Retool review

Retool ranks first because it covers the widest range of internal tool work for engineering teams: apps, workflows and AI actions on top of your own databases and APIs. The free plan includes up to 5 users and 250 pooled AI credits a month on Retool Cloud, which is enough to put a first admin panel into production. Paid plans split cost between builders, the people who create or edit apps, and internal users who only use them, so a large operations team does not pay builder rates. Team adds staging and production environments, and Business adds external users, embedded apps, audit logs and rich permissions. Retool runs in its cloud or self-hosted in your VPC, and the company says Docker setup takes about 15 minutes. The trade-offs are where governance sits: Git source control, SSO, SCIM and granular roles are Enterprise features, and the pricing page showed euros from our location, so we could not confirm a USD price.

Who it is for

engineering teams building many internal apps on production data

Price

Free for up to 5 users; Team and Business bill per builder and per internal user (USD check pending).

US price check pending. See the vendor pricing page.

Key features

• Free plan includes up to 5 users, Retool Cloud and 250 pooled AI credits per month
• Team plan adds staging and production environments and unlimited users
• Business adds external users, embedded apps, audit logs and rich permissions
• Enterprise adds Git source control, SSO, SCIM, granular roles and up to 6 instances
• Runs in Retool Cloud or self-hosted in your own VPC, with an air-gapped option on Enterprise

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Free plan covers up to 5 users with production apps
• Strength: Billing separates builders from internal users, so app viewers cost less than editors
• Strength: Retool says self-hosted setup takes about 15 minutes via Docker
• Weakness: Git source control and SSO are Enterprise only
• Weakness: External users and embedded apps need the Business plan
• Weakness: Pricing page showed euros from our location, so the USD price is pending

Key facts

• Free plan: Up to 5 users
• Billing unit: Per builder and per internal user
• AI credits: 250 on Free, 1,000 on Team, 3,000 on Business
• Deployment: Retool Cloud, self-hosted or air-gapped

Where it ranks

Retool is No. 1 in our Best Internal Tool Builders verdict.