My partner and I are trying to understand how developers/makers build web applications.
Do you start development from scratch? Or would you use a low-code development platform?
When previously building applications, we’ve experienced a lot of repetition which annoyed the crap out of us.
So we have spent the last year building a SaaS builder - Budibase
Budibase is an app builder which eliminates repetition, speeds up development, and allows you the freedom to use your own UI. We’re also going to open source it.
The product is not launched yet but we thought we’d seek validation from the Dev.to community. Do you feel this is a good idea?
Is this something you would consider when building your next application?
Your answers are appreciated and will help us decide the future of Budibase.
Cheers and thanks for taking the time to help us out. Hopefully we'll be able to repay the favour!
Top comments (5)
What part of the stack are you providing to developers ? Backend ? I am having also trouble understanding how things fit together. Perhaps give us some more concrete examples of how one would use your platform so we can give you the feedback you need.
Hi Giorgos. We really appreciate your comment. Thank you.
Stack:
All javascript. Nodejs web server. For front end, we will be framework agnostic, as we want anyone to use whatever framework they like to write custom ui. Currently, the only library dependency of the core framework is lodash.
It will also be mostly Database agnostic... any key value or document store can be used (including file storage). Our hosted version will use Azure Blob Storage
How does it fit together:
With budibase, we aim to cover... Data Model design, Data Validation Rules, Search, Data Object Relationships, User Management include Configurable user levels/roles, Data aggregation (stats like sums, counts etc)... all this configured using a user interface.
Then, we want to be able to generate no-code UI for all this - but allowing you to add your own UI where you need it, using the framework of your choice.
Use Cases:
Budi can help build most web apps (depending on scale). It's particularly fitting for small apps and MVPs. The aim is to take away most of the backend and pain points with transforming a SaaS idea into an app.
I hope this answers your questions.
We will open source the builder so if you're interested please signup.
Have a great day.
This is interesting endeanour, I believe there should be other services like this but I am not an expert on javascript related stacks. What does it set it apart from other similar services ?
I would be very interested in beta testing if you need beta testers.
I'm having trouble understanding. Can you write up a tutorial/showcase on a todo app? Maybe incorporate the user management feature too.
Hi Anton. Thank you for your response. We are currently finishing off the builder and we intend on using it to build showcase apps. These will incorporate the user management feature too.
Thanks for your feedback. We understand there's little info on the website but we're currently writing tech docs. For more tech info, see other comment.