Great question! Against Airtable, primarily in two ways:
1. We are _not_ a system of record, and do not store any data. We'll connect to your data, no matter where it is (e.g. postgres, your own API, Stripe, etc.)
2. We are primarily for building complex UIs, not for simple spreadsheets. If you're looking for a spreadsheet for your database, there are lots of other options (e.g. postico). But if you're looking to build a UI (perhaps you only want some columns to be editable, or don't want to expose the whole database as a spreadsheet), you should use Retool.
To give a concrete example of a good Airtable use case: let's say you join a new company and have a list of friends that you admire and want to try and recruit. You'd probably use an Airtable for that. Retool is probably overkill here because you'd have to setup a database to store your friends, which probably doesn't make sense.
To give a concrete example of a Retool use case: let's say you're Doordash, and you want to manage all the orders in your database (e.g. you want cancel an order because the restaurant is closed). The only safe way for your support team to do that is you build an internal front-end for it. To do that, you're either writing React (or Angular, or Vue), or using Retool. Airtable probably wouldn't work here because Doordash is not storing their orders in an Airtable.
Against Metabase: we're primarily used for applications that both read and write data. If you're looking for some charts or tables that only read, I'd recommend Metabase (or Chartio, Looker, Redash, etc.). But if you want to write data back via Metabase (i.e. the CUD in CRUD), it's impossible without building a custom React app.
You mention support for complex UIs, but Retool only ships with a basic table, and no built-in support for Data Grids. Something to consider when it comes to building richer page experiences. I would presume you intend to add more standard components as Retool continues to mature.
Current Retool customer here. We had this concern as well and we're supporting it with a custom component. Retool has been immensely helpful in planning, developing and supporting us in the engagement.
Due to Retool, we've essentially overhauled 60+ 10MB Excel sheets that we had to generate,distribute consolidate for a business planning function into a single app that supports by-user profile settings with 2 guys that are decent Excel/SQL guys but by no means devs.
Strong data grid, and Retool will start eating into "Excel as a front-end" market.
Thanks. Since it doesnt store data, which is excellent, does it still cache them for performance? If it does, would that still fall under the radar of GDPR?
1. We are _not_ a system of record, and do not store any data. We'll connect to your data, no matter where it is (e.g. postgres, your own API, Stripe, etc.)
2. We are primarily for building complex UIs, not for simple spreadsheets. If you're looking for a spreadsheet for your database, there are lots of other options (e.g. postico). But if you're looking to build a UI (perhaps you only want some columns to be editable, or don't want to expose the whole database as a spreadsheet), you should use Retool.
To give a concrete example of a good Airtable use case: let's say you join a new company and have a list of friends that you admire and want to try and recruit. You'd probably use an Airtable for that. Retool is probably overkill here because you'd have to setup a database to store your friends, which probably doesn't make sense.
To give a concrete example of a Retool use case: let's say you're Doordash, and you want to manage all the orders in your database (e.g. you want cancel an order because the restaurant is closed). The only safe way for your support team to do that is you build an internal front-end for it. To do that, you're either writing React (or Angular, or Vue), or using Retool. Airtable probably wouldn't work here because Doordash is not storing their orders in an Airtable.
Against Metabase: we're primarily used for applications that both read and write data. If you're looking for some charts or tables that only read, I'd recommend Metabase (or Chartio, Looker, Redash, etc.). But if you want to write data back via Metabase (i.e. the CUD in CRUD), it's impossible without building a custom React app.