In 2025, businesses now have the power to easily create their own software.
No-code platforms make it possible to create internal tools and business apps without the overhead required by traditional software development. In 2021, a Garner technology study predicted that by 2025, “70% of new applications developed by organizations (would) use low-code or no-code technologies”.
They were right. And the businesses taking advantage of no-code technologies are using them to increase efficiency, productivity, and revenue, as well as improving the lives of both customers and employees. The right tools can make all the difference.
However, not every no-code platform is ideal for businesses to use to create custom internal tools. Some are designed for other uses (like creating SaaS products, personal projects, or websites) while others might not have the right features and functionality your business needs.
Glide is a powerful and intuitive no-code platform designed to build, iterate, and scale custom business apps quickly and effectively. It is explicitly designed with the needs of businesses in mind. Here’s why Glide is the best business app builder in the no-code space in 2025.
What are the advantages of Glide for building business apps?
The Glide platform was designed with businesses in mind, with key features and benefits that help build better internal tools.
Advanced AI & automation features
One of Glide’s greatest strengths is how the platform is constantly staying ahead of technological developments, incorporating vital new functionality (like AI app generation) as the market evolves, and at the request of users. Automation and AI are now essential capabilities that help businesses gain efficiency, reduce busywork, and give their teams new capabilities. Glide has advanced versions of both built in.
Glide Workflows is an intuitive visual automation builder that allows you to add automation capabilities with advanced logic to your apps. You can start workflows from app interactions, schedules, emails, and webhooks. Native integrations with popular automation builders Make and Zapier give you more options for creating automated connections between your Glide apps and the other essential business tools you rely on.
Glide AI gives businesses the ability to add powerful AI abilities to their apps for their users. Automatically generate customer emails, product descriptions, or summaries. Let users take photos to extract text from paper manuals to make them searchable, or automatically upload information from a receipt.
Glide uses managed AI, which selects the best AI models for your use case and gives you access to more powerful and secure Enterprise-grade plans without the cost. There is no need to manage prompts, choose models, deal with complex APIs, or cache results to optimize cost and performance. All of this is managed for you.
Strong platform security & granular data privacy controls
The Glide platform has robust security built in, as well as a large number of features that help users build privacy control for their data right into their apps. For businesses, assurances like these are a non-negotiable and not every platform offers this level of safety and control.
As Glide CTO Shay Frendt outlines, “To ensure a comprehensive security posture, we tap into our engineering team’s collective expertise working with the most rigorous cybersecurity compliance frameworks, like FedRAMP, ISO 27001, PCI, GDPR, Vanta, and SOC 2. We utilize multiple security layers, including open-source tools, automated vulnerability scans, intrusion detection on our infrastructure, and independent penetration tests and security audits.”
Businesses also have a range of features they can use to control who can see or change the data in their apps, such as row owners, visibility options, admin controls, SSO, built-in user authentication, and more. This means businesses can create something like a customer portal without inadvertently giving customers visibility into all other users’ data. Or a financial portal that lets a team see current finances but only allows managers to adjust the numbers.
For more details, it also has a security whitepaper available to help teams review current practices.
Fast and intuitive development
One of the things that sets Glide apart more than anything else is the speed of development and the platform’s ease of use. It’s a true no-code platform. While an understanding of how computers work will help you here, you don’t need any coding experience at all to successfully create a business application. Reviews frequently mention that MVPs can be built in hours to days, and changes can be made extremely quickly as your needs change.
The Glide Agent gives users the power of AI development, making the platform even easier to use. Simply describe what you want to build in a chat interface or upload reference photos and existing data, and the AI will assemble the structure of your app automatically. With Glide, you get the intuitive experience of vibe coding without the scalability issues and security vulnerabilities.
Beautiful design out of the box
All Glide apps are composed of pre-built components that are updated by Glide’s design team as design changes over time. As a result, your apps stay looking modern instead of becoming outdated. When using Glide, you essentially have the skills of a world-class design team at your fingertips, ensuring your apps look professional for both clients and internal users. This helps businesses create apps they’re proud to share and enjoy using.
You do have the ability to customize the look and feel of your app with color, branding, and other elements that help your app feel like your own. Customization of the look of your Glide app is intentionally more limited than on other platforms. Design guardrails ensure the UI of every app is clean and effective for the businesses relying on them for their critical work. In other platforms, high levels of freedom in customization, as well as CSS and custom code, can result in apps that break or are difficult to use.
If you do need a little more design freedom, the AI Custom Component gives you an AI-powered sandbox where you have the creative freedom to customize specific components of your app in a much broader way without affecting core functionality.
Mobile adaptability
Glide apps use adaptive design, meaning they look and function seamlessly across all devices (mobile, tablet, and computer). This means your apps can be used by teams wherever their work needs to be done. Warehouse workers can use a Glide app with a barcode scanner to check in shipments from the warehouse floor, field sales agents can pull up information and sign deals in the field, retail workers can cycle count while on the sales floor, and drivers can receive logistics details while in transit.
Glide builds PWAs only (progressive web apps). These apps are run through the device’s browser rather than being downloaded to the user’s device. The advantage of a PWA is that all data is synced instantly across all devices, and users can log into their tools from any device or operating system and access the same up-to-date information and features. Your apps can be installed on a device’s homescreen or toolbar so they are easy to open for a more native application feeling.
Data-based apps
Glide’s data-driven foundation is one of the things that makes it ideal as a business app builder. Ideal use-cases for Glide are often found in processes that were previously (and inefficiently) run by spreadsheets, paper forms, and texts or emails. Since data syncs in real-time, Glide will keep all your business data up-to-date and accurate across your operations.
To get started with Glide, connect a data source or import your data into the platform’s native database, and the design of your app will automatically adapt to your existing data. It supports data sources like Microsoft Excel, Airtable, and Google Sheets as well as databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Google Cloud SQL, and BigQuery. These high-scale sources can handle millions of rows and complex queries, with results appearing in your app. Native data source Glide Big Tables can manage up to 10 million rows of data.
Large community of builders and developers
Businesses don’t always want to DIY. When you need speed and the benefit of experience and skill, hiring a no-code developer is an ideal solution. Glide’s extensive community of skilled developers is a valuable resource for businesses.
The Glide Experts Program nurtures top no-code development talent. With thousands of Experts and agencies across over 100 countries, businesses have a broad selection of professional developers to draw from. Whether you’re looking to partner with an agency, hire a freelancer, or even bring on full-time talent within your team, you’ll be able to find the help you need.
If you already have the in-house skill to build, and what you need is advice, Glide has an active Community Forum where you can get answers to questions and connect with other users.
How to gain real-time operational visibility using custom logistics software
Read the guideWhat limitations does Glide have?
Like any platform, Glide has some limitations and use cases it’s not well-suited for.
Skill is required to create advanced features
While a basic Glide app is easy for almost anyone to create, some of the more complex features, like advanced logic in automations, API connections, AI integration, and complex permissions structures, will need builders to have a fundamental understanding of how software works.
Glide has extensive learning resources, but it may take more time or effort to learn how to set up more complex functionality than is practical for someone who has other responsibilities. This is often why businesses will end up turning to an experienced Expert after setting up an initial MVP.
Not a native mobile app builder
Glide apps are PWAs, not native iOS/Android apps. If your intent is to build a SaaS product to launch on the app store, Glide won’t be the right no-code builder for you. Entrepreneurs wanting to start a business with a publicly available app or sell a product will need to choose a different platform once they get past the prototyping phase.
If you need to build native apps, lots of no-code platforms are available. Native apps are necessary if you want to make your app available to the public through an app store (like the Apple App Store or Google Play). However, native apps aren’t generally ideal for internal tools. Businesses would need to build their app from scratch twice if they want it to be available for both Android and iOS, and data will live primarily on the user’s device, making collaboration and real-time data syncing across your business challenging.
Limited high-level design customization & custom code
The design of a Glide app is fairly tightly constrained. For a business app, the clean and effective UI can be beneficial, but if you want to have a higher level of control over the look and feel of your application, Glide won’t be the right choice. It has limited custom CSS abilities and no custom code or portability. The AI custom component can open up some design freedom within specific app components, however.
Not suitable for high-compliance industries
Glide isn’t the right platform if you’re working with sensitive or highly regulated data in industries like government, finance, or healthcare. Glide is not HIPAA-compliant, so it cannot be used for PHI or regulated healthcare workflows. If you’re building an app that doesn’t touch patient data, you may still be able to use Glide.
The top 21 applications for no-code in supply chain operations
Learn about themWho should use Glide?
Glide is trusted by thousands of companies with over 100,000 customers, ranging from small firms to Fortune 500 enterprises like HP, Coca-Cola, Hilton, and Volkswagen. It’s especially successful in labor-intensive industries that have typically been limited to clunky legacy software like manufacturing, real estate, retail, hospitality, and professional services.
Since Glide’s Business and Enterprise pricing plans allow you to create an unlimited number of apps, many businesses get the most out of Glide by making their plans available to their teams and encouraging them to create the tools they need to streamline their work. As shown in Glide’s Customer Stories, many businesses may have dozens of Glide apps of various sizes running for everything from personal task trackers for a team lead to massive ERPs that coordinate a large part of their operations.
- Individuals & Small Teams: Individuals can create their own personal apps to help their productivity and streamline their time-consuming tasks at work. Someone in a role that handles a lot of data, such as finance, can create their own dashboard to track their work more easily, or a team lead could create a time-off request portal to better coordinate their team’s availability. Often this work relies heavily on spreadsheets with a poor user interface, especially on mobile, so custom apps can be a huge benefit. For example, the CEO of Type.ai created a lead-scoring app to help him use AI to figure out which leads he should personally reach out to.
- Business Departments & Non-Technical Staff: Glide is particularly empowering for operations managers, project leads, and IT teams to create important tools for their workplaces. If you’re on a team that currently relies on paperwork, email, or scattered spreadsheets, you can use Glide to create your own solution like an internal CRM for your sales team, a job dispatch app for field technicians, or a task tracker for HR onboarding. For example, TechnipFMC uses a Glide app to provide field technicians with up-to-date product information on-site.
- Small Businesses & Entrepreneurs: Small businesses can achieve a lot more with the help of custom Glide apps. Customer portals can elevate a business’s customer experience, or a reporting app can help the business owner understand how the business is doing and identify problems or opportunities early. For example, JDE Events runs marketing, customer comms, staff and equipment allocation, and top-level reporting for their event management business.
- Enterprises & IT Teams: Enterprise features like centralized data (including SQL database support), single sign-on, and scalability up to millions of data rows ensure that even large businesses can deploy Glide apps for mission-critical workflows. At its most powerful, Glide can be used as the connective tissue of an organization, creating a capable and adaptive ERP-type system. For example, CarboNet’s COO uses a connected system of Glide apps to provide departments like finance, field operations, customer fulfillment, and warehouse operations the tools they need to run their industrial chemical operations, all connected to the same core data.
- Agencies & freelancers: Glide is an excellent platform for no-code developers who want to grow a business by building business apps professionally. The Experts Program is one of the most supportive in the industry, with specialized Agency plans, Certifications, and strong support from the Glide team. Due to this support, freelancers have built careers around Glide, and agencies have grown into six-figure businesses. Even if you're a website developer with no experience building no-code apps, Glide could add a whole other revenue source to your agency.
What are people are saying about Glide?
“We built an app that allowed a client to triple their warehouse size and more than 2.5x their revenues and income based on the efficiencies created through this Glide interface.”
Charles Melendez
Co-Founder, Optimize IS
Glide is highly rated on G2 and Trustpilot with reviews from businesses of all sizes. Notably, while Glide is listed at 4.7 stars with over 700 reviews and growing, all reviews fall between 4 and 5 stars, with no reviews falling at 3 stars or below, unlike competitors, which have high ratings but a wider range of negative reviews.
About speed and ease-of-use:
“Glide offers the most powerful and flexible internal app building feature set I've ever seen.” - Kevin Murphy
“Glide stood out with its clean interface, easy-to-follow structure, and strong customization options. All built around something as familiar as a spreadsheet.” - Reza W., IT Assistant Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
“Unlike other platforms where you have to adapt your processes to fit their structure, with Glide you can build exactly what you want, exactly how you need it, without annoying workarounds.” - Tom B., Business Management & Operations Systems Expert
“Although I’m not a software developer, with Glide I truly feel like one. I can translate the business needs I identify into real, functional software solutions on my own, without the need for large development teams and the high costs of traditional software development.” - Tom B., Business Management & Operations Systems Expert
“Glide gives me the freedom to design a solution that fits my specific needs. It’s flexible, adaptable, and accessible — both technically and financially. It allows me to take my idea from dream to reality without having to rely on someone else or pay a developer to do it for me. In that sense of creative and practical freedom is exactly what I was looking for.” - Smadar C., ISP tech support representative, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
“(My app is) beautiful, functional, and lives on my phone. Publishing it and accessing it on mobile (with email-only access) was incredibly smooth and made me feel empowered. Thank you for making something so powerful feel so accessible.” - Smadar C., ISP tech support representative, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
“Glide has empowered me to build exactly what I envisioned—something no external developer could fully capture.” - Dylan C. Director Small-Business
About speed of development:
“It’s phenomenal how you can wake up with a new feature idea and release it to your users within just a couple of hours. This level of flexibility and speed is truly unprecedented.” - Tom B., Business Management & Operations Systems Expert
“Sometimes I’m able to release a fully working solution for my clients just hours after finishing the planning phase. This is truly unprecedented. The ability to develop so quickly also enables incredibly fast feedback loops and immediate improvements, which in itself is priceless.” - Tom B., Business Management & Operations Systems Expert
“The platform allows us to create and deploy real-world applications quickly. The applications look great and seem to be limited only by our imagination. Our customers love the tools we've provided them with Glide.” - Nick P., Data Analyst, Sr. Developer Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
“You can achieve 70%+ of critical functionality needed for many processes in a matter of hours, and the rest you can build at out later.” - Isaiah F., Quality Analyst II
About the platform features and updates:
“I have been following Glide since 2020, and their ability to keep up with technological advancements is truly impressive…I also admire how quickly they recognized the importance of AI integration. In my opinion, Glide is one of the fastest platforms to incorporate AI into its environment, which makes it even more powerful and relevant.” - Javieri P., Head of IT Department Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
“It is incredibly straightforward and easy to rapidly deploy powerful apps…It’s not clunky, all of the logic inside of the platform is airtight. It's incredibly seamless, and they keep extending the functionality.” - Isaiah F., Quality Analyst II
About building with AI:
“The agent feature makes app building effortless by allowing me to simply describe my needs, and it handles the creation process. I appreciate the ability to add filters, search bars, and different pages, enhancing functionality.” - Sumayyah G.
“I am able to work through the steps of building what I want with the AI directions and then hire experts as needed when I get "stuck.” - Verified User in Restaurants
About customer support and community:
“The Glide community and employees could not be more open about sharing their solutions and tricks for solving problems from their own experiences. It's a very supportive and encouraging community to be a part of.” - Nick P., Data Analyst, Sr. Developer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
“I really appreciate the responsive support team from Glide. Every time I hit a bump, they’ve been quick and helpful. That friendliness really matters when you're not coming from a tech background.” - Reza W., IT Assistant Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
About business use cases:
“This app is a game changer for my business, saving me hundreds of dollars in expensive restaurant management software with better functioning because it's made by me for me!” - Verified User in Restaurants
“The full customization that Glide offers allows us to integrate information from our department in a compact and mobile form. Allowing quick and streamlined information as well as functionality for our Field techs and District office team. Minimizing the level of level 2 support calls to almost non-existent. Our team now has the support and information at their fingertips, ready for all Tech issues they may encounter!” - Rigo S., Technology Analyst Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)
“Initially, I used it to digitize our recruitment process during the pandemic. What used to involve paperwork, transport, and manual checking became much simpler and paperless. But that was just the beginning. Now, we’re also using Glide for:
- A Car Monitoring System to keep track of company vehicles
- An Inspection Tracker for the Palm Oil Mill, which helps record findings and follow-ups more easily
- Health Clinic Administration to support the day-to-day operations of our company’s internal clinic, etc
All these apps are now live and in use. They’ve saved time, reduced paperwork, cut transport and logistic costs, and made monitoring much easier—everything now runs more automatically.” - Reza W., IT Assistant Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
“We've written an app which is deployed at several customer job sites. It is used to track their inventory run rates so our sales personnel can see, in real-time, when they're approaching reorder thresholds. This helps us replenish their stock before they run out. Prior to this, either our sales personnel were traveling to the job sites multiple times a week to count and assess stocking levels, or customers were calling with expedited order requests whenever they ran out of items. Our sales personnel can now track the inventory levels remotely, and they can now travel to job sites for customer relations engagement instead of doing cycle counts.” - Nick P., Data Analyst, Sr. Developer Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
“Glide has been extremely helpful in simplifying complex student administration tasks. Managing student data and administrative processes can be overwhelming, but with Glide, these tasks become much more organized and efficient. This has allowed us to save time and reduce errors, making the overall management process smoother and more effective.” - Javieri P., Head of IT Department, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
How does Glide compare to other popular alternatives?
When choosing the right platform to build your business apps, it helps to understand what types of tools are available on the market. Here’s how Glide compares to some of the most well-known no-code, low-code, and AI app builders.
“It's always about building something that scales and building it very fast. The only app that could do that was Glide. Now, I honestly don't see myself using anything else.”
Mohamed Swellam
Founder, Geeky Air
Glide vs. Webflow
Webflow is a popular website builder. If you want to spin up a landing page or beautiful marketing site, Webflow is a great option. Glide is a better tool for building internal tools, though you can embed a Glide app in a Webflow page to extend the capabilities of both or have your Webflow site communicate with your Glide app.
For example, one user describes building an app to manage ticket sales for a zoo. Users buy tickets through the Webflow site, the purchase is logged in a Glide app, and then customers scan tickets on entry using an iPad with a Glide app that has barcode scanning capabilities.
Glide vs. Zapier
Zapier excels at creating automations (called “zaps”). It advertises a basic app builder, but its capabilities are fairly limited. Zapier can be used in conjunction with Glide to create powerful automated connections between your other business software. However, Glide’s interface-building abilities are much stronger.
Glide vs. Retool
Retool is more low-code and primarily aimed at dev teams and technical users. Retool connects directly to databases and APIs, letting you write SQL and JavaScript for full control. It’s ideal for complex internal dashboards or admin panels in enterprise environments if you have the available technical abilities on your team.
Glide requires no code at all and is considered faster and easier to use, even for more technical users. Unless you require the complexity of Retool, Glide will be a more adaptable platform for you.
Glide vs Softr
Softer is a much simpler platform, aimed at building simple web portals and sites, using Airtable/Sheets as a backend. Softr is very easy for quick use cases (like basic member or project portals), but it lacks advanced logic and customization. It’s best when you need something fast and lightweight. If you need more capable and robustly featured apps, Glide is the better option.
Glide vs. Bubble
Bubble is a frequently mentioned no-code web app builder and is probably the most similar to Glide in many ways. Deciding between these two comes down to the details. Bubble is generally considered to have a much steeper learning curve than Glide, and users have complained about performance and scalability limitations as well as an outdated interface.
Glide vs. Vibe Coding (Lovable, Bolt, Replit)
Vibe coding, or using AI to write software code, is the newest tool available for creating apps. It has many incredible use cases, primarily excelling in creating beautiful landing pages and rapidly iterating and prototyping ideas. However, vibe coding has many risks that make it impractical for most business app building.
It’s hard to debug vibe-coded tools, especially if you aren’t a coder. Users also struggle to create more complex features, like user authentication, which are essential for business users. Often, businesses end up hiring developers to complete a project anyway. There are also significant security flaws written into a lot of AI-generated code that can end up risking your sensitive business data (like API keys, credentials, or personal data) or causing performance issues when you need your tools the most. Vibe coding is a great choice if you need limitless design flexibility and you’re not using sensitive data. For anything that needs to be secure, reliable, and scalable, Glide gives you some of the fluid freedom of developing using AI, but assembled using well-designed, prefabricated components.
How do you get started with Glide?
Ultimately, if you are a business that needs the support of a platform that is designed specifically to make the essential business tools you rely on, Glide is the best choice on the market.
If you’re ready to begin building your business’s apps with Glide, you have a few options.
Glide University is a thorough LMS that has everything you need to begin learning, or you can tackle the three-level introductory Glide Certification if you prefer a more structured learning environment (with a certificate awarded upon completion).
If you already know you’ll want to hire outside help, you can head right to the Experts Directory to find a Glide developer to help get your apps built fast, or reach out to Glide Solutions to work directly with Glide and an agency partner to bring your business app to life
