Appsmith Review 2025: Key Features, Pricing, Pros & Cons

Appsmith is an open-source platform for building internal apps and tools quickly and easily. It shares some similarities with many low-code tools in the market in terms of use cases, but it stands out for being fully extensible via source code.

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In this article, we will: 

• Discuss its key features
• Break down its pricing model
• Highlight its pros and cons
• Compare it with top competitors to see how it stacks up

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Let’s get started!

What is Appsmith?

As we mentioned, Appsmith is an open-source low-code platform built to help developers and teams quickly build internal tools. It provides essential building blocks like UI components, database connectors, and API integrations so teams can create admin panels, analytics dashboards, and other internal apps without spending weeks (or months) on development.

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Unlike no-code platforms that prioritize non-developers, Appsmith is built for engineers. It offers a code-friendly experience with JavaScript support, Git-based version control, and deep integrations, making it a great fit for technical teams that want flexibility without sacrificing control. 

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Since it's open source, devs can self-host it. However, if preferred, a managed version is available for both the free and enterprise tiers.

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We’ll dive deeper into pricing and features later in the review, but for now, let’s explore some of the use cases of Appsmith.

Appsmith use cases and ideal scenarios

If your team is constantly juggling spreadsheets, manually pulling reports, or struggling with outdated internal dashboards, Appsmith can help. 

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Here are some of the most common ways teams use it:

• Internal dashboards: Appsmith is used to create dashboards for monitoring operations, sales data, or product inventories. Instead of manually pulling reports, teams can connect databases and APIs to display insights.
• Admin panels & CRUD apps: Appsmith lets developers build fully functional admin panels with user authentication, data filtering, and role-based access controls.
• Rapid prototyping: Appsmith’s drag-and-drop UI and JavaScript logic make it easy to build, test, and iterate on before committing to a full-scale development project.
• Custom business workflows: Appsmith allows companies to build workflows, including HR approval systems, ticketing apps, and reporting tools for finance teams.

Key features of Appsmith

Like most modern low-code platforms, Appsmith comes packed with essential features to help developers build apps quickly. 

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Here’s a breakdown of its core capabilities:

• Drag-and-drop UI builder: Appsmith provides a visual UI builder with a library of 45+ pre-built widgets (tables, charts, forms, lists, etc.) for quickly assembling interfaces.
• Database & API integrations: It supports broad data source connectivity out of the box. It has native integrations for popular databases (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MySQL, MS SQL, Redis, Snowflake, and more)​ and can connect to any REST or GraphQL API endpoint.
• Code extensibility with JavaScript: Devs can use {{ }} syntax or the built-in JS editor to write JavaScript code that transforms data, validates inputs, or triggers actions.
• Built-in Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): You can invite users to your Appsmith workspace and assign roles (Viewer, Developer, Administrator, etc.) to govern what they can access or edit.
• Security features: Enterprise plans provide advanced security features like SAML/OpenID SSO integration, SCIM user provisioning, and audit logs for tracking user activities.
• Version control: Developers can sync their apps to a Git repository. They can use branches, commit changes, review pull requests, and merge updates just like any other codebase. 
• Deployment: Use Appsmith Cloud for a turnkey solution or self-host the platform on your own infrastructure via Docker, Kubernetes, or an air-gapped server.

Pros of Appsmith

• Ease of use and rapid development: Appsmith offers an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that eliminates the need to write UI code, allowing developers to focus on functionality.
• Rich integrations: The wide range of native integrations and support for any REST API enables teams to unify data from multiple systems without extensive backend development.
• Flexibility with code: Appsmith embraces code for those who need it. The ability to inject JavaScript for custom logic, create custom widgets, or import libraries, makes Appsmith highly extensible for a low-code tool.
• Open-source and cost-effective: The community edition provides a full feature set at no cost, benefiting small teams and startups. Even the Business plan is quite affordable at $15 per month per user.
• Active community and improvements: Appsmith has an active contributor community and the platform is under continuous development. New features and bug fixes roll out regularly​.

Cons of Appsmith

• Missing advanced features: It doesn’t have a built-in dark mode, advanced visualizations, and native streaming integrations.
• Performance and UI responsiveness: Since much of Appsmith runs in the browser, data-intensive applications may encounter front-end performance limitations, resulting in slow loading times or widget rendering for complex pages or large datasets.
• Learning curve for best practices: Structuring apps for maintainability, managing state across many widgets, or optimizing performance with JavaScript requires a developer mindset. Non-technical users might find these advanced concepts challenging without engineering help.

Customer reviews and community feedback

Overall, Appsmith enjoys high user satisfaction. For example, it scores around 4.7/5 on G2 from dozens of reviews. 

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Users frequently highlight:

• The productivity boost: Many love that you can build functional apps without writing code for the UI and focus on logic, thanks to the intuitive drag-and-drop interface​.
• The time-to-value: Its versatile integrations, simplified data handling, and UI building blocks mean teams can ship tools in hours.
• Affordability: The open-source, cost-free aspect gets nods in reviews.

No product is perfect, and Appsmith has its share of critiques:

• Slow performance for large apps: Users from G2 note that the platform “can be slow or buggy at times”, especially when dealing with heavy data or numerous widgets​.
• It still lacks certain features: Some users wish for more UI components, more chart types, a more refined mobile responsive mode, etc. There have been mentions of the absence of conveniences like a one-click dark mode toggle or more granular user permissions on the free tier.

Appsmith pricing

Appsmith’s Community Edition is completely free and open-source. You can self-host it with unlimited users​. The tiered plans include Free, Business, and Enterprise plans.

Free plan

The free plan costs $0 and is geared towards individuals and small teams. It includes:

• Up to 5 users on the cloud workspace
• 5 app workspaces
• Basic Git version control (up to 3 repos)
• Google OAuth SSO
• 3 predefined roles for access control

Business plan

The Business plan is priced at $15 per user per month (billed monthly) and lifts most limits​. A business subscription supports up to 99 users and unlimited app workspaces, which is suitable for medium-sized teams. 

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It includes:

• Unlimited Git repos and environments 
• Appsmith’s Workflows for automating tasks or cron jobs
• Reusable Packages for sharing custom code or widgets across apps
• Customizable RBAC
• Audit logs for tracking changes and user actions in an organization​.
• Ability to remove Appsmith branding from their apps
• Official email/chat support

At $15/user, this plan is competitively priced given the feature set, especially compared to proprietary competitors that often charge more per seat.

Enterprise plan

For large organizations, the Enterprise plan is offered at a flat $2,500 per month for up to 100 users (roughly $25/user) with custom pricing available for larger deployments. 

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The Enterprise tier includes everything in Business plus:

• SAML and OIDC SSO for integration with corporate identity providers
• SCIM provisioning for automated user and group management​
• Support for CI/CD integrations 
• App embedding in private portals with shared authentication
• An Airgapped edition for fully offline, on-premise installations as an add-on
• An option for Managed Hosting on dedicated infrastructure also as an add-on​
• Custom integrations for any specific internal systems needed
• Dedicated support with SLAs

Essentially, Enterprise is tailored for mission-critical use in large enterprises that need enhanced security, deployment flexibility, and support guarantees.

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In terms of value for money, Appsmith scores well, especially given that even the free tier includes critical features like Git version control and basic SSO​. However, organizations should also consider the internal cost of using Appsmith. Self-hosting requires DevOps effort and an infrastructure budget.

Comparison with top competitors

To understand how Appsmith stacks up, let’s compare it with three other platforms used to build internal tools: Superblocks, Mendix and Retool.

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Below is a side-by-side comparison across key factors:

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Let’s take a closer look at how they compare:

• Open source vs proprietary: Appsmith is the only fully open-source platform among these which gives it an edge in flexibility and cost for those willing to self-manage​. For similar benefits, Superblocks takes a hybrid approach. Our OPA is fully open-source. Teams can inspect, audit, and modify it before deploying it within their infrastructure. Additionally, since the apps you build within the platform are fully exportable, you can host and manage them outside Superblocks cloud if needed. Mendix and Retool are fully closed source.
• UI and ease of use: Mendix has a steeper learning curve and a heavier IDE. In contrast, Superblocks, Appsmith, and Retool are optimized for quick assembly of internal UIs by developers. 
• Integrations: Superblocks and Retool have the broadest set of one-click integrations, covering many third-party services out of the box​. If using Mendix, you have to build those integrations in using REST calls or find a module in their marketplace.
• Extensibility: All platforms allow custom coding to some extent, but the approach differs. Appsmith/Retool lets you drop into code (JS, SQL) directly in the app editor.
  Superblocks also leans this way, allowing code and even full workflow scripts (e.g., writing Python for automation). Mendix, however, abstracts most logic into its visual model and only calls external code for specific needs.‍
• Performance: Superblocks touts an advantage for large apps because it runs queries and logic on the server, not the client, which can reduce latency for heavy operations. Appsmith and Retool run JS in-browser which could impact large apps​. ‍
• Enterprise features: These tools come with user management, version control, staging, SSO, RBAC, and audit logs.

Appsmith vs Superblocks (a faster, more developer-friendly alternative)

Both Superblocks and Appsmith enable rapid internal app development but have different approaches that might matter for your use case.

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For starters, Appsmith’s open-source nature gives you the freedom to customize both your deployments and the app builder itself. That’s great for teams that want full control from the ground up, but it does come with trade-offs. 

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If your team doesn't have the engineering resources or budget to manage a self-hosted deployment, it may not be the most feasible option.

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Now, if speed is the priority, say your team needs to ship an internal tool or a mini app ASAP, Superblocks will get you there faster.

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Instead of self-hosting the entire platform, you get an OPA — a lightweight stateless Docker container that runs all execution logic and keeps your data inside your network. The OPA is easier to deploy and is also significantly lighter on your infrastructure. And if you’re worried about lock-in, the agent is open-source, so you can inspect, modify, and self-host it if needed.

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There are also some key feature differences to keep in mind when you’re evaluating these two platforms. Superblocks offers native streaming support, stronger workflow automation, and a more developer-friendly coding experience built right into the platform.

So, is Appsmith right for your enterprise?

While Appsmith and Superblocks can co-exist as options, there are certain scenarios where Superblocks might be a better choice for enterprise use:

• Need for integrated workflows and automation: If your enterprise use case isn’t just building UI apps, but also involves heavy automation (scheduled jobs, multi-step workflows, triggers responding to events), Superblocks provides a built-in framework for that alongside the UI builder​.
• Real-time data apps or streaming requirements: For use cases like live dashboards (financial tickers, IoT monitoring, live logs), Superblocks’ native support for streaming updates (via integrations like Kafka) is a strong advantage​.
• Advanced DevOps integration: You can manage app history using your Git repository, write automated tests, and integrate with your existing CI/CD pipelines.
• Minimal internal maintenance: If your enterprise lacks the capacity or desire to self-host and maintain an open-source tool, Superblocks offers a more hands-off experience. We manage uptime, scaling, and backups, and you get SLAs for reliability. 

Choose Superblocks’ flexibility and transparency

Appsmith has proven itself in both startups and enterprises, with companies like Strapi, GSK, and Block using it for internal tools. If you’re looking for a fully self-hosted solution or want to fork and customize your UI builder, Appsmith is a solid choice.

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But if the use cases we covered earlier sound more like what you need, Superblocks might be the better fit.

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Our goal is to give our users the security and scalability of a managed platform with the transparency and control of open-source components where it matters most. We make it really easy to consolidate your internal tools under one platform that’s easy to use, govern, and extend with code.

‍We do this through several key features:

• Over 100 reusable components: Beautiful and extensible components that simplify the development process for developers at all levels of expertise.
• Visual workflow builder: Build automations using a visual flowchart UI where you can chain actions together without writing extensive code.
• Full code extensibility: Use JavaScript, SQL, and Python for fine-grained control over execution logic or customize UIs with React.
• 60+ native integrations: Our 60+ native integrations allow you to instantly connect to databases, cloud storage, and SaaS tools.
• On-Premise Agent: Anchor all your data within your own infrastructure with the on-premise agent. All the benefits of the cloud, but nothing leaves your network.
• DevOps support: Use Git-based version control, CI/CD integrations, and automated testing for smooth deployments.
• RBAC: Set roles and permissions to control who has access to your apps, data sources, workflows, and more.
• Audit logs: Gain full visibility into any app edits, workflow runs, or account modifications.
• Observability: Pipe logs, metrics, and traces directly into Datadog, New Relic, Splunk, or your observability stack.

If you’d like to see these features in practice, take a look at our Quickstart guide, or better yet try Superblocks for free.