The Retool alternatives below bill in different units: per builder plus per end user, per user of any kind, flat team plans, and base tiers with add-ons. That's why one team gets six different bills. Every figure comes from the vendor's own pricing page, read on 29 October 2026, and they're list prices with no discounts. The ranking is our judgment, for a team that needs SSO and a security review to pass. Internal tooling is one of many stack decisions, and the rest are in Hire developers by tech stack: rates, vetting and interview guides.
Retool alternatives at a glance
| Platform | Billing unit | Published starting price | Free option | Self-hosting | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Appsmith | Per user (builders count as users) | Business $15/user/month, monthly billing | Free cloud plan (up to 5 users); open source Community edition | Community edition is open source and free | Teams that want an open source edition, with Git on its Free, Business and Enterprise plans |
| Budibase | Tier price plus per creator and per end user add-ons | Pro $19/month, Premium $49/month | Open source, free to self-host | Free open source | Many end users on a small base price |
| ToolJet | Per builder | Basic $23/builder/month | Free: 2 builders, up to 50 end users, 10 apps | Community Edition free | Few builders and up to 50-100 end users |
| UI Bakery | Per developer | Builder $20/developer/month, billed annually | Free cloud plan; self-hosted Free | Free, Team and Enterprise self-hosted plans | Small teams that want self-hosting early |
| Superblocks | Flat team plan plus per extra app | Teams $100/month billed annually, up to 15 builders | None listed (14-day trial) | VPC deployment, Enterprise | Larger builder groups on a flat fee |
| Retool | Per builder plus per internal user | Team €9/builder and €5/user per month, billed annually | Free: up to 5 users | Enterprise only | Comparison baseline |
Best for is our judgment; prices are from each vendor's pricing page on 29 October 2026.
Appsmith is first because it's the one with the fewest paywalls between you and a working setup. Its pricing page lists Git on the Free plan (3 repos) and Google SSO there too, where Retool keeps Git source control for Enterprise. Budibase and ToolJet follow because a free self-hosted edition caps your downside if a contract goes wrong. Superblocks is fifth because it lists no free plan and no end-user price on the page we read. That's judgment, not a benchmark. Retool sits last as the baseline. Windmill, DronaHQ and Power Apps aren't rows because we didn't price them from their own pages.
What Retool itself charges
Retool's pricing page showed euros when we read it, so the figures below are EUR as shown on the page, and we haven't converted them. Team is €9 per builder and €5 per internal user per month on annual billing, or €11 and €6 monthly. Business is €46 per builder and €14 per internal user annually, or €60 and €17 monthly. Business also covers external users: 0-50 are free, and 51-250 cost €7.33 each annually or €9 monthly.
The Free plan allows up to 5 users, 250 AI credits a month, 500 workflow runs a month, production only, with no external users or embedded apps.
The gating is what changes the bill. Rich permissions and audit logs start at Business. Custom SSO/SAML, SCIM, granular roles, Git source control and self-hosting are Enterprise only. If your security team wants SAML, the Team and Business prices above aren't your price.
SSO, roles, audit logs and self-hosting by tier
A security review usually asks four questions: can we use our identity provider, can we limit who edits what, is there an audit trail, and can it run in our network. This table is our judgment, built from each vendor's pricing page, and shows where each answer starts.
| Platform | SAML or custom SSO | Roles | Audit logs | Self-hosting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Appsmith | Enterprise (Google and GitHub OAuth on Free and Business) | 3 standard roles on Free; custom roles on Business | Business | Community open source; airgapped edition is an Enterprise add-on |
| Budibase | SSO from Premium (protocol not named on the page); enforced SSO on Business; AD/SCIM on Enterprise | Creator, end-user and workspace-admin roles; RBAC listed; user groups on Business | Listed under Enterprise | Open source, free |
| ToolJet | Team and Enterprise | Team and Enterprise | Team (up to 14 days); Enterprise unlimited | Community free; fully offline needs the Enterprise air-gapped add-on |
| UI Bakery | Enterprise (custom SSO) | Team | Team | Free, Team and Enterprise self-hosted plans |
| Superblocks | Enterprise | Teams and Enterprise | Enterprise | VPC deployment on Enterprise |
| Retool | Enterprise | Rich permissions on Business; granular roles on Enterprise | Business | Enterprise |
ToolJet's own pricing tables disagree slightly on SSO and RBAC, so confirm the tier with them before you commit. Appsmith's page is unclear on self-hosting by plan beyond the open source edition and the airgapped add-on.
SAML sits in the top tier at Appsmith, UI Bakery, Superblocks and Retool. ToolJet lists SSO from Team, and Budibase lists SSO from Premium without naming the protocol, so confirm SAML with Budibase. If SAML is a hard requirement, compare those Team and Premium prices against the others' Enterprise quotes, not their starting prices. For the same reasoning applied to an identity vendor, see Auth0 alternatives: free tiers, starting prices and SSO costs.
What a 3-builder, 40-user team pays on each price list
This is an illustration, not a quote. It multiplies the unit prices above, uses annual rates unless noted, and leaves out discounts. The units differ, so the totals aren't like for like.
Retool Team: 3 x €9 + 40 x €5 = €27 + €200 = €227 a month. Retool Business: 3 x €46 + 40 x €14 = €138 + €560 = €698 a month. Both in EUR as shown on the page.
Appsmith Business: it counts builders as users ("A user is any member that has been added to a workspace in your Appsmith instance."), so 43 x $15 = $645 a month on monthly billing.
Budibase Premium: the $49 base includes one creator. Add 2 creators at $50 = $100 and 40 end users at $5 = $200, for $349 a month. The page doesn't say which period the $49 base is shown for; add-ons are stated at yearly rates.
ToolJet Pro: 3 builders x $79 = $237 a month as listed per builder. The page puts end users up to 50 and apps up to 10 on Pro. It's shown with an annual/monthly toggle, and the page doesn't state which period the card prices reflect. ToolJet Team, the tier with SSO, RBAC and audit logs: 3 x $199 = $597 a month billed yearly, or 3 x $249 = $747 monthly.
UI Bakery: Builder is 3 x $20 = $60 a month annual or 3 x $25 = $75 monthly. Team is 3 x $35 = $105 annual or 3 x $40 = $120 monthly. The page lists 50 viewer seats on cloud Builder and Team, so 40 users fit, and it doesn't list end-user pricing, so there's no user line.
Superblocks Teams: $100 a month annual or $125 monthly covers up to 15 builders, so your 3 fit, plus 1 hosted app, with extra apps at $10 each a month. The page doesn't list end-user pricing, so we've priced the builders and nothing else.
The shapes matter more than the totals. Retool and Budibase grow with end users. Appsmith grows with everyone on the workspace. ToolJet and UI Bakery grow with builders until you pass their end-user caps (ToolJet: 50 end users on Pro, 100 on Team; UI Bakery: 50 viewer seats on cloud Builder and Team), where Enterprise quotes begin. Adding 100 viewers to the 40 in this example would pass both caps. Superblocks grows with apps.
Are AI app builders an alternative?
Partly, and the six pricing pages already show it. Retool lists AI credits by plan: 250 on Free, 1,000 on Team, 3,000 on Business and 10,000 on Enterprise. ToolJet lists AI app generation on all plans, metered in credits (100 a month on Free). Superblocks lists its Clark agent, Budibase lists AI credits, and UI Bakery lists an AI App Agent. In our judgment, the platforms now cover much of what a prompt-to-app builder offers.
Standalone AI app builders such as Gumloop and Zite exist; we haven't priced them, so we aren't comparing them here. In our judgment, generating the first screen was never the hard part of an internal tool. Connecting it to production data, deciding who can edit what, and keeping it running after the person who prompted it leaves is the hard part, and those are the rows in the tier table above. When a prompt-built app starts carrying real customer data, read when to stop vibe coding and hire a developer.
When building with engineers beats a platform
In our judgment, buying is cheaper for most internal admin screens, and three conditions flip it.
The UI faces customers or carries heavy custom logic. Platform components get awkward once the screen is a product, and you'll fight the tool to do what a React app does by default.
The per-seat bill outgrows an engineer's time. The Retool Business bill above is €698 a month. At HighCircl's €45-105/hr rate range, that's about 7 to 16 hours (€698 / €105 = 6.6 and €698 / €45 = 15.5; our arithmetic, a monthly bill divided by an hourly rate, not an estimate of build effort). If the platform saves you less than one to two days of engineering a month, the bill isn't earning its keep, and the gap widens with every user you add.
You need your own CI and code review. Retool lists Git source control for Enterprise only, while Appsmith lists Git on its Free plan. If your standard is that nothing ships without a pull request, that detail can decide the vendor before price does.
What this means for your internal-tools budget
Decide in this order. First, count builders and viewers separately. Retool, ToolJet and Budibase price those groups differently, and your headcount split decides which one is cheap. Second, check the SSO and audit-log tier before you look at the price. Your security review decides the plan, and at Retool, Superblocks and UI Bakery that means an Enterprise quote, not the number on the page.
Third, price self-hosting as someone's on-call rotation. A free open source edition removes the licence line and adds a service somebody patches, backs up and gets paged for. Fourth, cost the migration of every app you already have. That is judgment, and the bill above is the template for testing it with your own numbers.
If the real question is whether to buy a platform or staff the work, the build-in-house case is in the business case for a senior engineer.
Hiring React and Node.js engineers to build internal tools
If the answer is to build, HighCircl matches vetted engineers in 72 hours and sends a shortlist of 3-5. Rates are €45-105/hr ($50-115/hr) with a 20% capped margin, and there's no subscription or recruitment fee. Candidates go through four stages of vetting by senior engineers, and about 1 in 10 applicants passes. See React developers through HighCircl.
FAQ
Who competes with Retool?
On the pricing pages we read, the closest are Appsmith, Budibase, ToolJet, UI Bakery and Superblocks. They differ most in billing unit: Appsmith bills per user, ToolJet and UI Bakery per builder, Budibase by tier plus add-ons, and Superblocks as a flat team plan plus extra apps.
What does Retool cost?
As shown on Retool's pricing page on 29 October 2026, Team is €9 per builder and €5 per internal user a month on annual billing, and Business is €46 and €14. Free covers up to 5 users. SSO/SAML, Git source control and self-hosting require Enterprise, which isn't priced on the page. Prices were displayed in EUR.
Can Retool be self-hosted?
On the page we read, self-hosting is an Enterprise feature. If you want to self-host without an enterprise contract, Appsmith's Community edition, Budibase's open source edition, ToolJet's Community Edition and UI Bakery's self-hosted Free plan are the options listed.
Is there a free Retool alternative?
Yes. Appsmith's Community edition and Budibase's open source edition are free, and ToolJet's Free plan covers 2 builders, up to 50 end users and 10 apps. UI Bakery has a Free cloud plan. Superblocks lists no free plan, only a 14-day trial. Free tiers have limits on apps, users and security features, so check them against the tier table above.