by sureklix on 4/5/20, 5:14 PM with 280 comments
I tried couple of no-code apps, but found them inflexible –not really giving you the opportunity to dive-in and customize.
by gavinray on 4/5/20, 6:21 PM
I've been able to build in a weekend no-code what would've taken my team weeks or months to build by hand, even with something as productive as Rails. It automates the boring stuff and you just have to write single endpoints for custom business logic, like "send a welcome email on sign-up" or "process a payment".
It has a database viewer, but it's not the core of the product, so I use Forest Admin to autogenerate an Admin Dashboard that non-technical team members can use:
With these two, you can point-and-click make 80% of a SaaS product in almost no time.
I wrote a tutorial on how to integrate Hasura + Forest Admin, for anyone interested:
http://hasura-forest-admin.surge.sh
For interacting with Hasura from a client, you can autogenerate fully-typed & documented query components in your framework of choice using GraphQL Code Generator:
https://graphql-code-generator.com/
Then I usually throw Metabase in there as a self-hosted Business Intelligence platform for non-technical people to use as well, and PostHog for analytics:
All of these all Docker Containers, so you can have them running locally or deployed in minutes.
This stack is absurdly powerful and productive.
by dvdhsu on 4/5/20, 7:44 PM
Here's a 3 minute demo video: https://cdn.tryretool.com/videos/4_minute_demo_4827ae.mp4
It's something we started working on a few years ago before low-code was a thing, haha. It's funny to see what you work on become a buzzword, haha. If any of you have any thoughts / feedback, please let me know! (HN, honestly, has been the main source of feedback for us as we've been working on it.)
by carapace on 4/5/20, 7:45 PM
I was playing with it last month and whipped up a simple "toy" (calling it a "game" is too much) that lets me fly a little space ship around a little asteroid field. It took about a day to get it working enough to be fun. (I polished it up a little after that, and maybe one day I'll add some actual game play, mine an asteroid, whatever.)
https://git.sr.ht/~sforman/SpaceGame
While I used GDScript there's a node & pipe dataflow visual UI that non-programmers can use to construct "code", so I think it counts as low-code. You can modify your objects to "export" member vars to the UI so you can tweak them with widgets.
If I had to e.g. design and deploy a 3D world for VR users I would seriously consider Godot as a front-end IDE.
(BTW, I also made a fun knock-down-the-tower toy I call Yengapult: https://git.sr.ht/~sforman/Yengapult )
by usrme on 4/5/20, 6:00 PM
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/logic-apps/
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/understanding-serverl...
by ollerac on 4/5/20, 11:55 PM
Here's an early draft:
"The Low-Code Ecosystem" https://blog.remaketheweb.com/low-code-frameworks-for-buildi...
I think there's _a ton_ of amazing tools being developed in this area right now. I'm looking forward to seeing how things develop!
[0] Remake (https://remaketheweb.com/) — Build web apps with only HTML.
by paulgb on 4/5/20, 6:44 PM
by artpar on 4/5/20, 6:33 PM
https://github.com/daptin/daptin
My overall goal in Daptin (the name comes from adaptable) is to build something reliable which can run for years without needing any maintenance.
As for the features, I will try to list some here:
- YAML/JSON based data declaration
- CRUD API implementing https://jsonapi.org/
- GraphQL API
- Definable actions, for custom APIs
- Integration to any 3rd party API based on Swagger/OpenAPI spec
- Runs on mysql/postgres/sqlite
For more advance features:
- SMTP server, IMAP server
- Self generated certificates/ Acme TLS generation support
- Encrypted columns
- Asset columns (file/image/binary store)
- Asset columns backed by cloud storage (like ftp/disk/gdrive/s3/bb and many)
- Native OAuth/3rd party login support
- Exposing cloud store folders as static websites
by dboskovic on 4/6/20, 4:53 AM
We use https://retool.com
Honorable mention to my own startup https://flatfile.io if you're trying to skip past the data import problem.
by crabl on 4/5/20, 8:27 PM
by dragonshed on 4/5/20, 9:51 PM
It's got simplified editors for tiles, sprites, maps, music, sound and code, runs on desktops + raspberry pis, and can export to web. The code you write is lua, with builtins for all the editable resources, and paves over most, if not all, the technical rabbit holes you can get yourself into with game development.
by nikivi on 4/5/20, 5:58 PM
https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/macos/macos-apps/keyboard-ma...
by evaneykelen on 4/5/20, 6:31 PM
by iopeak on 4/7/20, 5:40 PM
Storyscript: https://storyscript.com (private beta) Iris: https://youtu.be/3VZZbKoXDVM (mostly research, OSS on GH) MS Power BI: https://powerbi.microsoft.com (enterprise)
by 1123581321 on 4/5/20, 5:56 PM
by welanes on 4/5/20, 6:53 PM
For building websites, Webflow is powerful (and allows for fine-tuning).
Among utilities, Parabola (a kind of no-code extract, transform, load tool) is very neat.
For getting data/creating APIs without having to code I've built Simplescraper - https://simplescraper.io.
Currently working on an integration for Airtable that allows you to create a dynamic CMS using any data source, without code. Hopefully useful to non-dev and lazy-dev alike.
by makeee on 4/5/20, 6:40 PM
On the no-code side I really like http://carrd.co
by jhot on 4/5/20, 6:05 PM
by tdy721 on 4/5/20, 5:53 PM
Then again, that’s not really low code.
by juliend2 on 4/5/20, 5:57 PM
by im_down_w_otp on 4/6/20, 2:30 AM
by egow on 4/5/20, 9:33 PM
by tdehnke on 4/6/20, 5:17 AM
by sunaden on 4/5/20, 7:55 PM
by zubairlk on 4/5/20, 9:22 PM
Perhaps it steps out of low code into zero code. But you do end up needing to a developer to get far in bubble.io
Source of insight: building a few webapps for people in it.
by nselman on 4/6/20, 2:36 PM
-- we're in private beta but I can prioritize invites for anyone asking themselves this same question. It's pretty much what we're here to solve.
by mmonihan on 4/5/20, 6:07 PM
It’s a drag and drop form builder that saves as JSON schema. You can export and use in your own app, or submit to our backend and send Webhooks to an automation service like zapier.
I use it in my client projects since I frequently need to customize form fields, then I can reuse them across clients.
by bregma on 4/6/20, 1:44 PM
by badrabbit on 4/5/20, 6:04 PM
by denster on 4/5/20, 7:44 PM
It doesn't use Google Sheets, and instead has its own spreadsheet + Sketch-like surface, giving you tight control over design and behavior that I haven't seen in other tools.
It would honestly warm my heart to see something that has more power & simplicity in the same tool, because I've been a die-hard fan of app-dev tooling for the past 19 years.
Would be curious to get people's thoughts here on MintData -- do you guys agree with my assessment above?
--
[1] Founder here. We built MintData into the tool I've always wanted and thought was missing. Our inspiration was Visual Basic 6, PowerBuilder, and all the RAD (rapid app-dev) tooling from the 1990s.
by jlavera on 4/5/20, 10:57 PM
The idea started from there and now includes more flexibility in terms of integrations, customization of data displays, and the ability to compose actions.
I've been working for a few months now in this project and I'm hoping to publish the first beta version here soon. If this sounds interesting or useful to you or someone else, I'll be happy to hear about it, so feel free to DM me here or contact me at hello.oneadm@gmail.com
by nxc18 on 4/5/20, 9:48 PM
All that follows is my personal opinion; I do work for Esri but I'm not speaking for them here.
A lot of the modern ArcGIS stack is based on feature services hosted on ArcGIS Online (Esri's cloud service). Feature Services combine a SQL database with a REST API and spatial analysis. They're particularly useful if you want to store spatial data and put it on a map, but it works with non-spatial data, including relational data, as well.
Once data is in a feature service, you can visualize it in 2D or 3D maps, add data to it with off-the-shelf apps (we have Survey123 for surveys, Collector for field data collection, and QuickCapture for rapid data entry). You can build stories around the data with StoryMaps, data-driven websites with Hub, and dashboards with Operations Dashboard.
If the field apps aren't enough, you can create custom web apps with web app builder, custom native apps (Qt) with AppStudio, or totally custom apps with the developer APIs.
We even have open source apps [2] that demonstrate how to use the platform for common scenarios, like indoor routing, data collection, and taking data offline.
Sorry if this comes off salesy, I just really like sharing this stuff since I think ArcGIS tends to go under-utilized outside of GIS circles. The developers site [3] has a lot of info about the platform and a link to sign up - there's a generous free tier if you want to try it.
[1] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
by umvi on 4/5/20, 5:53 PM
It's surprising powerful and the built in sprite editor can do some pretty neat stuff.
by supernintendo on 4/6/20, 1:27 AM
by vlokshin on 4/5/20, 11:39 PM
Our marketing website cycles have gotten so much shorter with Webflow. Even though it's just replacing HTML/CSS/JS for marketing sites, the direct design and publish access in a way that's intuitive and reliable saves us time directly on the marketing site (0 dev time now) and frees up dev to focus on more interesting things. We've gone from design -> develop -> commit/publish, to design + publish in one nice tool.
by keithwhor on 4/6/20, 12:28 AM
Disclaimer: am founder. :)
by eandre on 4/5/20, 7:36 PM
Have a look at the Encore Playground [2] to see a real-world example.
by aryehof on 4/6/20, 6:02 AM
Is it? I'm pretty certain I am not the only programmer who has never heard the term before. What is this super trendy thing?
by monkeydust on 4/5/20, 7:06 PM
by kevindong on 4/5/20, 10:12 PM
The main use for it so far is as a way to send push notifications to my phone with a call to a simple POST endpoint.
by chubs on 4/6/20, 1:44 AM
by mrtrombone on 4/5/20, 8:11 PM
by kwikiel on 4/6/20, 12:21 AM
by matijash on 4/5/20, 11:38 PM
by freeqaz on 4/5/20, 11:27 PM
It lets you build and deploy applications super, super quickly on top of AWS Lambda. You build applications by composing high-level building blocks, which are small business logic units and are chained together on a visual graph of your application.
The cool this is that you can re-use "code blocks" across projects and they follow the same input/output rules (plain JSON) so you can mix + match languages in a single project. If you want to make an API endpoint, you just add an API Endpoint block, wire that to a code block, then wire that to a response. Easy. Same with Cron jobs -- you just link a timer to a code block and you're good.
Logs are handled in the UI for you so you don't have to muck with AWS at all (the deployment to AWS is effectively an implementation detail that you don't have to know about). Pricing is the same as AWS (usage based) -- we just add a surcharge as a flat percentage.
It started out as a side project to solve a similar frustration to the ones you're describing, and it's snowballed from there (I'm a co-author of Refinery). :P
It's still fairly early (and we're adding big features still). Feedback is welcome!
Some examples:
- List of demo apps https://refinery.io/discover
- Map/reduce using fan-out transitions https://docs.refinery.io/tutorials/fan-out-fan-in/
- Docs on the different Block types https://docs.refinery.io/blocks/
by jppope on 4/6/20, 5:08 AM
The Serverless Framework have been an amazing low code experience for me.
Building REST APIs is crazy simple... 90% of it is writing config files. Another plus is that you really don't need to use web frameworks - you can just write your business logic.
anyway thats my $0.02
by bremeika on 4/6/20, 2:23 AM
It's great for engineering teams that want to add custom HTTP services, hook into GraphQL mutations, and/or add custom SQL - but want to empower non devs, lazy devs or simply devs that want to focus on their core product. We started working on Internal after realizing that most companies can't dedicate valuable engineering time to build and constantly maintain/upgrade their internal tools.
I've led engineering teams from seed to series C companies (10 - 50+ people) for several years. Maintenance and permissioning are always the biggest problems when it comes to building these tools yourself, so we've built Internal with these things in mind by focusing on how startups actually go from zero to one and then scale beyond that.
When you use Internal, we offer a CRUD tool with fine grained permissions, auditability and controls to get you started. In my experience, most startups use open source software for this or build it themselves. Both of these approaches reach their limits very quickly in terms of quality and maintainability and lead to tons of issues when trying to pass audits down the line.
With respect to flexibility, it's there when you need it. We offer a feature called Spaces for when you need to customize the UI and build tools quickly, but we do this in a way that keeps you from shooting yourself in the foot. You can build Spaces without SQL or javascript knowledge and you can quickly create useful tools without needing to know how to code. If you need additional customization after that, we allow you to hook into existing business logic via http services or graphql endpoints and expose that to the end-user as "functions" which can be consumed when configuring a Space. We also offer several out-of-the-box integrations including Salesforce and Stripe so you can quickly integrate with existing services with little to no effort.
Let me know if you would like to talk or want a demo. You can also just sign up and try it out yourself.
by w1 on 4/6/20, 1:15 AM
by khashnejad on 4/5/20, 7:04 PM
https://devscore.com https://github.com/devscoreInc https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClgE-uFdQIJ2GWhaNjz6WRw/vid...
by radiKal07 on 4/6/20, 5:18 AM
by pratikshadake on 4/6/20, 5:24 PM
The good thing about appsmith is it comes with self-hosted version. For data-conscious companies, it's the perfect solution.
Developers can collaboratively build internal tools and publish them.
The vast library of UI components on appsmith gives you enough flexibility to build the apps the way you want them with simple drag and drops.
You can build your internal apps by connecting APIs as well as databases. I personally like the API support as it gives me control over input validations and flexibility to add business logic as well.
by ChainsawTom on 4/5/20, 8:36 PM
by kirubakaran on 4/5/20, 6:05 PM
M-x list-packagesby nunopato on 4/15/20, 7:29 PM
We started just a few months ago, but are already getting very good feedback from our customers.
BTW, we just released a CLI to make local development easier, check out the companion blog post here https://nhost.io/blog/announcing-nhosts-cli.
by blkboxdev on 4/6/20, 1:47 PM
If you try it out let me know what you think: https://www.easycsv.io/
by mmcgaha on 4/5/20, 6:54 PM
https://community.hitachivantara.com/s/article/data-integrat...
by bernatfp on 4/6/20, 10:12 AM
by pythonbase on 4/8/20, 6:57 PM
So basically there are APIs that provide various data points related to countries and other stats. I need a front-end that could consume the APIs and render data in form of tables, charts and cards.
What are my options here that can set me up and running quickly?
by zmoreira on 4/6/20, 4:13 PM
I find everything else just incomplete.
by zeepzeep on 4/6/20, 12:52 PM
by Pedrit0 on 4/5/20, 7:29 PM
by CodeWithDerrick on 4/6/20, 12:47 PM
by leethargo on 4/6/20, 1:00 PM
by autorun on 4/9/20, 3:33 PM
by nbzklr on 4/6/20, 7:12 AM
by vladholubiev on 4/12/20, 9:28 PM
> Saasify handles all of the SaaS boilerplate, including user accounts, subscription billing, developer docs, and a polished marketing site.
by volkandkaya on 4/6/20, 9:34 AM
Start off with a one pager with an email form and analytics.
In one click add an SEO optimised blog.
Also don't need to worry about hosting, upgrades etc we handle all that for you.
by rmatyszewski on 4/8/20, 2:53 PM
by moriquendi on 4/6/20, 7:52 AM
by ab_testing on 4/6/20, 12:29 AM
by sidhantgandhi on 4/5/20, 6:08 PM
by simonw on 4/5/20, 8:14 PM
https://datasette.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
Datasette aims to reduce the gap between "I have some data" and "I have a useful JSON API for it" as much as possible. I think it does this really well.
A timely example: the first version of this API for interacting with data about the COVID-19 pandemic took me just a few minutes to build AND deploy: https://covid-19.datasettes.com/ - it uses data pulled hourly from https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19 and https://github.com/nytimes/covid-19-data
Here's JSON for the number of reported cases and deaths in California (served with a CORS header so you can call it from other pages): https://covid-19.datasettes.com/covid/ny_times_us_states.jso...
And here's data showing the number of NEW cases per day reported in Italy, using a SQL window function. First as a graph visualization: https://covid-19.datasettes.com/covid?sql=with+italy+as+%28%...
And here's that raw data as JSON:
https://covid-19.datasettes.com/covid.json?sql=with+italy+as...
And as CSV: https://covid-19.datasettes.com/covid.csv?sql=with+italy+as+...
by RMPR on 4/15/20, 7:31 PM
by adg29 on 4/8/20, 5:09 PM
by jeznag on 4/6/20, 10:30 PM
by meelad on 4/6/20, 6:17 PM
by sunilkosuri on 4/6/20, 1:42 AM
by hieunc229 on 4/6/20, 3:56 PM
Served me well for creating basic website, blogging and form :)
by sawaali on 4/8/20, 8:49 PM
by verdverm on 4/5/20, 8:29 PM
by dominotw on 4/5/20, 6:30 PM
by detnyre on 4/5/20, 11:09 PM
by fegu on 4/5/20, 10:47 PM
by detnyre on 4/5/20, 11:09 PM
by ruslan_talpa on 4/6/20, 2:06 AM
by leo3 on 4/6/20, 7:45 AM
by tyhoff on 4/6/20, 1:40 AM
by jeznag on 4/6/20, 10:29 PM
by inglor on 4/6/20, 2:31 AM
by ravoori on 4/6/20, 1:28 AM
by talelcool on 4/7/20, 9:39 AM
by maxdo on 4/5/20, 10:37 PM
by rb808 on 4/6/20, 3:41 AM
by popup21 on 4/5/20, 6:47 PM
by hedora on 4/5/20, 6:06 PM
by te_chris on 4/5/20, 6:21 PM
by pcvarmint on 4/6/20, 3:45 AM
by bitwize on 4/5/20, 6:43 PM
So-called "low code" tools involve code, you just write it by rat-wrestling instead of typing. And good luck using those tools effectively for problems their designers didn't anticipate.
With Lisp, you write less code and it's easier and more fun to write.
by banq on 4/6/20, 1:16 AM