Baserow: Create and manage databases with this no-code free app

Creating and managing databases is a critical part for any business or any development process. It also requires fair knowledge of installing, configuring and managing database engines and the managing software.

While there are some cool management tools  like PhpMyAdmin (Adminer) and pgAdmn for PostgreSQL, they also require technical skills to install, run and manage.  Furthermore, they are not easy to use by normal users.

That's not the case of Baserow, so in this article we will demonstrate why Baserow is different.

What is Baserow?

Baserow is free open-source web-based database creation and management tools that requires no prior coding skills or advanced technical skills like other tools.

Some may consider it a low-code or even no-code platform, however, it also aimed to be a functional tool to build apps on it.

Why should you consider using or trying out Baserow?

1. Open-source Self-hosted System;
   It is a Libre open-source solution as you can install and self-host it on your own server. It also means you will own your data without feat of vendor lock-in.
2. Works with PostgreSQL;
   PostgreSQL is a strong open-source database engine aimed for enterprise, commercial or even individual use.
3. Create multiple databases on-fly;
   Baserow supports creating many groups, database on-fly. Databases are organized in a simple easy-to-use functional view (tables). It supports search (Full-text search), sorting or dering and more.
4. Templates ready;
   Templates in Baserow are a creative functional method to create purpose-specific databases for accounting, patient-records, customer support and more.
   
   With one-click, you can create a project tracking database, personal to-do list, applicant tracker or personal budget manager. With still yet more templates to come, we are expecting the community to supply it with dozens of useful templates for all types of users.
   
5. Headless system to build external apps;
   A REST-API (Headless system) is built-in useful feature in Baserow that helps developer to create external mobile, desktop and web apps to feed the database.
6. Developer-friendly with plugin-build system.

Baserow is intended for:

1. Companies or individuals who want to create databases on-fly
2. Web Developers
3. App developers

Baserow's Skeletons and Muscles

Baserow is built on top of Django long-standing functional and powerful Python web framework and Nuxt.js a Vue.

Features

1. User-friendly interface
2. Multiple-database support
3. Multiple user and user groups support
4. Search and filtering
5. Interactive tables
6. File upload support
7. Image file upload support
8. Unlimited rows
9. Lightweight
10. Lighting Fast
11. Headless with a friendly REST-API support
12. Supports custom and third-party plugins and extensions
13. Docker installation support
14. Supports up to 100,000+ rows view per table
15. Custom database templates
16. WebSocket API support
17. Database plugin API for developers
18. Customizable style with a rich style guide
19. Rich user- and developer-friendly documentation
20. Supports Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian
21. Supports Cloudron

Install Baserow

Install Baserow with Docker:

Docker installation is pretty easy as it takes only one command to get everything up and running.

First you need to download Baserow locally, make sure you have Docker installed (and docker-compose) then run this command:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.dev.yml up

Features that we expect in the future!

Baserow is still in active development, so expecting more features and improvements to come is fair, however, as a developer, i would like to see more features to build solid apps, customizable view extensions and GraphQL support.

1. Multiple-user permission and group support
2. One click-install on servers like DigitalOcean and Linode servers.
3. Import and export in multiple format.
4. Multimedia file uploads like videos, audio and more.
5. Document file uploads
6. A Snap package for Linux (Ubuntu) servers
7. Accounting features that resemble spreadsheet functions
8. Custom fields
9. GraphQL support

Conclusion

We have been testing and playing with Baserow locally, it is proven to be reliable to build quick apps using it is seamless REST-API. Templates also came in handy as well as plugin development.

We recommend Baserow for developers, normal users who require to create their own database and collections without dealing with so much code.

As we stated, Baserow is still in active development and more features to come on its active roadmap, so stay tuned.

Resources and downloads

• https://baserow.io/
• https://gitlab.com/bramw/baserow
• https://github.com/bram2w/baserow