Retool Alternatives for 2025
Retool lets teams build internal tools quickly without extensive coding. It speeds up development and reduces resource costs for companies needing fast, functional internal tools. What if you want another tool that has a drag-and-drop interface, and enough flexibility to create dashboards, CRMs, and admin panels efficiently? Here are top alternatives to Retool that you should consider. Let’s explore them.
UXPin Merge is perfect for creating polished, customer-facing applications with minimal design handoff issues. By bridging design and code, the tool enhances collaboration, speeds up development, and maintains design consistency across all project stages. Try UXPin Merge for free.
UXPin Merge
UXPin Merge allows designers to create high-fidelity, code-based prototypes that feel like the final product, enhancing collaboration with developers and ensuring faster, more accurate releases.
With access to pre-built and custom components, designers can mimic real user interactions, providing an authentic user experience. Once approved, the design’s auto-generated specs and production-ready code streamline the development process, saving time by reducing the need for translating designs into code.
Retool is tailored to data-driven workflows rather than full product design. UXPin Merge’s focus on production-quality prototypes makes it the superior choice for companies needing robust, design-to-development alignment for customer-facing applications.
Appsmith
Appsmith is a powerful alternative to Retool for building internal tools, particularly for developers seeking an open-source, highly customizable solution. With Appsmith, users can drag and drop components, connect to various data sources, and apply custom JavaScript, offering flexibility similar to Retool but with more control and adaptability.
Appsmith’s open-source nature allows teams to fully customize and self-host their applications, making it ideal for organizations that need control over deployments and advanced custom features.
Budibase
Budibase enables teams to rapidly create custom internal tools with interactive components and flexible data integrations. By leveraging pre-built templates and UI elements, teams can build high-fidelity prototypes that closely resemble final applications, improving collaboration and accelerating the release cycle.
Budibase connects the finished tool to databases, APIs, and other data sources, reducing the development time by simplifying data handling and minimizing the need for repetitive code—making it an efficient solution for fast, production-ready deployments.
Budibase stands out over Retool for teams looking for an open-source, self-hosted platform with more control over customization and deployment. Unlike Retool, which is more focused on data-driven internal tools, Budibase allows users to build internal apps with more flexibility, including custom workflows, form creation, and even user-facing portals.
Additionally, Budibase’s open-source foundation makes it adaptable and cost-effective, giving organizations greater control over security, scalability, and extended custom features without vendor lock-in.
Bubble
Bubble empowers non-developers to build interactive, high-fidelity web applications without coding. By using its drag-and-drop editor and extensive library of components, teams can create prototypes and functional applications that mimic the final product experience. Bubble’s seamless data management and workflow automation allow for realistic interactions, speeding up the development process from idea to launch.
Bubble applications are production-ready, offering a smooth path to deployment without needing translation from design to code, making it an ideal tool for quickly launching customer-facing applications.
UI Bakery
UI Bakery is a no-code/low-code platform that enables users to create custom internal tools and business applications using a visual interface. With a drag-and-drop editor, pre-built UI components, and integration capabilities for databases and APIs, teams can quickly prototype and build interactive applications that feel like the final product.
UI Bakery simplifies deployment, supporting efficient handoffs and enabling production-ready applications with minimal coding, making it ideal for businesses that need rapid internal tool development without extensive engineering resources.
DronaHQ
DronaHQ empowers teams to build custom internal tools and applications with a no-code/low-code approach. With its drag-and-drop interface and a library of ready-to-use components, teams can create functional, high-fidelity prototypes that replicate the final user experience.
DronaHQ integrates seamlessly with databases and APIs, allowing teams to connect data sources directly and manage workflows efficiently. This streamlines the transition from design to production, making it ideal for rapidly deploying business tools that are user-ready without extensive back-end development.
Plasmic
Plasmic allows teams to create custom, high-quality front ends visually, combining the ease of no-code with full-code flexibility.
With a rich library of components, seamless integrations, and responsive design capabilities, Plasmic enables the rapid creation of pixel-perfect prototypes and applications that can connect directly to APIs and data sources. This approach streamlines collaboration and allows developers to add custom logic, making it ideal for quickly deploying production-ready web experiences or user-facing applications with full design control.
Which Retool alternative is best for collaboration?
For collaboration, UXPin Merge stands out as the best option. It allows designers and developers to work with the same production-ready code components, ensuring design consistency and reducing handoff friction. This makes it highly effective for teams that need to stay aligned on complex projects and design systems.
Plasmic also ranks highly for collaborative design, allowing designers and developers to work together on flexible front ends while accommodating custom code.
Retool and DronaHQ support collaboration for internal tools but primarily focus on data integration rather than design-development collaboration.
Which Retool Alternative is Best for UI Exploration?
For UI exploration, Plasmic and UXPin Merge are excellent Retool alternatives. Plasmic offers a flexible visual editor that’s ideal for exploring various UI layouts and designs with pixel-perfect control, making it especially useful for front-end designers seeking creative freedom.
UXPin Merge, while not no-code, allows designers to experiment with real production components, so it’s powerful for high-fidelity UI exploration within the constraints of a design system. Both tools enable iterative design, bridging creativity with functionality for more polished UI exploration.
Which is Best for Building Apps Quickly?
For building apps quickly, Bubble, and DronaHQ are among the best options.
- Bubble is great for non-technical users creating full web applications, including customer-facing ones, without writing code.
- DronaHQ offers a no-code/low-code environment with drag-and-drop components, making it a solid choice for rapid internal tool and business app development.
Each has strengths for specific app types, but all prioritize fast deployment.
Which Retool Competitor is Best for Rapid Prototyping?
For rapid prototyping, UXPin Merge, Plasmic, and Bubble are top choices:
- UXPin Merge: Ideal for high-fidelity prototypes using real code components, making it perfect for quickly testing realistic UI designs.
- Plasmic: Offers flexible UI exploration with a visual editor, great for quickly iterating on complex front-end designs.
- Bubble: Allows non-developers to rapidly build functional prototypes of full web applications, including both front-end and back-end elements, without coding.
Each tool supports fast iteration, enabling teams to test ideas and gather feedback quickly.
Why Should You Give UXPin Merge a Chance?
Considering tools like Retool, Appsmith, Budibase, or Bubble makes sense if you’re exploring options for building internal tools, dashboards, or simple apps quickly, especially when low-code or no-code functionality is needed.
While these tools can help teams create data-driven internal applications without extensive coding, UXPin uniquely empowers teams focused on high-fidelity, customer-facing product design. UXPin provides a streamlined design-to-development process using production-ready components, ensuring that prototypes match final product quality—ideal for polished, consistent user experiences. Discover UXPin Merge.
