Introducing fluxbase: Your visual database
Hi there,
This week, I've been working on a prototype of an app, which I've called "Fluxbase". The principle is very simple. It sits in a middle ground between an excel and a database and is a visual database creator and editor.
How does it work?
1. You define what is the structure of data you would like to store
2. Then, you can create record
3. And even search on them
What is this used for?
This aims to be a very generic tool, which can be used for many different purposes, such as:
- No code backends
- Internal process organization
- Inventory management
Basically, everything you can do with a database, Fluxbase can do it, in a more structured way.
It can even be enhanced with plugins such as: formulas, barcode scanner, …
My questions
What do you think about this? Is that something that you could use?
Any remarks or feedback is welcome :)
And, of course, if you would be interested trying it once it's released, you can just drop me your email by DM, I'll take note of it and get back to you once it's live :)
It's going to be a lot of work to get something that matches or exceeds existing products. For example there are a number of products to use your Google Spreadsheets as a DB, or even full featured products list Airtable or Notion where you can create tables and query them through their API.
Not saying it might not be useful, it think it's a good idea.
Yes, well maybe. One of the needs for a database is when writing a backed for a system and you don't want to deal with the setting it up yourself.
There are a lot of offerings for managed databases like AWS, Google Cloud and even Supabase. As well for other products that are specific like Headless CMS's (which are basically databases) among others.
So, in order for someone to use it, it has to be better than those. What does your product offers that I cannot do with those? What are the pain points the other products have (too complicated? not good enough? )
So take that into consideration when deciding what features to add to your product.
About the UI. Take a look at how other products show their data. I know you're just starting but showing the content in a form might be problematic if you want to edit 10 or 100 rows. You're going to have to click the "Save" button and the "Next" button a 100 times. That's why you use a grid where you can scroll up and down for the results you're interested.
I hope this helps and good luck!