[HN Gopher] Show HN: ToolJet 2.0 - Open-source alternative to Po...
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       Show HN: ToolJet 2.0 - Open-source alternative to Power Apps and
       Retool
        
       Author : navaneethpk
       Score  : 148 points
       Date   : 2023-01-10 11:33 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | haolez wrote:
       | I wanted to use ToolJet in my company, but SSO has been playing
       | an important role for my company's security and compliance needs,
       | even though we have only around 100 people. I'm getting lazy to
       | adopt any product that doesn't provide that to me (for a
       | reasonable price).
       | 
       | In the case of no/low-code tools, Budibase[1] offers SSO on its
       | open source edition, which makes it easier for me to adopt it and
       | gain confidence in the product before committing to an enterprise
       | plan with obscure prices and shady sales techniques.
       | 
       | But it's a shame, since the competitors in this space are awesome
       | (ToolJet, AppSmith, NocoDB, Baserow, etc) but rarely consider SSO
       | as a simple and basic feature. They usually put SSO as an
       | enterprise feature in the highest price tier possible.
       | 
       | Btw, Grist[2] is another honorable mention in this space with
       | open source support for SSO.
       | 
       | [1]https://budibase.com/
       | 
       | [2]https://www.getgrist.com/
        
         | nrjames wrote:
         | Whenever I see mysterious Enterprise pricing and that's the
         | only tier with SSO... I don't even both investigating the
         | project because it creates significant hurdles to learn whether
         | I even would be allowed to use it at work. If you want SSO to
         | be part of an Enterprise pricing package, at least publish the
         | Enterprise rate on the website.
        
           | dgudkov wrote:
           | Enterprise rates are usually negotiated individually with
           | each customer and therefore not published. Enterprise sales
           | are a different world.
        
         | [deleted]
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | rishabhkaul1 wrote:
         | Hey! Rishabh from Appsmith here. Thanks for mentioning
         | Appsmith!
         | 
         | Just to clarify, at Appsmith, we offer SSO (OIDC, SAML) in our
         | paid plan (appsmith.com/pricing) - where you pay a maximum of
         | $20/user/month (with many customers paying lesser than that as
         | they add more users). Infact it's the only plan we have. Do
         | check it out.
        
           | rishabhkaul1 wrote:
           | For forgot to mention, Google and Github SSO are part of the
           | Appsmith community edition.
           | 
           | The other thing to also note is that we don't put a limit on
           | the number of users that can be added to the paid plan. This
           | doesn't apply to Tooljet coz it only has custom pricing, but
           | with the other players you will notice that typically you get
           | upgraded to either a higher tier plan or a higher minimum $
           | commitment, as you add more users, even if you don't want the
           | features of those higher tiers.
        
       | brunoqc wrote:
       | ToolJet should be added to https://sso.tax/.
        
         | jonas-w wrote:
         | https://github.com/robchahin/sso-wall-of-shame/issues
        
         | vosper wrote:
         | Should it? It doesn't have paid-but-no-SSO tiers. It only has
         | "free" or "paid which includes SSO". So I don't think it's fair
         | to say there's an SSO tax with this one. I don't think we get
         | to expect SSO on free things.
         | 
         | I don't love mysterious "enterprise" pricing, but I don't know
         | if there's a wall of shame for that :)
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | navaneethpk wrote:
       | Hi HN,
       | 
       | Founder here, ToolJet's story began when I launched beta version
       | of ToolJet in June 2021 on HackerNews ([https://news.ycombinator.
       | com/item?id=27421408](https://news....). It was very overwhelming
       | to see the repository getting more than a thousand GitHub stars
       | within less than 8 hours of launch. Since then we've grown into
       | 16,000 stars and 300 contributors on GitHub. 1000s of teams are
       | now using ToolJet to build and maintain their internal tools.
       | 
       | Today, we are excited to launch ToolJet 2.0.
       | 
       | We believe that any piece of software that has access to
       | sensitive data of companies/people should be open-source and
       | hosted on premises. Along with a strong focus on data privacy,
       | we've also made sure that ToolJet as a platform is extremely
       | flexible.
       | 
       | What is ToolJet?
       | 
       | ToolJet is an *open-source low-code framework* to build and
       | deploy internal tools quickly. Those who already understands the
       | low-code landscape, ToolJet is an open-source alternative to
       | Microsoft Power Apps and Retool. ToolJet has integrations with
       | data sources, such as databases (like PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MS SQL
       | Server, SnowFlake, etc), API endpoints (with support for OAuth2
       | authorization), external services ( Airtable, Stripe, Slack,
       | Google Sheets, Notion, etc) and even cloud storage services ( S3,
       | GCS, Minio ).
       | 
       | What's new?
       | 
       | - Redesigned every screen with a heavy focus on user experience.
       | - Added in-built no-code database. This feature is built on top
       | of PostgreSQL so that the self-hosted users can take advantage of
       | capabilities of SQL as well. - Support for multi-page
       | applications. - Realtime multiplayer editing so that changes from
       | one user will not override the changes from another user. -
       | Support for using Python ( along with already supported
       | JavaScript ). You can use Python even for interacting with UI
       | components. - Every installation of ToolJet can now have multiple
       | workspaces. Each workspace can have their own SSO config and
       | users. - ToolJet now has more than 50 data source integrations.
       | You can also build custom connectors for ToolJet using our Plugin
       | Development Kit (
       | [https://www.npmjs.com/package/@tooljet/cli](https://www.npmj...
       | ). - We added a bunch of new UI components. Even complicated ones
       | like Calendar and Kanban board. You can also import your own
       | React components and use them within ToolJet apps. - ToolJet is
       | now available in 8 languages including Spanish, Italian, German,
       | French & Russian. - More test coverage using Cypress. We now have
       | dedicated team members for improving test coverage.
       | 
       | We are still very early in our journey and there is a lot more to
       | build. Constant feedback from the open-source community is the
       | reason why we are here, any feedback is appreciated and happy to
       | answer any questions.
        
         | farseer wrote:
         | The free tier has no "user groups & roles". Practically what
         | does that mean?
        
           | navaneethpk wrote:
           | Sorry, looks like a mistake. What free tier misses is only
           | the granular access control. Fixing it asap.
        
         | pritambaral wrote:
         | One thing I find missing in every such platform (except Retool)
         | is a user editable code library. It's one thing to be able run
         | code in query transformation and widgets, another thing to be
         | able to organise common code patterns into functions and use
         | them in multiple query transforms and widgets. Once an app
         | grows large enough, this becomes really important. Otherwise,
         | there's always a build-up of copied and pasted code that's a
         | nightmare to update (or even use) later.
         | 
         | The best I could find was just this: "ToolJet allows you to
         | internally utilize the Moment, Lodash, and Axios libraries".
         | But what if that's not enough? What if I need another library
         | to use? I know, I can add it to a fork I self-host, but that's
         | still not "user editable".
        
           | navaneethpk wrote:
           | We are working on this actively. npm packages and Python
           | packages from Micropip will be supported soon.
           | 
           | Organising queries: yes, this is also on our roadmap but yet
           | to prioritise. Thanks for the detailed feedback.
        
         | darkteflon wrote:
         | Congratulations on the 2.0 launch! This looks interesting.
         | We're considering something like this internally. Could you
         | talk a bit about the differences - if any - between the self-
         | hosted version and the hosted version, and what the plan is
         | with respect to feature parity going forward?
        
           | navaneethpk wrote:
           | The differences are listed out here:
           | https://www.tooljet.com/pricing. Cloud deployment are usually
           | a few days delayed, features are very similar.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | thedangler wrote:
         | Anyway you can enlighten me on how to distinguish between Users
         | to build the apps and users that will use the apps? I got lost
         | in the documentation. I'm assuming there are different kind of
         | users. Users that build the apps and outside users that
         | register to use the app, if publicly facing.
        
           | navaneethpk wrote:
           | You can create user groups and give permissions to specific
           | apps. Permissions are either "view" or "edit". If given
           | "view" permission, the user will not be able to make changes
           | to the application.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | grantc wrote:
         | Curious why AGPL was the optimal license choice? As a license,
         | it will preclude a number of the same companies that would want
         | to run it on-premise for data security reasons. (Some large
         | companies that might have the same need to run on-prem or
         | private cloud, also blanket won't approve GPL/AGPL licenses.)
        
           | navaneethpk wrote:
           | We've written about this choice on our blog in detail:
           | https://blog.tooljet.com/changing-license-to-agpl/.
        
       | bitlad wrote:
       | I have seen appsmith and tooljet in the space. Played around with
       | them for a while. What I am super scared of is pricing. Though it
       | is free and opensource. I love that, moment you ask me to pay. I
       | am going to opt Retool as it is more enterprise ready from
       | perception wise. Even superblocks that cloned and copied
       | appsmith, I am willing to pay for them as there is trust of some
       | sorts as they have certain upfront pricing. Not having upfront
       | cost can. be very deceptive.
        
         | rishabhkaul1 wrote:
         | Do check out appsmith.com/pricing , we've tried to be upfront,
         | happy to answer any questions you might have :)
        
       | jeffhollan wrote:
       | This is very cool! Added to my list of stuff to play with next
       | time I have some cycles
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | newmac wrote:
       | My question is a bit of a non sequitur, but I noticed that your
       | project took off pretty quickly out of the gate. Congrats!
       | 
       | I am curious what non-HN places have resulted in that level of
       | interest in the project?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | navaneethpk wrote:
         | Reddit has given us a lot of users. Especially r/selfhosted.
        
       | satvikpendem wrote:
       | How does it compare with AppSmith and Budibase?
        
         | omnibrain wrote:
         | Half a year ago I evaluated various low/no code tools and
         | settled for Budibase in the process. I can't say much about
         | ToolJet because I could not get the docker container to run on
         | my MacBook Pro (M1) back then. I really liked the form editor
         | and the inbuilt table control of AppSmith. But as I had to
         | build something for a customer where various (external) users
         | could access some data I chose Budbase, because it supports
         | lots of users in a few different roles.
         | 
         | The inbuilt database was also something only Budibase offered
         | back then. But that's something ToolJet also offers
         | (nowadays?).
        
       | metadat wrote:
       | Previous discussions:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31263487 (May 2022, 12
       | comments)
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27421408 (June 2021, 68
       | comments)
        
       | AnhTho_FR wrote:
       | It's amazing to see the landscape of open-source internal tool
       | maturing, this release of tooljet look great. There are also
       | other tools like windmill.dev that support complex workflows and
       | serverless endpoints, and budibase that focus on no-code
       | administration panel. The future is open-source!
        
         | jstephan wrote:
         | I've also been a happy user of Windmill.dev. I guess ToolJet
         | has more of a low-code focus with their drag and drop builder,
         | while Windmill is more focused on developers who want to turn
         | their scripts into production workflows.
         | 
         | Very excited to see all these open-source projects take off in
         | the internal tooling space. I regret how much time I spent
         | building custom DIY tooling at previous jobs!
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | GICodeWarrior wrote:
       | How can ToolJet relicense AGPL contributions to a less
       | restrictive license?
       | 
       | The code is AGPL and accepts volunteer contributions under that
       | license.
       | 
       | https://github.com/ToolJet/ToolJet/blob/develop/CONTRIBUTING...
       | 
       | However, in their AGPL announcement it says:
       | 
       | > We do have a commercial license that overrides the AGPL
       | license. This commercial license allows organizations to make
       | changes to ToolJet and provide it as a service.
       | 
       | https://blog.tooljet.com/changing-license-to-agpl/#what-some...
       | 
       | Does the hosted ToolJet service include unreleased code,
       | leveraging this commercial license?
       | 
       | Every volunteer contributor would need to agree to relicensing
       | and/or would need to have previously agreed to assign their
       | copyright to ToolJet, right?
        
         | navaneethpk wrote:
         | Contributors have to agree to a contributor license agreement
         | (CLA) when they create their first PR.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | tylersgordon wrote:
       | Wow this is really impressive! It has improved so much. Best low-
       | code tool out there right now.
        
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       (page generated 2023-01-11 23:00 UTC)