Retool is great, although they explicitly build for developers and building on retool requires writing glue code in their JavaScript template language, and writing SQL queries.
In Glide, we avoid code and syntax as much as possible. Our table-driven programming model also creates a nice MVC-like separation of concerns where you don’t end up with your program chaotically interspersed with controls on a canvas, so your program is easier to manage as it scales (in exchange for being less direct to create).
Glide (from the article) adds simple pin-based auth and access control on top of the spreadsheet data. There’s also user and role-based data protection.
Yes, many of our customers hit the issues you mentioned as they scale spreadsheet-based applications. We built Big Tables for this case: https://www.glideapps.com/big-tables
You keep most of the convenience and programmability of a spreadsheet, but you get Postgres scale and a first-class API (which includes atomic table swapping for updating large datasets). It also supports live updating of any views displaying that data.
Founder of Glide (YC W19) mentioned in the article — thanks for the recognition. This was not an ad from us, we were surprised by the coverage.
Glide’s customers are businesses building software for internal use. During YC we called these “dark apps” but since then we call them “apps for work.” We wanted something usable by IT and operations staff (not developers) that emphasized design and UX.
Glide started as a simple spreadsheet-to-PWA trick but is now a complete programming model and runtime platform for data-driven business apps, including APIs, databases, responsive layouts, a managed AI system, and workflow automations.
One of our Crown Jewels is our data editor, where you program your app with our reactive computed columns. Our data grid has become a popular open source component: https://grid.glideapps.com/
You can also try our new AI-native builder experience, where we’re trying to simplify building even further. It’s very early but just shows our continued effort to make building software simpler: https://glideapps.com/create
I know a few people who started to use glide for personal apps and were put off by the price. ($200/mo for over 3 personal apps is a bit tough).
They showed me what they were doing and that was absolutely incredible for people without programming experience. They integrated with spreadsheets and llms and their PDF collections of manuals for devices etc.
But as lower-income people they were stopped in their tracks and I found that really sad that there isn't an option for non money-making or business supporting applications. In their case they were all doing that for their hobbies or for supporting their aging parents and giving them tools to handle their tasks, chores and care.
I second this. I'm guessing you're limiting access at a lower price point because you're worried too many business customers will opt for the lower cost plan when they should be on the higher priced one? I would pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $10/mo or so for a personal plan that had more than your free tier and less than the business one.
Yes, I’m also sad we couldn’t find a way to be affordable for everyone while also growing our business. We’ve learned that the personal/community app ‘market’ is impossible to grow upon, and that pricing for this group undercuts your pricing power with businesses.
The pricing is completely prohibitive. It’s a shame, looks cool but I’m not gonna bother with a pricing model that’s clearly telling me to go look elsewhere as a solo dev
I’ve had the same experience. I really want something of this quality that is accessible to hobbyists or folks managing non revenue generating things — any kind of social organization could really benefit!
I haven’t used Glide yet, but I’ve worked extensively with other ‘front-end interfaces for Airtable and Spreadsheets’, like Softr, Noloco and Bubble.
The first time I tried Glide, I struggled with the interface, and unfortunately, support didn’t respond to my messages, so I had to take a different direction.
That said, I’d love to give Glide a try. It’s incredible that we have direct access to founders like you here on HN.
Congrats on your success! From your perspective, where do you see no-code and low-code heading, especially with AI dramatically lowering the barriers to coding?
Thank you! Please let me know how your second attempt goes.
AI and no code platforms will merge into new high-level software creation tools. We already view Glide as a hybrid—try our AI component for the bottoms-up view. Our top-down AI approach will soon be live in our onboarding.
I favorited it back then. Glad to see it's doing well, it looks like a cool product. I haven't found a reason to use it yet but that's also because I have slowed down on coding personal projects after work in general.
This is not true. We don’t build apps for customers, although there are Glide agencies that we match customers with. We’ve learned that some businesses prefer to pay for someone else to build for them no matter the platform, so we’re happy to facilitate that given our agency ecosystem.
We specialize in creating custom software for businesses in your exact same situation at https://glideapps.com, and we have a large community of consultants who can build for you as you develop an in-house capacity. Our top experts can build a POC for you starting around $5k if you want to quickly test the platform–you can get a quote here: https://www.glideapps.com/solutions
In Glide, we avoid code and syntax as much as possible. Our table-driven programming model also creates a nice MVC-like separation of concerns where you don’t end up with your program chaotically interspersed with controls on a canvas, so your program is easier to manage as it scales (in exchange for being less direct to create).