NocoDB – Open source Airtable, a rich admin tooling with OOTB rest API to your DBs

Nocodb is short for No-Code Database. It’s a rich admin tool with many view types, out of the box API and webhooks, support many different use cases and workloads.

NocoDB is open source version of Airtable. If you’re familiar with Airtable, you’ll find NocoDB incredibly intuitive. It replicates Airtable’s features and user-friendly interface, making it an excellent alternative for database management. The transition is seamless, reducing the learning curve for Airtable users.

BYO DB

With NocoDB, you have the power to use your own database, taking advantage of automatic schema exploration to effortlessly understand the structure and relationships within your data. This feature allows you to quickly and efficiently create a variety of views from your existing database tables. Whether you need grid view, calendar view, or gallery view, NocoDB empowers you to visualize your data in the most meaningful way for your needs.

A lot of view types

NocoDB supports a variety of view types to present your data in the most comprehensive and visually appealing way possible. You can utilize table views, grid views, board views, calendar views, and gallery views to showcase your data. Moreover, NocoDB allows you to display different data types inline, enhancing the richness and versatility of your views.

Table view
Board view
Gallery view
Calendar view

Forms

One of the most common needs in data management is data entry. Many tools focus solely on form building and integration with data sources. NocoDB stands out with its powerful form builder designed to make data collection easy and efficient. This feature ensures that you can collect, organize, and manage your data seamlessly, all within the same platform.

Export/import data (bulk)

REST API to the tables

NocoDB provides CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) endpoints for your database tables. This feature allows you to interact with your data in a straightforward and efficient way, enabling you to perform essential database operations directly from the platform.

Webhooks

Webhooks are a crucial feature of NocoDB, enabling seamless interaction between different applications. A prime example of this is the ability to send notifications to Slack whenever new data is added. This automatic communication ensures immediate updates, enhancing user responsiveness. NocoDB webhooks can be integrated with platforms like Zapier to trigger events, expanding the potential for endless integrations. This makes it possible to connect NocoDB with a multitude of other services, streamlining workflows and amplifying productivity.

Integrations with slack, s3, SES

Aside from webhooks, NocoDB also integrates with various commonly used platforms. This includes remote storage options, such as Amazon S3 for file uploads, email delivery systems like Amazon SES for communication, and collaboration tools like Slack for instant notifications and updates.

Open Source, self-hosted

NocoDB is an open-source tool, meaning that it is entirely free and can be modified according to your needs. It is also self-hosted, which ensures that you have complete control over your data and its security. This makes NocoDB an ideal choice for businesses that prioritize data privacy and customization.

Minimal dependency, runs fast

NocoDB is a node.js app with minimal dependencies, ensuring that it runs smoothly and efficiently unlike open source tools you check out that ends up needing to run 5 containers with heavy system requirements. Nocodb is not one of them.

Check nocodb out:

https://www.nocodb.com/

Using Airtable through its API programmatically, as (almost) remote database

I recently talked a lot about the importance of collaborative and smarter documentation that will improve your personal and professional workflow. Certainly, it will be different than other competitors in an interesting use case I found myself in one of the hobby projects that I used Airtable as a remote database tool all of the sudden.

Airtable is a very nice mobile-friendly document management in a “spreadsheet” style base. You can create your data structure in any data table model. You can create different views for your data (in calendar view, or filtered table view, or kanban view…).

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What makes Airtable special for me is its API. Their API is so easy to get started and access, because you get your data-specific API documentation after you login. It shows your data in API example right and there in the dynamic documentation.

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Airtable API essentially makes Airtable that can be used as a remote database for small or personal projects. Managing your data belongs to Airtable’s clean and nice web or mobile interface, and you implement your data in any format you like on any platform.

If you are needing read-only access, implementing Airtable API can be a matter of minutes since the documentation gives access to your data very quickly. You only need to convert the curl request to your favorite platform’s HTTP request. If you are needing a javascript version, it also produces NodeJS example code that you can drop in and start using your data.

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Write access is also not very different than read-only. Your data model will be well be documented in the dynamic API documentation for your table. You only need to start constructing your API requests and make the call…

If you haven’t created an Airtable account and played with it, definitely do so: https://airtable.com/ and check out their auto-generated documentation here: https://airtable.com/api (after you login to your account).