A brief introduction to Glide
Glide is a no-code platform quickly gaining popularity for allowing users to create aesthetically pleasing and highly functional mobile and web apps from existing data and spreadsheets, or using their built-in database offerings. Its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, supported by AI capabilities, allows users to design sleek-looking and functional apps quickly without requiring any coding skills.
This accessibility makes Glide comparable to platforms like Airtable, Bubble, Budibase, and Outsystems, which also cater well to non-developers looking to build polished applications swiftly. Compared to similar platforms, Glide’s pricing plans are significantly more affordable (even after their latest pricing changes in November of 2024), making it more appealing to growing SMBs and startups on a budget.
While Glide offers some low-code features for enhancing customizability (which we’ll talk about a bit later in the article), the support for writing custom code is not comprehensive, which is an important drawback limiting its appeal to developers or companies requiring advanced functionalities and detailed control over their workflows.
Although Glide emphasizes its suitability for enterprise use, especially with its security features and support for SQL-based data sources, this claim must be viewed within the context of the intended use cases and which team members will be building them. Looking at Glide’s enterprise case studies, you’ll notice they often focus on high-impact, small-to-medium scale applications., like budgeting apps, field operations, and QA process digitalization, built by non-engineering teams and business users. As we discuss in this post, we found Glide currently has important limitations in customization features, data manipulation, and complex workflow design which suggest that Glide may not fully meet the needs of more demanding enterprise applications that are essential for critical business workflows.
Glide's core strengths lie in its accessibility, appealing design and quick development times, making it ideal for small to medium-sized businesses, startups, and non-developers aiming to create internal tools, MVPs, simple dashboards, and mobile apps for tasks like field operations, data dashboards, and customer support. Moreover, we would argue that it offers one of the more sophisticated mobile app builders out of competitors.
Key Features and Limitations
Backend: Integration with SQL Data Sources and Native Data Storage for Up to 10M Rows
The details: Glide originally started as a front-end builder for data stored in Google Sheets. It has since evolved to offer native integration and real-time synchronization with various data sources, including Google Sheets, Airtable, and SQL-based databases like PostgreSQL, enabling users to query their data using SQL. Similar to other “fullstack” builders, Glide has the ability to combine multiple data sources within a single application, allowing users to connect data without needing to store it exclusively in Glide's native databases.
For those who don’t yet have a database setup, Glide provides two native data storage options: Glide Tables and Big Tables. Glide Tables are the most compatible data source for Glide apps and are optimal for smaller datasets, supporting up to 25,000 rows per database (a limit that is easy to hit). Big Tables does what it says on the tin with the ability to accommodate up to 10 million rows, making them suitable for businesses working with overloaded spreadsheets and those exceeding data limits of other no-code platforms like Airtable.
Though for every rose, there’s a thorn: due to the larger storage capacity than Glide Tables, Big Tables tend to perform slower and lack some critical features. For example, they limit the ability to perform rollups on computed columns or use those columns as filters in the user interface. These limitations can be particularly challenging for businesses—especially enterprises—looking to balance the need for extensive data storage with support for complex workflows.
Remarkably, there is no automated process for migrating data from Glide Tables to Big Tables once the row limit is exceeded (at least not yet), so upgrading requires manual data migration and reconfiguration of related components and workflows, which is a considerable hindrance to scaling apps on the platform. However, Glide has suggested they are actively working on unifying their two data sources. The goal is to merge the speed and efficiency of Glide Tables with the expansive storage capabilities of Big Tables. While this consolidation has an exciting potential, a timeline for its release has yet to be announced.
Despite these limitations, both Glide Tables and Big Tables provide accessible solutions for smaller to medium-sized companies and non-technical users who may not be comfortable setting up complex, enterprise-grade data sources like PostgreSQL or mySQL databases.
Backend: Glide’s Computed Columns - A Blessing Or A Curse?
The details: Glide offers two primary column types for data management: basic and computed columns. Basic columns are used for storing standard data types such as text, numbers, booleans, images, and files. In contrast, computed columns provide functionalities like calculations, date manipulations, and establishing relations between databases. However, unlike many no-code platforms that provide a unified "formula" column for complex data expressions, Glide segregates these functionalities into distinct computed column types, each tailored for specific operations.
Basic Column:
Computed Column:
This separation simplifies simple data manipulations, making them more accessible and user-friendly. However, it can become cumbersome for complex data manipulation, as it often requires creating multiple ‘intermediary’ columns to achieve results that other platforms, like Airtable, can manage with a single formula. An example of this is the “If - Then - Else” column where you cannot use a math expression (like a sum of two numeric fields) as the result of the statement. The workaround here without these “helper columns” is to use JavaScript (we discuss this below), but this can be too complex for some non-technical builders and can also slow performance. This approach can complicate the user experience, especially for those accustomed to more streamlined workflows in similar tools.
What’s more, the process of creating relations and setting up single or multi-select properties in Glide is typically less intuitive compared to similar tools.
The combination of these design choices results in a steeper learning curve and makes the platform more challenging to use as the complexity of the data and application increases, but also puts a firm limit on the complexity builders can achieve with their apps’ functionality.
Building: Drag-and-drop app environment (and one of the best mobile app builders)
The details: Glide's Interface Designer enables users without a design background to build modern and visually pleasing apps that function well across various devices, with a particular strength in mobile app development. Unlike many other no-code platforms, Glide inherently designs responsive mobile applications as standard, making it particularly suitable for creating mobile-focused apps such as field operations tools. This stands in contrast to platforms like Bubble, which, while capable of producing mobile-responsive web applications, are not inherently designed for mobile-first development.
In terms of the app building experience, for those familiar with other no-code tools, Glide's interface design experience might initially feel different (and potentially overwhelming) because each component is defined and managed separately. This allows more flexibility in visualizing and displaying data, however, requires more work to set up. Glide offers over 40 different UI components, which offer business users and less-technical users good design flexibility with different functionality options.
Custom CSS is available to help enhance the design, but beware it’s not possible to differentiate this CSS between mobile and web, so any custom changes could potentially affect mobile optimization.
Compared to Retool and other developer-focused tools, though, customization options, particularly in data display and design, might be somewhat limited.
Automation: Integrated automation capabilities and Glide API limitations
The details: Until the end of 2024, Glide's automation capabilities (Glide Actions) were primarily limited to user interaction triggers. Glide Actions provided a solid range of automation features, offering capabilities that were on par with—or even slightly superior to—those of other no-code tools on the market. These included preconfigured one-step actions and CRUD operations (create, read, update, delete), which could be set up directly in the UI editor or designed as more complex, conditional workflows using the Action Editor (now called the Workflows Editor). The Action Editor also offered a basic audit log for troubleshooting your automations.
In January 2025, Glide took a significant leap forward by introducing Workflows, which added new triggers and enhanced automation capabilities significantly. This update positioned Glide as one of the leaders in integrated automation engines. The key updates included:
- Scheduled Triggers: These allow automations to run on a schedule with flexible options, such as daily, weekly, monthly, or even specific days of the week or months.
- Webhooks: Webhooks enable you to initiate automations from external tools, keeping your data in sync in real-time. They can also be combined with the "Call API" action, allowing you to trigger one Glide workflow from another.
- Email Webhooks: This feature lets you trigger automations directly from emails, converting unstructured email content into structured data. For example, you can set up an automation where users email invoices to a dedicated Glide address, and the system extracts the data to create new rows in your invoicing table.
In addition to these triggers, Glide now supports advanced capabilities, such as:
- Looping through tables to process data dynamically.
- Querying tables to extract only relevant data.
- Creating multi-level conditional workflows with nested branches that run only when specific conditions are met.
- Combining loops and conditions for more sophisticated logic.
These updates have dramatically enhanced Glide's automation features, allowing users to design workflows that rival more complex automation platforms like Make and Zapier (though it’s still important to understand that Glide is not primarily an automation platform and the functionality reflects it). While user interaction triggers remain available on all plans, the advanced functionality introduced in Workflows, including additional triggers and features, is exclusive to the Business plan and above.
The platform also natively integrates with 57+ applications and allows users to trigger webhooks and API calls to services like Make, Zapier or any other tool that allows you to make a request to an HTTP endpoint. Thought, with the introduction of Glide’s Workflows, the reliance on external automation platforms has decreased significantly. Another functionality that makes Glide stand out, is the ability to build and validate JSON objects within the platform, ensuring your JSON payload is correctly formatted before you make the API call.
Glide’s API is solid, and in the final quarter of 2024, they introduced a new endpoint: the Glide Bulk API. This feature allows you to update and add data in bulk to your apps, lowering the usage of updates for high-volume operations. However, access to this feature is limited to the Enterprise (Custom) plans. A specific API limitation that we found when building is that, unlike many other no-code platforms, unless you are triggering the automation from within Glide or using a webhook to send data to other applications, Glide’s API will only retrieve basic columns. Though this might seem trivial, the inability to retrieve computed columns like relations, rollups, and calculated fields, makes using commonly used external automation tools with Glide API difficult and requires complex data manipulation to get to the desired result.
The "Get Rows" API feature, which allows you to retrieve multiple records from a database, is restricted to the Business and Enterprise plans. However, there is a difference between using this endpoint with Glide Tables and Big Tables.
When you leverage this API in Big Tables, you are able to define a query to retrieve a subset of data (for example the last 10 rows, or all sales orders from a particular month).
When you retrieve data from Glide Tables, however, you will always fetch all records in the database, without the option to retrieve a filtered subset.
This limitation is critically inconvenient, and even more so as Glide user data table can only be a Glide Table. While on the community forums there is indication that Glide is working on changing this in the future, there is no official news or confirmed dates yet.
Low code capabilities - how far can they go?
The detail: While Glide is primarily a no-code builder, it incorporates some low-code capabilities, allowing more technical users to integrate limited custom code within their applications. This includes support for CSS in UI components, providing a layer of customization for styling, and the use of JSON columns in the data editor for structuring API payloads. The third option, also restricted to the data editor, is the JavaScript computed column. This feature allows for more advanced calculations and data manipulation, providing some extended functionality that standard computed columns do not.
Finally, Glide offers a unique feature called the 'Experimental Code Column,' which allows technical users to write their own JavaScript code externally and reference it within Glide to create custom computed columns. However, with this there are a few important caveats to keep in mind. First, your code must be public for Glide to access it, so it’s crucial not to include any secrets or sensitive information. Additionally, the Experimental Column is not intended for code that performs actions; it should strictly be used for computing data or retrieving data from external services.
Although helpful for some more advanced use cases, Glide’s low-code capabilities are nowhere close to the comprehensive coding features available in more developer-focused tools like Retool or Appsmith and do not offer the depth or flexibility needed for advanced customizations that developers might need. The JavaScript column in Glide is limited to basic functionality and allows writing JavaScript with a maximum of three parameters. Additionally, the column can only return strings and some JavaScript functions might not be available. This makes Glide less suitable for complex data manipulations or building intricate workflows that more robust platforms can handle with full-fledged coding support.
As you would expect, to get around the limitations of Glide’s standard computed columns we mentioned earlier, you can use the JavaScript column to do more complex data manipulations, such as extracting the root URL from a URL, which would otherwise require 4 steps with standard computed columns.
However, it is important to understand that heavy reliance on JavaScript columns and other advanced features, like Queries, will slow down your application (and with overuse, will do so quite significantly).
Security: Granular Permissions and more
Access Roles, Visibility Conditions and Row Owners
Glide allows you to define completely custom user roles within your databases, providing flexible granular control over who can see and do what within your app. While visibility conditions allow you to show or hide components based on specific criteria, it’s important to understand that the app still downloads all the data available to it, even if users can't see it in the interface. To securely control what data users can access, you will need to combine visibility conditions and roles together with security features such as Row Owners. It is important to be aware that while Row Owners are a great security measure, they can be hard to maintain in case a complex security matrix is required (which we explain later in the article).Access, Privacy and SSO
By default, all apps are private and offer multiple layers of access control. You can restrict access to users listed in a specific table, limit access to team members, or specify allowed email domains. Additionally, Single Sign-On (SSO) integration provides an extra layer of security for enterprise environments, ensuring only authenticated users can access the app.
Who is Glide good for?
Glide is an excellent choice for small to medium sized businesses looking to design flexible and scalable web solutions with strong mobile support as it allows them to start with simple applications and low data volumes, gradually scaling up as their needs evolve. Unlike traditional custom software development, which can be expensive and time-consuming, Glide provides a cost-effective alternative that enables non-technical users to develop tailored solutions without needing coding expertise or breaking the bank, though it will require some dedicated hours to read the docs and learn the platform. It also helps avoid the rigidity and complexity often associated with off-the-shelf systems.
For startups, Glide offers a valuable platform for quickly developing Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) as it enables quick transformation of ideas into functional mobile and web applications, allowing them to focus on core functionalities, gather user feedback early in the development process, and iterate quickly and efficiently.
Despite Glide's marketing claims, we would not recommend enterprises to use Glide for any of their core applications and complex workflows nor for developers seeking extensive customization and control. While Glide provides some advanced features and scalability, it is best suited for small- to medium-scale internal tools and dashboards of low to medium complexity. It is ideal for business users transitioning from spreadsheets, non-technical users needing to build apps quickly, and startups without a dedicated tech team.
What use cases is Glide good for?
Internal tools and business dashboards of mid-complexity
Glide is an excellent choice for creating visually appealing CRUD apps that support simple, straightforward workflows. It's particularly beneficial for businesses who lack internal development resources to launch their internal tools quickly as it allows non-technical users to build apps with strong mobile support, all without requiring any coding knowledge.
Glide is also a great tool for creating simple, modern, and functional business dashboards that help businesses monitor key metrics and visualize data in an easy-to-understand format. Its intuitive drag-and-drop components enable users to easily incorporate and arrange visual elements such as charts, graphs, and tables. With Glide's ability to aggregate data from various sources you can quickly connect your data into dashboards that provide real-time insights and metrics, enabling data-driven decision-making. Though, it’s important to keep Glide’s charting limitations in mind. While you can quickly build charts on top of your data, the customization options you have are not extensive, and you need to build a dedicated reporting database to summarize the information from other tables. Finally, to build advanced charts (that you could probably build in Google Sheets), you will have to go outside of Glide.
Mobile (Field) Apps
Glide has one of the best mobile builders in the no-code space, making it particularly effective for creating mobile-friendly solutions and field apps that are essential for on-the-go operations. By leveraging Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), Glide ensures that these apps are easily downloadable and can function offline, a crucial feature for field operations where internet connectivity can be inconsistent. It’s important to note, though, publishing to the App Store or Google Play is not supported.
During the design process, Glide’s integrated mobile preview allows app editors to visualize exactly how their applications will look and function on mobile devices, making it straightforward and easy to develop robust mobile apps.
MVPs
Startups and businesses looking to quickly validate ideas will find Glide ideal for developing Minimum Viable Products (MVPs). Glide’s rapid development capabilities mean that MVPs can be built, tested, and iterated upon swiftly. This allows companies to gather user feedback and make data-driven decisions on product improvements or pivots, saving valuable time and resources. The platform's ability to connect to existing data sources and provide a functional prototype quickly makes it an invaluable tool for startups aiming to test and refine their concepts without the need for extensive coding or development resources.
What is Glide not so good for?
Managing Complex Processes
While Glide offers some low-code functionality, it remains primarily a no-code platform, making it less suited for workflows with high complexity. Its main strength lies in simplifying app development by removing the need for traditional coding, which consequently limits the customization and control available to users.
For companies dealing with intricate logic and complex processes, Glide will oftentimes not provide the necessary flexibility and may fall short in accommodating advanced requirements. For companies looking for greater customization options, flexibility and overall control (and might have more engineering resources), platforms like Retool, Bubble and similar builders will be a much more suitable option.
Additionally, Glide’s limitations in handling complex data manipulations and API limitations will often require workarounds to achieve specific outcomes, while other platforms support better data management out of the box. These workarounds can (and inevitably will) complicate the development process and reduce scalability, making Glide less ideal for companies needing to support complex processes and larger buildouts. This is particularly relevant for organizations seeking a platform capable of managing extensive, sophisticated workflows, where the platform's constraints can become significant barriers.
Advanced BI Needs
Glide is not ideal for business intelligence (BI) reports with advanced and sophisticated charts and visualization needs. While it supports basic data visualization and charts, it falls short in creating complex, interactive, and detailed reports necessary for advanced BI needs. Glide's charting capabilities lack the advanced customization and in-depth analytics features found in dedicated BI tools like Tableau or Power BI, which offer sophisticated chart types and detailed data exploration. This makes it less suitable for businesses that rely heavily on charts and visual data analysis.
Though, to be fair, BI is not Glide’s primary focus, so going with a dedicated BI tool is the better choice.
Use Cases Requiring A Complex Security Framework
While Glide offers extensive security features, their implementation can be challenging, especially when dealing with complex security frameworks. Filters and visibility conditions can help manage data presentation, however they do not prevent data from being downloaded to the application. This means technically skilled users could potentially access data not intended for them, causing a security concern.
The most secure method to restrict data access is through the use of row owners, which prevent users from viewing other users' data. However, managing permissions with Row Owners can become cumbersome and time-consuming, especially as the number of users and data complexity grow.
The reason for this is that Row Owners can only be assigned using basic columns, such as email and text, meaning you cannot use computed columns like rollups to dynamically set Row Owners. For example, if you need to assign the team manager as a row owner for each employee, you can't use a rollup column to automate this; you need to manually update each employee’s permissions or use an Glide Actions (or API). Consequently, managing access for multi-level roles like admins, managers or executives who require visibility into all or part of sensitive data can be equally challenging.
The same problem persists when designing external-facing applications like client portals. The complexity of maintaining accurate and secure access controls increases significantly, often necessitating separate applications for internal and external users. This approach, while effective, means that only basic columns can be shared across apps, with computed columns needing to be reconfigured individually for each app (another Glide limitation). This duplication of effort can be inefficient and complicates the management of data consistency and security across different user groups.
Company Wikis
Glide is not particularly well-suited for company wikis or knowledge management platforms that require extensive text formatting and a sophisticated writing experience. While you can design a comprehensive documentation system with instructional PDFs as well as a fantastic video learning educational platform (in fact, Glide designed their own Academy using Glide), its limited text formatting options and somewhat unintuitive writing interface make it less ideal for managing detailed, text-heavy documentation directly in Glide. For businesses needing robust features to handle large volumes of text content and complex document structures, Glide may fall short compared to more specialized knowledge management platforms like Notion, which offer advanced text editing with lots of formatting options.
Pricing
Glide offers an interesting pricing model tailored to different user bases, with separate plans for companies and app developers. The Free plan is a generous offer and a great option for building prototypes and MVPs before committing to a buildout. Compared to competitors, the Team and Business plan are well-priced and affordable, with a fair per-additional-user price.
In the final quarter of 2024, Glide introduced significant pricing changes that stirred considerable discussion within its community. Notably, this was the second pricing adjustment of the year, following an earlier change in January 2024. The updates included several major shifts, with the most surprising impacts felt by users of the Business plan. Previously, the row limit per app was 10 million rows; it has now been reduced to 100,000. Additionally, the number of included updates—how Glide measures usage for automation and AI—was halved, dropping from 10,000 to 5,000 per month. The number of active users included also saw a reduction, from 40 to 30.
In their official release, Glide framed these changes as an effort to simplify their self-serve plans while introducing new capabilities to empower users. However, the true motivation may lie elsewhere. Glide appears to be shifting from user-based pricing to usage-based pricing, as reflected in the revised limits for updates and storage. Despite these changes, Glide's pricing remains competitive and continues to offer excellent return on investment (ROI), standing out as one of the most affordable options on the market. It’s possible that the previous pricing structure was unsustainable for Glide and didn’t accurately reflect the value their platform delivers.
Glide’s pricing before the change in November 2024. With the latest pricing changes, the Team and Business plan were consolidated into the Business plan and the Enterprise plan was renamed to the Custom plan.
For companies
- Free Plan: This plan now includes both of Glide's native data sources—Glide Tables and Big Tables—where previously only Glide Tables were included. It allows publication of one app with up to 10 personal users, while excluding users registering with business email addresses. It does not include access to Glide AI or the Glide API, limiting the ability to integrate with external platforms.
- Business Plan: This plan, which now consolidates the previously separate Team and Business plans, starts at $249/month for 30 users (just over $8 per user, with an additional $6 per user beyond that). It supports integration with all additional data sources, except high-grade options like PostgreSQL (which were included prior to the changes). The plan also provides access to advanced automation features, including Workflows, querying Big Tables, Call API actions, and additional third-party integrations via the Glide API. The most significant changes compared to the previous pricing include a sharp reduction in the row limit per app, from 10 million to 100,000, as well as a halving of the updates included for automation and AI usage, from 10,000 to 5,000 per month. Additionally, the number of included users dropped from 40 to 30. An important change was also the exclusion of SSO on the Business plan - this is now only available on the Custom plan. Despite these changes, Glide’s Business plan remains competitive in terms of features compared to other vendors. However, existing Business plan users experienced the greatest impact from these changes.
- Enterprise Plan: While the pricing for this plan is not officially stated, it is rumored to start at around $1,000 per month (compared to $750 before the changes). This is the only plan that includes access to non-Glide high-grade databases, such as PostgreSQL. The plan offers custom pricing and tailored features based on specific business needs, including user count and updates. It also exclusively includes access to the Glide Bulk API and SSO, making it ideal for enterprises requiring large-scale data operations.
For app developers
- Maker Plan: Starting at 69 USD/month, this plan is designed for small-scale app developers, providing essential features for personal projects.
- Agency Plan: Starting at 125 USD/month, this plan offers the same functionalities as the Company Business plan, but at a discounted rate. The agency plan is available exclusively to Glide Certified Experts, simplifying app deployment for clients and offering a 30-day free trial for clients, automatically enrolling them into revenue sharing. This was the only plan that stayed as-is after the latest update to support Glide implementation agencies in their client delivery.
How does Glide compare to other tools?
Glide vs Airtable
Airtable is primarily a data-centric platform that combines spreadsheet functionality with a database, making it highly effective for quick and efficient data management. It provides a basic Interface Designer, but its design flexibility is limited, leading to interfaces that still feel more like upgraded spreadsheets than traditional software applications. Compared to Glide there’s significantly less options for customizing the UI, including arranging data on the screen, colors, the sidebar, background and other UI components.
With a row limit of 500,000 records per table, no options for integrating enterprise-grade databases and design limitations, Airtable is best for small companies, startups, and individuals prioritizing data management capabilities over UI design that do not require extensive mobile support. We might recommend it for companies looking for a single step-up from their current spreadsheet setup.
Glide, in contrast, moves way beyond the spreadsheet paradigm, focusing on creating more interactive, app-like interfaces with strong mobile support. Its Big Tables feature supports up to 10 million records, catering to the needs of growing small to medium-sized companies with larger data volumes. Glide is designed to be user-friendly, with an emphasis on ease of use, making it accessible to non-technical users. Its ability to integrate with various data sources, including enterprise-grade databases like PostgreSQL, offers greater scalability and flexibility compared to Airtable.
Much like Airtable, Glide initially touted itself as the next step for spreadsheets users, and for those ready for the challenge to upgrade to proper UI functionality, this is a good fix. Nevertheless, for those looking for a speedy migration with little setup and a smaller initial learning curve, a spreadsheets-to-Airtable migration would be much easier and faster.
In terms of costs, Airtable’s pricing model can become much more expensive than Glide as data and collaboration needs grow, making Glide a far more economical choice for SMBs and startups, especially those with more than 5 employees. This makes Glide an attractive option for businesses with higher data volume, looking for scalable and affordable solutions for their web and mobile app development and data management needs.
Glide vs Retool
Glide and Retool cater to different user bases within the app development and internal tools landscape.
Glide’s offering is primarily suited to non-developers and small to medium-sized businesses, offering an intuitive no-code platform that allows users to create simple internal tools and mobile apps quickly without extensive technical knowledge. Glide’s pricing plans are generous and affordable, with a free tier for basic apps and scalable options for more advanced features, making it ideal for cost-sensitive users who need to develop and deploy custom solutions efficiently.
Retool, on the other hand, targets enterprise customers with its features and positions itself as a developer tool ideal for technical users comfortable with writing in JavaScript and SQL. Unlike Glide, Retool maintains the flexibility of traditional coding while simplifying repetitive elements, making it suitable for building mission-critical tools, and intricate internal tools requiring extensive customization and integration capabilities.
Retool is well-suited for developers needing advanced functionalities and customizability, offering a comprehensive suite of tools, including mobile development, workflows, and integrated databases like PostgreSQL. However, this comes with much higher pricing and a steeper learning curve compared to Glide, making it a better fit for developers and engineers with large use cases rather than non-technical users.
Glide vs Budibase
Glide and Budibase are both strong in developing simple internal tools, however, differ in their focus, target audience and capabilities. Glide is primarily a no-code platform designed for non-technical users, and excels in providing a polished UI and strong out-of-the-box mobile support, making it particularly well-suited for creating visually appealing, mobile-friendly applications. Budibase, on the other hand, targets a broader range of users, from non-coders to IT professionals and engineers. It provides more extensive and robust low-code capabilities compared to Glide, allowing for greater customization across the platform. However, both platforms are limited in scalability and are not ideal for building mission-critical or enterprise-grade applications.
Glide’s pricing model, based on user packages, offers a predictable cost structure, which can be advantageous for teams looking to manage expenses effectively. In contrast, Budibase’s pricing is based on per-use, which might vary more unpredictably, and can become expensive as the user base grows.
Summary
To summarize, Glide is a versatile no-code platform, ideal for SMBs, startups, and non-technical teams to quickly build attractive applications at an affordable price. What makes Glide truly stand out is their sophisticated mobile app builder, enabling users to create responsive web and mobile apps simultaneously without prior design or coding knowledge. Plus, with the recent release of Workflows, Glide became one of the leading platforms in integrated automation capabilities.
Glide is best suited for small- to medium-scale applications with high impact, such as internal tools, business dashboards, and MVPs. Despite some limited low-code functionalities, it remains primarily a no-code tool, making it less suitable for complex workflows with intricate security requirements and mission-critical enterprise applications. Compared to its competitors, Glide offers a generous pricing plan, making it an attractive solution for growing companies on a budget.
Founded in 2018, Glide is still relatively young compared to its competitors but has shown significant progress since its inception as a front-end for spreadsheets. The company's focus on building a strong community, listening to user feedback, and continuously launching new features makes it promising for future development.
