The architecture has diverged significantly from the Appsmith project (Apache 2.0 licensed) since forking the frontend canvas and evaluation code more than 2 years ago. Most of Superblocks is built from the ground up to optimize for performance, scalability and extensibility.
In terms of ChatGPT, Superblocks's goal is to develop a simple visual interface for creators to integrate AI into their workflow to build applications quickly. The platform makes it easy to verify, deploy, and monitor your changes, which would be difficult to do with just a chat interface.
"Based on" is a strong term when most of our code is not from Appsmith. Since forking some frontend components from Appsmith (which is an Apache 2.0 project) over a year ago. Our entire code execution, deployment, version control, observability and security model is built from scratch to give our customers the best product experience. At Superblocks we're focused on building great solutions for our customers, this means we're going to assemble relevant frameworks and libraries for the job if the license permits.
Yes, we do use some Appsmith code (Apache 2.0) in Superblocks specifically related to our frontend drag and drop canvas and components, as part of our UI builder in Superblocks. We’ve evolved our architecture significantly over the past 18 months to support our unique API execution model.
We do not use it in our API builder, workflow builder, scheduled job builder, agent platform, permissions, audit logs, observability, integrations, version control and more, all of which have been built on a different architecture to provide different value to our customers.
What Appsmith has built is impressive and is a good option for customers who may prefer to fork and customize their UI builder or prefer to manage a full on-prem platform themselves. The customers who choose Superblocks are a different group with different needs.
Great question, having been an engineer all my life, this is one of the question I would ask myself as well. Developers are at the forefront of our target audience and we want to give all developers the peace of mind that any code or configuration you create in Superblocks is completed owned by you and can keep working without Superblocks. Here's how:
1. Our agent is open-source, this means you can inspect, modify, build and host it however you like
2. We're soon launching a feature where you can export the entire definition of Superblocks apps/workflow/jobs/permissions as project files and manage it in your own git repo
3. We're brainstorming the idea of exporting your app as native React and NodeJS applications so your app continues to work outside of Superblocks
Obviously our goal is to keep providing the best features, performance and stability so you can save time and let us accelerate your development process :)
Would this give you the confidence to use a platform like this? If not, what can we do better?
Hi, one of the creators of Superblocks here. Most building blocks in Superblocks are fully extensible with code, and we're building much better debugging capabilities in the platform. The form based configuration is easier to work with for simple use cases, for more complex use case, you can extend Superblocks with your own business logic in code. We're also building a gitops feature where we allow users to manage Superblocks apps and workflows in source files just like any git project.
Hi, one of the creators of Superblocks here. We think airplane is a great product and want to enable developers to choose their favorite development flow. We're working on a gitops feature that will allow you to export Superblocks app definitions into project files and manage it just like any git repo.
Hi, creator of Superblocks here. We are 100% focused on developers and our goal is to make the onboarding experience seamless. We've seen many of our customers consolidate different tools so they can manage dashboards, workflows (APIs), cron jobs, all in one place. We also have a different architecture than Retool where there is significantly lower overhead for the customer because we offer a lightweight agent rather than a fully on-prem installation. Happy to dive into more details with you!
In terms of ChatGPT, Superblocks's goal is to develop a simple visual interface for creators to integrate AI into their workflow to build applications quickly. The platform makes it easy to verify, deploy, and monitor your changes, which would be difficult to do with just a chat interface.