Appsmith

Overview

Appsmith is a drag-and-drop builder for the small apps a team runs on: an admin panel, a support lookup, an approval queue, a dashboard. You drop widgets onto a canvas, connect them to a database or an API you already have, and write a little JavaScript where you need logic. The app you build is served from this box, and the data stays wherever you pointed it.

Features

• Drag-and-drop canvas with tables, forms, charts, and around 45 widgets
• Connects to Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, S3, Google Sheets, REST and GraphQL APIs, and more
• JavaScript anywhere a value goes, for shaping data and wiring logic
• Workspaces, roles, and invites so a team shares the same apps
• Git sync, so your apps can live in a repository you control
• Publish an app once and share the link with the people who use it

Setting up

The first account you create becomes the administrator. Appsmith asks for it in two steps: your name, email and password, then a short question about how you plan to use it. Both steps are required, and the second one will not let you continue until you pick an answer to each question.

Use a normal email address. Appsmith rejects addresses on made-up domains, so a .local test address will not be accepted.

Appsmith takes a moment to come up. The editor answers straight away with a loading page while the server behind it starts, about a minute on an idle box and longer on a busy one. Wait for the page to turn into the sign-up screen rather than reloading.

Good to know

• The sample ("mock") datasources Appsmith offers on a new app run on Appsmith's own cloud database, not on your box, so anything you do with them leaves your box. Your real datasources are unaffected: those connect straight from this container to whatever you point them at.
• The sign-in page loads its background images from Appsmith's servers, so on a box with no internet access they simply do not appear. Signing in and using the app work either way.
• Email (invites, password resets, notifications) works once an administrator adds an outgoing email account in moose and binds Appsmith to it. Use the provider's STARTTLS port, usually 587, because Appsmith cannot talk to a port that expects TLS from the first byte, usually 465. Appsmith's own email form under Admin Settings has no effect here: moose owns those settings.
• Appsmith is a big app. It uses about 1.5 GB of memory sitting idle, and it slows down sharply when memory runs short, so it is a poor fit for the smallest boxes.