DB Craft
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Coming soon · self-hosted

Draw the database. Get theapp.screens.permissions.API.

DB Craft is a database-first application builder. You draw real tables, keys and indexes on a canvas; it writes the SQL, runs it, and hands you the pages, the access rules and the API over the top. On your own hardware, in a database that stays ordinary.

Join the waitlistSee what it does

Free to self-host for five people. No row limits, no table limits, no seat maths.

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The problem

Three walls, and everybody hits them in the same order

Not a criticism of the tools that got you here. A list is the right shape for a list, and a hosted grid is the fastest way to make one. These are the walls waiting on the other side of it.

The row limit

Fifty thousand records on Airtable's Team plan, a hundred and twenty-five thousand on Business - counted across every table in the base, not per table. You start paying more to be constrained differently.

HereThere is no such number. It is a SQL database; it is as big as the disk.

The seat bill

Per editor, per month, forever - and the definition of an editor is a paragraph with exceptions in it. Everyone who needs to touch the data is a line item on the invoice.

HereSelf-host it and the bill does not move when the team does.

The way out

The data is in somebody's cloud in somebody's format, and the only route to it is their API. Reporting, exports and the next system you buy all have to go through it.

HereThere is no export step, because there was never an import step. Point any reporting tool straight at the database.

“I'm paying more for limits that actively constrain my business growth. It feels like being punished for success.” Somebody on Reddit describing the record wall. It is the single most common reason people go looking for what DB Craft is.

How it works

Four moving parts, and no code required for any of them

01

Draw the schema

Tables as nodes, foreign keys as edges, dragged around a canvas. Columns with real types, lengths, defaults, nullability, unique constraints and indexes. Save, and DB Craft works out the statements and runs them - there is no separate migration to write and nothing to keep in step by hand.

02

Assemble the pages

Drop tables, joined data views, charts, text, forms and tabs onto a twelve-column grid. The page builder already knows what the schema editor just did, so adding a field is not a migration in one system and a rebind in another.

03

Hand out the keys

Put people in groups and say what each group may reach. Data is denied until it is granted, and the refusal happens at the API rather than by hiding a component and hoping.

04

Extend it when you must

Every no-code tool eventually meets something it cannot express. Here that costs a folder with one file in it - server code, a page, an interface, or an action that fires whenever a table is written to. No rebuild, no upload form, no marketplace to get listed on.

The difference

What nothing else in this category does

  • The tool designs the database. Internal-tool builders assume a schema already exists and draw screens over it. Hosted grids give you theirs. DB Craft is the one that hands you a canvas and writes the DDL - and then builds the application on what you drew.
  • What you end up with is an ordinary SQL database. Real keys, real indexes, real constraints, in MariaDB, PostgreSQL or SQL Server. Your BI tool, your accountant's export and your backup schedule all work on it without going through anybody's API.
  • Access is denied until granted, and the API is what refuses. Most builders make hiding a component the access control. Here hiding is a separate axis with the opposite default, because a hidden link is not security and pretending otherwise is how data leaks.
  • SQL Server is a first-class engine. Not a connector, not a bolt-on - one of three dialects chosen at startup. Almost nothing else in this category will run on the database your organisation already backs up, patches and knows how to restore.
  • The whole sign-in stack is in the free build. SSO, TOTP, passkeys, recovery codes, trusted devices, a login throttle and an audit trail. Single sign-on is a security control, not an upsell, and it is not behind a “contact us”.
MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQL ServerChosen at startup. Use the engine you already run
SSO, passkeys, TOTP, recovery codesIn the free build, not the enterprise one
Free for five peopleNo row, table, page or plugin limits
Hosted, or your own hardwareIt is a Docker image either way

Being straight with you: DB Craft is real software that runs today, and it is not released. It has no integrations - no Stripe, no S3, no warehouse connectors - and no mobile app. Some of the alternatives are simply the better answer today, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.

Waitlist

Be there when it opens

DB Craft is not open to the public yet. Leave your name and we will get in touch when there is something for you to log into - no newsletter, no drip campaign.

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