Zoho Creator

I ran a web development firm for nearly 20 years prior to moving into a different industry, so I knew the power of databases and the importance of them in day to day processes. Moving in to a startup with zero infrastructure, one of my first tasks was to get a production database going. We struggled along for awhile passing Excel spreadsheets back and forth for a few months and quickly outgrew that.

I did not want to create a web app from scratch with mySQL. We didn't have the developers, time, or budget to do that. So, I started looking around for a tool that would let me do what I needed to do. Zoho Creator was a perfect match. To be honest, there's not much you can't do with this tool. It will probably handle 90% of what most mid-sized businesses need. It's totally customizable, and their Deluge programming language lets you do special things that most basic web-based drag-and-drop solutions wouldn't be able to handle.

To be honest, Zoho is almost too powerful. It fits our needs and we've barely scratched the surface of its abilities.

The documentation for Zoho Creator is fair, but if you can't get your questions answered through their knowledge base, finding an expert isn't easy. Their support email is not too helpful. And while they do have a database of experienced Deluge developers that you can call on, it seems a little cumbersome to have to bring in a third party. Also, there are a couple of different versions of Zoho Creator currently in deployment. So, depending on which version your account is on, the documentation might differ - the features certainly do differ. It's a very very powerful product, but because it is a closed-source, proprietary solution, you're somewhat at the mercy of Zoho to get answers to your programming questions.

Great interface, email and text integration.

1) Speed is too slow for "real" business use.
2) On premise application is forever stuck in Beta, there is no choice but to use Zoho's slow servers.
3) URL and mobile app customization is not possible.