Launch HN: Pandaflow.io – Low-Code Automation Platform
It’s Eric and Niraj, and we've been building PandaFlow.io for about a year and a half now. Think of PandaFlow as a more modern and flexible Zapier :) - specially built for multi-step use-cases that are difficult to do on simpler nocode workflow tools. As background, Eric and I also founded Eventgrid (small exit) a few years ago, created and still maintain DotnetFiddle (Microsoft Stack - yay!!), as well as helped to create Booker Software(now part of MindBody)
PandaFlow is a low-code workflow automation platform that helps to connect popular SaaS apps/systems that are typically run by companies but disconnected. While we are big fans of IFTTT, Zapier, Make, and others - we felt that when using those systems, there were things like looping, multi-legged, non-linear workflows that were hard or impossible to do. This is why we decided to roll our own. Of course, as usual, this is easier said than done, but we've found enough customers to get it going. In addition to our low-code workflow features, we have added advanced capabilities, including adding custom JS, processing nested loops, and making it easier to add new connectors just by importing your OpenAPI YAML.
When deploying Eventgrid (enterprise event management software) with customers, we consistently ran into application integration and automation problems. Enterprises had plenty of apps but no easy integration tool or the engineering bandwidth to do the work (and maintenance). We decided to tackle this problem with our PandaFlow. The idea was to provide a tool to businesses that could enable them to not only connect all of their apps but then apply whatever logic that also needs to be executed. We opted to go deeper vs. wider and focus on specific use cases. Currently, the majority of our customers are e-commerce businesses where we help automate, syncing their operations into various other systems. PandaFlow has dozens of connectors out of the box, and each one encapsulates a single API. We support both GraphQL and Rest API formats.
While there are a plethora of no/low code tools on the market today, there has recently also been a healthy amount of skepticism towards low-code tools, mainly due to concerns around extensibility and scalability. But we think the low code movement is here to stay, and as the tools mature, more people will start using them in the enterprise.