. And it's not shiny to speak about in the interview for your next job.

I guess the pros dont overweight these cons... Yes, "probably via React" is the way!

pantulis• 2 years ago

Let me tell you something about this fancy HTML tag you are talking about.

It has an "action" attribute that points to a server you need to own and run a code you need to code in order to validate the input and store it in the database. If you are comfortable doing this, which no doubt you are, then you are not the target audience of this tool.

rajamaka• 2 years ago

Why do people here commonly imply downloading 150kb of data is an issue in the current year?

hk__26• 2 years ago

There was no “one click” form-on-top-of-my-database tool available

When did you start building it? Budibase does exactly this since 2020.

crazymoka• 2 years ago

Why is it free? And for how long will it be free for? I do not want to start to use another Form builder to find out months later I'm locked with a $50/m charge.

nextworddev2• 2 years ago

As a side note I found retool to be the most prohibitively expensive out of 6-7 solutions I was researching for “low code admin app builder” ecosystem.

kinj282• 2 years ago

Curious - what was your use case for low code tool? Just build a single admin tool for a few users or something more elaborate.

FWIW I run growth for a low code platform company and we are one of the retool alternatives. One of the things I am trying to get right is getting the value proposition right for different scenarios like say building a customer portal (unlimited external users) to admin tools (few internal users). So far we have been able to do good on this front by helping customers with usage based pricing or even developer based pricing. But yet curious to hear your use case and see if there is something I am missing.

nextworddev2• 2 years ago

It’s a progression. It starts out as an admin dashboard for a team of 5, then it grows to an internal platform for 15 devs plus “ops” people etc. Thus there’s micro segments inside this market based on stage

dvdhsu5• 2 years ago

Hm, sorry you found us to be expensive. Two notes:

* Forms (ie the product here) is free.

* We’ve always aimed to build a sustainable business where we charge reasonable prices and can guarantee we’ll stay in business ourselves. It’s true there are other products that are cheaper, but every single one of those companies is unprofitable and many will probably be dead in a few years. See, for example, Airplane, Interval, or Dynaboard. Dynaboard just got acquired today (their founder is apparently “thrilled” about it: https://dynaboard.com/blog/figma-acquires-dynaboard) and they’re shutting down on April 30th. If you’re a paying customer you’ll need to rebuild all your apps by then. Ouch! (I’d rather pay more and not have worry about core pieces of my business getting shut down with three months’ notice.)

hipadev23• 2 years ago

Just wanted to echo I love your product but the pricing is too prohibitive. My use-case is wanting to offer a dashboard to my own clients. But the business pricing was $50/mo per user and also gave each user editor privileges.

I want to create customer accounts, apply settings (e.g. I delimit the data their account can access, basically adding WHERE clauses on a per-account basis), and they can access white-label read-only dashboards with their own user/pass.

Retool seemed 100% insistent on being an internal-only tool with a high cost per user.

matt3D• 2 years ago

As someone who also tried and really liked Retool but also found it too expensive I can add my reasoning.

I help companies with digital transformation, what it usually entails is deploying solutions to small teams and then growing them as we get buy in from the business. The initial users are high frequency users of the tools, and later users might be infrequent users.

The problem I found with Retool was that as I scaled to the infrequent users the cost per user remained static, so I would be punished for my tool becoming more popular.

mehal• 2 years ago

Dynaboard shutting down does not relate to pricing for end-users.

From a Low Code product perspective, we were still able to build a beautiful and functional product. Our product unit/engineer ratio is much higher than our competition (see, for example, Retool), which allows us to provide the best value for our users. Regarding the transition, I don't see any indication from the note you posted that users will have to rebuild all their apps. Rather, the founder is saying he will provide more information and possible steps. Who knows – maybe it would be integrated into Figma? And Figma would gain great runtime and IDE capacities?

electroly• 2 years ago

As a counterpoint--from another potential user who looked at Retool first but landed on a competitor's product because Retool was too expensive--another way for me to avoid that outcome is to choose a tool that's open source and self-hosted. That's precisely what we did. If/when the company goes out of business, we can keep using it; this already happened to us with RethinkDB and we continue to run that in its community-maintained form. I'll likely want to find a new platform for new development but I won't have to rewrite my existing apps by a deadline.

You're right that it's a big concern, but it's a pretty tough sell to solve this problem by just charging so much that it's clear you could not possibly go out of business. I had to go pretty far down the list of your top competitors to find a good one that was open source, but I did find it.

All that said, Retool's pricing at that time was MUCH worse than it is today. This is what Retool was offering us at the time: https://web.archive.org/web/20230315060042/https://retool.co... -- no distinction between developers and end users! No access controls until the $50/user/month level! That was totally out of the question. The current pricing looks a bit more reasonable, but it's too late; we already committed to the competitor offering an open source solution.

_Marak_2• 2 years ago

Hey David! I love the sustainable work you are doing for developer tools.

We were emailing back in 2021 about one of the many products you and your team have built for developers. Exciting conversation, for sure!

If anyone is interested in reading about my experience with ReTool's approach to developer tools, I have a link: https://marak.com/blog/2021-04-25-monetizing-open-source-is-...

yatish27• 2 years ago

https://www.tooljet.com/

quickthrower22• 2 years ago

So Oracle forms, but with UX/DX :-)

abrookewood• 2 years ago

Don't underestimate how important that is. I can tell an Oracle web app a mile away and I immediately now it is going to be an absolute pain to use: UI components too small/big; standard form controls missing; horrible lag etc

ako• 2 years ago

Oracle forms 3 on a terminal was actually a super nice tool: very fast way to edit database data, but you have to know all the keyboard shortcuts. Bit like Vi for database forms.

Borealid3• 2 years ago

I remember Microsoft InfoPath, for which this appears to be a competitor.

I never really understood why InfoPath didn't catch on better.

pianoben• 2 years ago

Oh my goodness, what a blast from the past! Didn't you have to define forms using XML and XSLT? If I recall right, you had to host it either in SharePoint or InfoPath forms server.

Don't get me wrong, it was an amazing tool for its day, but had some steep and proprietary onramps that limited adoption. I'm personally not at all surprised that it faded from general consciousness.

Borealid3• 2 years ago

You (usually) built forms using the graphical form editor, and they could be packaged as an executable desktop application that emailed you results back. If you wanted them to be in a browser they had to be on SharePoint, of course, because it's the usual Microsoft lock-in thing.

It was surprisingly good at letting non-computer-people build data gathering applications though.

zokier• 2 years ago

Did InfoPath have any other workflow/automation/integration things available besides BizTalk (which is the one thing I saw InfoPath with)? Because if not, then it's no surprise that it didn't catch on.

Borealid3• 2 years ago

I remember it inserting rows straight into an Access or arbitrary-SQL database, and the integrations running from there. It was a data collection tool.

trollbridge• 2 years ago

Back in 2009, I ran a project to convert a bunch of paper forms into InfoPath for online forms. After a few months we gave up on InfoPath:

- We still had to have paper forms for legally required forms in case someone didn’t have a computer, etc. so then we needed a regular printable PDF. InfoPath native forms had issues with printing.

- The InfoPath-PDF integration was not very good and not usable for my production.

- The data on the other end went into bizarre formats and thus needed a job to convert it to the format we needed (and take action).

In the end this solution was deployed, and shockingly is still online and in production in 15 years later:

- A graphic designer (often an intern) took the original paper forms or fillable PDFs and made basic HTML forms with them.

- jQuery used for user friendly form validation.

- These forms were integrated with an SSO to allow e-signing.

- “Print” and “Submit” buttons on the form invoked a Perl script which (1) transformed the HTML form to having the content filled in, (2) ran headless Firefox and print-to-PDF to archive the form for legal purposes, (3) stored the form values in the native database, and (4) fired off a stored procedure based on the form name.

In effect, the same things InfoPath was supposed to do, but it didn’t need a dedicated administrator or complex integrations.

revskill2• 2 years ago

Form to db is simple task, the hard part is the table.

cuffe6• 2 years ago

Agree, the table is the component we’ve spent the most time building: https://retool.com/components/table-new

Temporary_31337• 2 years ago

This links to the legacy table component.

Which should I use for new projects? I assume the new one?

revskill2• 2 years ago

I'm curious what's the generated sql for the table with grouped rows ?

1propionyl• 2 years ago

Okay but what about the reply to that form?

account-52• 2 years ago

These types of projects always remind me of MS Access. Access is forms on a database, and really easy to use. It obviously has its drawbacks but nothing has come close to it. I've never understood why MS didn't capitalise on it by extending and improving it.

CGamesPlay• 2 years ago

Because the single-system paradigm doesn't work any more. However, modern replacements do exist, Airtable is one of the first; it's basically the notion of a "spreadsheet with more structure", and then building forms and such on top of that. I've recently been playing with Grist and like it, although it is rough around the edges.

https://www.getgrist.com

keybits• 2 years ago

I love Grist, and relevant to this discussion, it now has forms: https://www.getgrist.com/forms/

Grist is open source, Python scriptable and each project is stored in a SQLite database.

datadrivenangel• 2 years ago

Airtable also has a surprisingly small hard row limit. 50k rows is very easy to hit quickly.

TheFragenTaken2• 2 years ago

I'd love a modern non-SaaS MS Access equivalent, that just use files: https://stephango.com/file-over-app

codeulike2• 2 years ago

I never saw an Access database that didn't become a regretful mess after a couple of years - the person that made it left, no-one knew how to update it. Fancy validation built into the form that just got in the way when requirements changed.

Thus I came to the conclusion that any Access database is probably better off being a spreadsheet, even with all the chaos that not having forms as a front end and not having relational structure entails. At least people can understand other peoples spreadsheets (up to a point)

EvanAnderson2• 2 years ago

Most Access-based apps turn to shit because they're made by non-developers. The tool itself isn't to blame. I've seen Access used to great success when coupled with scripting to dump schema and code to text files for version control and code review.

account-52• 2 years ago

I'm unfortunately forced to use access at work. I never wanted to learn what is, unless MS do something, a dead technology, I fully agree that most access databases are a shit show but only because nondevelopers (as mentioned but others). However, kept simple, on point and used within it's limitations, it's a very flexible system.

prakashn272• 2 years ago

I miss acccess too. Good old days

breadwinner5• 2 years ago

It is still available.

akvadrako• 2 years ago

I don't know, it's something I've wanted many times.

Recently I discovered https://directus.io/ which comes pretty close and it's open source.

mbix77• 2 years ago

Crazy prices. I'm always wondering for what kind of companies things like Retool are. Internally, when we want to whip up a crud app, we use Nextjs with T3 stack and you are up and running in two-three hours.

foxbee• 2 years ago

Or... An open-source alternative

https://budibase.com/forms

dustedcodes• 2 years ago

I am a little confused by Retool. Every page on retool.com has a different look and feel, different font styles and colour schemes. It feels extremely disjointed and almost like hacked together by completely different people who then merged html pages into a single web app. Then Form to DB has even its own domain and is marketed as a complete standalone product here but I can't find a way to only sign up to it or find pricing for it. How is From to DB related to Retool?

TheFragenTaken2• 2 years ago

Don't most orgs already own Google Workspace, or MS365? I fail to see how MS Forms + Excel, or Google Forms + Sheets can't accomplish this (with the addition of common spreadsheet features). It's not to be snarky, but it feels like an easy comparison to make.

Takennickname• 2 years ago

Some people care (too much) about design details. Still a market though.

lloydatkinson2• 2 years ago

It's strange this doesn't support plain nosql databases. I'm not sure I see the value in a full blown relational setup for... form submissions.

lloydatkinson2• 2 years ago

It’s a miracle, it didn’t get flagged

_heimdall7• 2 years ago

How new is this Retool product? The idea that OpenAI, Amazon, NBC, Mercedes, and Doordash all use it seems dubious.

prakashn272• 2 years ago

Retool is popular for building internal dashboards on top of you data. It has been there for many years

_heimdall7• 2 years ago

Retool has sure, but I'd expect the Form to DB homepage to be validating this product rather than the team behind it.

I said this in a sibling comment too, I may just be unfairly nitpicking here but these "trusted by" marketing blocks just rub me the wrong way when the product is brand new.

habosa• 2 years ago

See comment by the CEO: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39476663

Retool is very widely adopted by major companies.

_heimdall7• 2 years ago

Sure, but that feels like validation for Retool rather than Form to DB.

I may very well be nitpicking unfairly here, those marketing "trusted by" blocks on brand new products just always rub me the wrong way.

slowhand09• 2 years ago

Ladies and gentlemen of the Hacker News jury, I’m just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and runoff into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my mobile phone, I wonder: “Did little demons get inside and type it?” I don’t know!My primitive mind can’t grasp these concepts. But there is one thing I do know – when we get a "new" solution that replaces all the former solutions, and uses React or HTML, IT MUST BE MAGIC!

ecmascript• 2 years ago

Looks cool but what is the pricing? Get started for free kind of implies that it isn't free after a while or..?

zubairq• 2 years ago

I love this. I work on an openource project (in progress still) building forms on top of different databases and can say that Retool really nailed this one. Well done!

Terretta• 2 years ago

It’s wild to read “there’s no one click form to database tool” in 2024 when 25+ years ago one was available in Vermeer FrontPage and of course ColdFusion had a database form wizard.

Plenty “SSR” (the only place to render, so it wasn’t called that) tempting engines of the day, if you had an ODBC connection, you could generate form handlers with “one click”.

Of course, this was also before OWASP (started circa 2001)...

Form to DB

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