Ask HN: Best low-/no-code solution for simple web-based database frontends

I am going through the "Create Standup Application" tutorial.

Did u use a specific library to add the hints/popups or is it all manually patched in?

Do you plan to include GraphQL queries ?

I think for one-off projects and workflows that aren't deeply integrated, tools like Node-RED are very interesting and something I'd definitely consider pursuing. But outside of modeling, BPM tools have been more of an obstacle than anything else.

There is a middle ground, and that’s why low code / no code is so popular. Often a business does not need the full flexibility and nonsense that comes along with something like that.

Horses for courses. If off the shelf drag and drop helps you build enough to get your idea up and running and start using it / making money, then that’s far better than being lost neck deep in a code pile and not getting up and running. Once you’ve got the funds, then look at transitioning.

It seems to be a case of 'right-tool-right-job' rather than a blanket rule that no-code is good/bad.

I actually think no-code is incredibly powerful when applied by the right person to the correct problem, and will run circles around a custom-developed app in terms of cost, time and flexibility. If you apply it to the wrong problem then of course you aren't going to get the same outcome, like with any technology. I think the mistake people often make is thinking that no-code aims to eliminate all-code, but like any development tool it just fits a certain niche well.

Throwaway for obvious reasons.

This will take a few minutes to implement and be significantly more stable and full-featured than any low/no-code solution.

https://adsharma.github.io/flattools-programs/

In short, django models are written using a very low level of abstraction. I much prefer dataclasses generated from a high level IDL.

The blog post compares different IDLs and argues why flatbuffer IDL is more suitable.

In order to express queries over such models:

https://adsharma.github.io/fquery/

I just set it up this morning in my homelab, and it was very simple to set up.

Coming from building admin tools in ruby on rails previously, this is incredibly easy and straightforward. If I have the money to pay for retool I don't think I would choose another tool in the future

It's even possible to host it yourself which allows highly regulated industries to use it.

Spending over a decade programming makes it extremely difficult to reason about the the precise level of "okay, I can do this" from a semi-technical perspective.

It should be fairly easy to pick up for end users. But only if you don’t use denormalized tables. If your DB is in 2/3NF you’ll run into issues, e.g. the ever so useful DataTable cannot update data across table.

Also, there’s a pretty significant hard limit on 500 rows.

PowerApps is a great tool, but be aware of its limitations and see if that works for you.

Also it seamlessly integrate with existing CI tools and you can use your favourite text editor to create apps, develop templates. Since the Lowdefy apps is purely defined as JSON, or YAML, you can easily write scripts to mange and maintain multiple or larger applications. For example this is how we generate the Lowdefy docs form json-schema definitions.

I think this used to be the case but the landscape is changing quickly. Deepnote[0], for example, looks like a really interesting programming interface that's not quite traditional programming and lowers the barrier to entry significantly and is (arguably) in the low-code space.

Low-code products for data engineering show that we're not too far away from these sorts of solutions in a more generalized offering. Spreadsheets aren't the only answer.

[0] - https://deepnote.com/

Because phpmyadmin would be too easy. It looks like this OP needs some busywork.

There's also UI tools provided by the first parties that do these things.

APEX was created to replace Forms, which really proved itself as stable technology with some apps having a 30 years lifespan now (code quality and performance aside). but APEX has not even neared Forms in terms of speed of dev. fortunately or not - Forms is so-90-ies and quite discontinued.

...should you mention APEX, then perhaps you should also note MS Access as is pretty much the same.

Thanks for sharing.

We have a feature called Forms[0] which is pretty spot on for what OP mentioned. Happy to show you (or anyone else) around the product. I'm mike@seekwell.io

Also worth noting we have a simple way to two way sync data between Google Sheets and a SQL database[1]. This turns Sheets into a UI for your database. Works really well for teams that are already using Sheets and turn

0 - https://doc.seekwell.io/forms 1 - https://doc.seekwell.io/syncsheet

Haven't used it myself either, but have also heard good things.

Your product looks interesting but I don’t see how it fits the requirements here.