Ready to get started?
Try it free, or book a demo with an expert to learn how you can deliver internal apps 10x faster with Superblocks.
4.8/5
Innovative Enterprises Choose Superblocks Over Retool
Unlike Retool, Superblocks combines the speed of low code with the flexibility of full code ownership, giving you zero vendor lock-in, limitless customization, and freedom from costly, legacy on-premise deployments.
Join 1,000s of Enterprises on Superblocks
“Self-hosting Retool required running 6 RDS databases across 3 VPCs. Switching to the Superblocks On-Premise Agent has allowed us to seamlessly build apps across multiple VPCs with minimal additional overhead, maximizing our ROI.”
Nadeesha Cabral
SVP of Engineering, me&u
Why are enterprises choosing Superblocks over Retool?
Self-hosting without compromising ROI
The Superblocks AI co-engineer allows you to build your UI, write code, and more using natural language, enabling more junior developers to build faster with zero learning curve.
Zero vendor lock-in
Under the hood, every Superblocks app is just a React project you can modify directly or export and host yourself, ensuring your development investments are always protected.
.png)
Native AI Co-Engineer
The Superblocks AI co-engineer allows you to build your UI, write code, and more using natural language. Simply prompt, review the changes, and apply to your app.
Enterprise support & long-term partnership
Superblocks provides a best-in-class partnership, as evidenced by hundreds of 5-star reviews on G2, a near 100% CSAT, and glowing customer anecdotes.
Why Superblocks is the best alternative to Retool
 | ||
|---|---|---|
Data residency in your VPC with minimal DevOps overhead | ✓ | ✗ |
Export any application to code | ✓ | ✗ |
Designed for multi-environment, multi-cloud, and multi-region | ✓ | ✗ |
Familiar, simple, fully extensible developer experience | ✓ | ✗ |
Edit your app with natural language | ✓ | ✗ |
New features & bug fixes delivered on demand over the air | ✓ | ✗ |
Best-in-class support & partnership | ✓ | ✗ |
Don’t just take our word for it
See what developers think of Superblocks and Retool from reviews on G2 - the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace.
See the feature-by-feature breakdown
Check out the detailed analysis of Superblocks vs Retool across pricing, extensibility, performance, AI, security, SDLC, hosting, and support.
Superblocks | Retool | |
|---|---|---|
| Application Builder | ||
Drag & drop application builder Build internal UIs connected to your data via a drag & drop interface | ||
Integrate with any Database or API Integrate with any standard database or API endpoint | ||
Multi-step application APIs Program your application with multi-step business logic executed on the server-side | Multi-step APIs are composed of data source queries and language steps in NodeJS and Python for processing, all executed server-side with elastic scaling | All application queries are single-step, resulting in excess network requests and latency overhead for business logic execution |
Build real-time streaming applications Build real-time applications based on event-driven architectures like Kafka | Native support for Kafka, Kinesis, Confluent Cloud, AWS MSK, Redpanda, and other streaming platforms | No support to integrate with streaming data sources |
Open-source execution engine | The Superblocks Developer Community can contribute to the open source agent | Closed source. Need to wait on Retool to prioritize additional features |
Multi-page app structure Build complex applications with multiple pages | Feature has unclear release date | |
Static & dynamic URL routing User-defined static and dynamic URL routes for each page in an application | ||
Responsive and customizable application layouts Build responsive apps with horizontal and vertical stacks that adapt to changing screen sizes, data, and component visibility | Only in closed beta and no pixel-level control | |
| Workflow & Scheduled Job Builder | ||
Build webhooks with Workflows Invoke workflows over HTTP as webhooks | ||
Execute scheduled jobs Invoke programmatic workflows on a schedule, replacing cron jobs | ||
Build API endpoints with Workflows Build reusable programmatic workflows which can be called within applications or as REST APIs | | |
Intuitive visual builder for business logic Linear code-like UX to build custom business logic that scales as complexity increases | Convoluted flow diagram is difficult to read, maintain, and debug | |
Self-host Workflows without additional overhead No need to deploy additional services to use workflows when self-hosting | Convoluted flow diagram is difficult to read, must self-host and maintain a temporal cluster for fully on-premise deployment | |
| Extensibility with Code | ||
Write frontend JS Write frontend JavaScript that is executed within the browser | ||
Write backend code in Node.js & Python Write backend code executed on the server-side, as you would for a standard application backend | NodeJS and Python supported within Application APIs and Workflows. Import any library | Application Queries support client-side JS-only, with imports limited to packages bundled for use on the web |
Build fully-featured custom components Augment the built-in component library by developing your own custom components in React | Build fully-featured components in React, with full DOM control and the ability to share component state. Develop locally in your IDE, import any package, and bundle multiple files | React-based components are still in beta. Live custom components are written in a single HTML file in the browser, limited to an iframe with no ability to share state or interact with the DOM. Imports are limited to packages bundled for use on the web |
Build custom integrations Integrate with non-standard databases via a custom integration | Extend the open-source agent to build custom integrations | No extensibility due to closed source code |
| Performance | ||
Fast query performance on large datasets Execute queries efficiently as data volume and throughput scales | Multi-step APIs executed server-side provide horizontal scalability and elastic compute, ensuring minimal network requests and data transfer | Client-side code execution is limited by browser CPU and memory, resulting in increased latency & overhead for app loading and query processing |
Global edge caching network Cache applications globally to reduce app latency | Apps are cached at the edge across US West (Oregon), US East (N. Virginia), EU (Ireland), Middle East (Bahrain), & Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) | No edge caching available |
| Generative AI | ||
Fully-featured AI copilot across languages AI Copilot to write, edit, debug, and explain code | JavaScript, Python, SQL, JSON, HTML | JavaScript, SQL |
User-friendly AI integrations Native integration with AI services with user-friendly methods and parameters | ||
Copilot for REST API calls AI Copilot to integrate with REST APIs | GraphQL only | |
Generate mock data with AI Use AI to generate mock data when building applications | ||
| Enterprise Security | ||
Granular permissions (RBAC) Control access to tools granularly with role-based access controls | ||
SSO / SAML / SCIM Use SAML and other protocols for identity and access management & synchronize user management with your IdP using SCIM | ||
Audit logs Retain a history of user actions taken within the platform | ||
Secrets managers with cloud & self-hosting Integrate with your preferred secrets manager to keep credentials secure | AWS Secrets Manager, Google Secret Manager, Hashicorp Vault | Supported for self-hosted, Amazon-based deployments only |
Security extensions Extend with custom security policies | Agent can be extended with custom security layer code | No extensions possible |
Security auditability Audit the platform's source code for bugs and vulnerabilities | Agent source code is available on GitHub. Run your own security scanners, auditable by security teams | Closed source code cannot be audited |
| Software Development Lifecycle | ||
Source control with Git Integrate with your git provider to sync changes for code review and CI/CD | ||
Commit previews Create and preview commits, then deploy to production | Not supported natively. Developers must manually set up separate dev environments and keep them in sync | |
Integrate with multiple environments through a single deployment Configure integrations to dynamically work with multiple development environments and regions without needing to deploy separate instances | Seamlessly leverage Profiles to connect to different environments and regions, enabling apps to query across VPCs | Dedicated Retool on-premise stack must be deployed into each VPC, resulting in large DevOps overhead and expense |
Production observability Integrate tools with observability platforms to track metrics, traces, and logs | Integrate with your preferred observability provider, such as Datadog, Elastic Cloud, AWS OpenSearch, Kafka, Confluent Cloud and more | |
| Hosting | ||
Keep data in customer network Ensure sensitive data never leaves your VPC | Using the Superblocks open-source, stateless On-Prem Agent | Using a fully on-premise installation including custom vendor databases |
US and EU cloud hosting Cloud-hosted offering is available in US and EU regions | US & EU hosting regions | |
On-premise deployment effort The level of effort required to deploy the software | Negligible. 5 min to deploy a lightweight, stateless agent to keep data within your private network | High. Complex on-premise installation that includes managing databases and migrations |
Platform upgrade effort The frequency and level of effort associated with on-premise upgrades | Negligible. Access new features without upgrading your agent. Upgrades are simple, comparable to the initial deployment | High. Full upgrades are required to access new features and critical security and bug fixes. Upgrades are expensive and require complex database migrations with downtime |
| Customer Support | ||
Live chat with technical support from engineer | ||
Extended support hours | ||
Recognized by G2 for best support | ||
