Retool is for developers building internal tools. BackOffice is for ops people who don’t write code — full workspaces with entities, views, AI and automations, no SQL or JavaScript required.
Retool is a powerful builder if you have developers and a database to wire up. BackOffice is a no-code ERP — your ops team models entities, views, forms and automations themselves, with AI and templates, at $29/user/mo. Different audience entirely.
Retool internal-tool builder for developers starts at $10/user/mo (Team). BackOffice Team is $29/user/mo with no seat minimum. Here is what each includes as standard.
| Capability | BackOffice | Retool |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (per user / mo) | $29 · no minimum | $10 · Team |
| Custom data model (your own entities) | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| Table · Kanban · Calendar · Gallery views | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| Roles & granular permissions | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| Audit log | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| SSO / SAML | ✓ Standard | Business+ |
| Public forms with conditional logic | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| AI builds a workspace from a prompt | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| AI ingests CSV / Excel / PDF into your entities | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| Typed API + webhooks on every write | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| MCP server (connect Claude / ChatGPT to your data) | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| Per-tenant Postgres isolation | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| Templates are full workspaces, not starter kits | ✓ Standard | Templates |
An honest split — pick the tool that matches the work you actually do.
Most teams don’t run Retool alone. They pay for a CRM, a helpdesk, a project tool and a forms tool on top. BackOffice replaces the stack with one bill.
Choose Retool if you have engineers who want to build custom UIs on top of existing databases and APIs, and full code-level control matters more than no-code speed.
For non-developers, yes. Retool is a developer tool for building UIs on top of your own databases; BackOffice is a no-code ERP that ships its own data model, so ops teams build without code.
No. The whole point is that a non-technical operator can model entities, views, forms and automations in minutes — with AI doing the first draft from a plain-English description.
No. BackOffice provides per-tenant Postgres storage, auth and a data model out of the box. Retool typically connects to a database and APIs you already run.
Yes — every entity has a typed API, webhooks fire on writes, and a built-in MCP server lets any LLM read and write the workspace. No-code first, code when you need it.
Describe your business, let the AI build the workspace, invite your team. Free for 3 users — no credit card, no time limit.
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