civan

I believe this is an highly productive discussion, and the question narrows down to "which tool is a better match for a specific use-case?"

The domain of internal-facing applications is quite diverse. One use-case can be a single page internal tool, triggering a small script. On the other extreme, organizations build SAAS/B2B interfaces with 10+ pages/resources maintained by dedicated development teams.

Need to deploy atomic internal tools where technical and non-technical roles collaborate? Retool, Superblocks, Appsmith, Tooljet or Budibase are perfect solutions. Turning scripts/workflows to basic UI's with integrated security and observability? You can choose with Windmill, Airplane or Onu. You don't want any overhead or learning curve for your lean project? Start from scratch and build with the great tools React community offers.

Refine becomes a better option for complex cases and higher customization requirements. You can give it a try if * You have to implement a custom design / design system, * You want to be able to customize your stack instead of locking in a black-box architecture. * You a need robust architecture for your long-lasting project proven by thousands of community members.

At Refine, we try to take a fresh approach to a space with very strong existing players, as you mentioned. Our philosophy is keeping the developer-centric focus and provide the best experience possible to make boring enterprise CRUD apps fun to build.

One of the key differences is our code-first preference over no-code, which distinguish Refine from the drag-drop style workflows of Retool, Appsmith, Tooljet, Budibase etc.

Instead of offering a fixed set of pre-made components, Refine outputs a real React project with collections of helper hooks and providers. The "headless" architecture enables developers to integrate any preferred UI framework or custom design, thereby maintaining the highest level of customization and styling options.

This level of flexibility fits use-cases like complex admin panels, SAAS interfaces and B2B portals rather then single-page internal tools which require little or no customizations.