Occasionally I've had project ideas that require a database to keep track of everything, and then I would shelve the idea because I didn't want to spend the time. Or even worse, try to do it with a spreadsheet and suffer all the ills of a square peg in a round hole. I want an easier way to use databases. The good news is that I'm not the only one with this problem and many solutions exist under the marketing umbrella of "low-code" or "no-code" web app platforms. Skimming available information, I think Budibase is worth a closer look.

Budibase is one of the "low-code" platforms and I understand this to mean I don't have to write any code if my project stays within the lane of a supported usage pattern. But if I must go outside those boundaries, I have the option of inserting my own code to customize Budibase instead of being left on my own to re-implement everything from scratch. Sounds good.

On the business side, Budibase is a free open source project with source code hosted on GitHub. Compiled binaries for self-managed deployments are available a few different ways, including Docker containers which is how I'd test things out. Users are allowed to run their own apps on cloud infrastructure of their choice. However, the licensing agreement forbids reselling Budibase itself as a cloud-hosted service. That privilege is reserved exclusively to Budibase themselves and serves as an income stream alongside consultancy contracts to build apps for businesses. I can support this arrangement as a tradeoff between proprietary commercial software and totally free open-source projects without a reliable income stream. This way Budibase is less likely to shut down and, even if it does, I should be able to limp along on a self-hosted setup until I can find a replacement.

Which brings me to the final point: the database. For the sake of simplicity, some of these low-code/no-code app platforms are built around their own database and assume full control over that database from beginning to end. In some cases this puts my data into a black box I might not be able to port to another platform. In contrast, I can build a Budibase interface on top of an existing database. And that database will still be available independently if Budibase goes away, or if I just want to explore something else. I like having such options and the data security it implies.

I like what I see so far, more than good enough for me to dive into Budibase documentation. Learn how I can translate its theoretical benefits to reality. Starting with an excellent quick start guide.