Best for
Best for founders and freelancers who want one project published as a native iOS app, a native Android app and a web app without writing code.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
AI App Builders Comparison
Adalo vs. Appsmith
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for engineering teams that want self-hosted internal tools with the source under an open licence.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Adalo | Appsmith |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free plan; paid from $36 / month Annual billing is the rate shown by default; monthly billing costs 20 percent more. Plans differ mainly in published apps (1 on Starter, 2 on Professional, 5 on Team), editors and storage. Publishing to the stores also needs an Apple Developer account ($99 / year) and a Google Play developer account ($25 one-time), both charged by Apple and Google directly. | lower value Free; Business $15 / user / month Business is billed monthly by credit card for up to 99 users. Enterprise starts at $2,500 per month from 100 users and is usually billed annually. The self-hosted community edition is free. |
| Free trial | Free plan with unlimited test apps, 500 records per app and no publishing | Free plan for up to 5 users, plus a 15-day Business trial for new cloud signups |
| Output | Native iOS and Android apps plus a responsive web app from one project | Internal web apps: admin panels, dashboards and service tools |
| API | Yes, a Collections API and a Notifications API, plus custom actions against any REST API | Not stated |
| Hosting | Not stated | Appsmith cloud or self-hosted (Docker, Kubernetes, AWS AMI) |
| What it generates | Native iOS and Android apps plus a responsive web app from one project, assembled on a multi-screen canvas or built and edited by prompting the Ada assistant | Internal tools: admin panels, dashboards, customer 360 views and IT or service-management apps, assembled from a widget library |
| Stack and frameworks | Visual no-code editor with more than 200 drag-and-drop components; a developer mode allows private custom components, and a marketplace adds third-party ones | Drag-and-drop widgets with JavaScript available in every binding; an in-product AI copilot helps write queries, JavaScript and interface changes rather than generating a whole app from a prompt |
| Auth and database | Built-in hosted Postgres database with relational collections; outside data through external collections over REST, Google Sheets and Xano, which can also supply external users | 25+ databases (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, Snowflake, Redshift, DynamoDB, Databricks), REST and GraphQL, and 30+ SaaS connectors; Google SSO on the free plan, SAML and OIDC SSO with SCIM provisioning on Enterprise |
| Hosting and deploy | Published to an Adalo-hosted domain or a custom domain, and from paid plans to the Apple App Store and Google Play | Appsmith cloud, or self-hosted with Docker, Kubernetes or an AWS AMI; an air-gapped edition on Enterprise |
| Payments | Yes, Stripe payments collected inside the app | No built-in payments; Stripe is one of the SaaS connectors an app can call |
| Access to the code | Custom components rather than an exportable codebase. A component is bootstrapped outside Adalo with the create-adalo-component tool, which needs Node 10.2 or newer and developer mode enabled on the account, and is published with npx adalo publish, either publicly or privately. Code otherwise reaches an app from the outside: custom actions call any external REST API, and the Adalo API, documented for the Team and Business plans at up to 5 requests per second, reads and writes the app's collections and triggers push notifications. The developer documentation covers building and publishing components and does not document exporting an app's own source | Apache 2.0 and self-hostable, with Git version control against GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket or Azure: 3 repositories on the free plan, unlimited on Business |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | more entries Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based, On-premise |
| Support | Email helpdesk, Community forum | more entries Email helpdesk, Chat, Community forum |
| Onboarding | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Video tutorials | Documentation and knowledge base |
| Company size | more entries Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Stripe, Zapier, Make, Google Sheets, Google Maps, Xano, Airtable | more entries PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Snowflake, Redshift, DynamoDB, Elasticsearch, Redis, Firestore, Databricks, Amazon S3, Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Jira, Asana, Notion, Google Sheets, Airtable, Stripe, monday.com, Linear, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google AI |
Add a tool
Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price Adalo Free plan; paid from $36 / month Appsmith Free; Business $15 / user / month
- Free trial Adalo Free plan with unlimited test apps, 500 records per app and no publishing Appsmith Free plan for up to 5 users, plus a 15-day Business trial for new cloud signups
- Deployment Adalo Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based Appsmith Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based, On-premise
- Company size Adalo Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise Appsmith Small and mid-sized, Enterprise
- Support Adalo Email helpdesk, Community forum Appsmith Email helpdesk, Chat, Community forum
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Adalo
Strengths
- One project publishes as a native iOS app, a native Android app and a web app
- Ada, the AI assistant, is included on every plan with no token or usage charges
- Built-in relational Postgres database, so no external backend is required to start
- Flat monthly price with no usage-based or per-action charges
Limitations
- The free plan can build and test but cannot publish an app
- Published apps are capped per plan, so shipping several apps means moving up tiers
- App store publishing needs paid Apple and Google developer accounts on top
- Email support runs on a response-time SLA of three, two or one business days depending on the plan
Appsmith
Strengths
- Apache 2.0 licence with a free self-hosted community edition
- Connects to 25+ databases plus REST, GraphQL and 30+ SaaS services
- Git version control, including on the free plan
Limitations
- AI assists the person building rather than generating a whole app from a prompt
- Enterprise starts at $2,500 a month and 100 users
- SAML and OIDC SSO and SCIM provisioning are Enterprise-only
Plans
Pricing
Adalo
- Free $0 Unlimited test apps and screens, 500 records per app, 1 editor, Ada AI assistant. No publishing.
- Starter $36 Per month, billed annually. 1 published app, 1 editor, 5 GB storage, web and app store publishing, custom domain.
- Professional $52 Per month, billed annually. 2 published apps, 5 editors, 25 GB storage.
- Team $160 Per month, billed annually. 5 published apps, 10 editors, 125 GB storage.
- Adalo Blue Not stated Enterprise offering with dedicated infrastructure, custom monitoring, on-premise deployment and connections to data sources without an API. Priced on request.
Appsmith
- Free $0 Cloud, up to 5 users: 5 workspaces, 3 Git repositories, Google SSO, community support.
- Business $15 Per user per month, billed monthly, up to 99 users. Adds unlimited workspaces and Git repositories, workflows, premium integrations, custom roles and audit logs.
- Enterprise $2,500 Per month from 100 users, typically billed annually. Adds SAML and OIDC SSO, SCIM, CI/CD, private app embedding, an air-gapped edition and support with SLAs.
- Community (self-hosted) $0 Open source under Apache 2.0, self-hosted.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Adalo
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
Appsmith
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
Adalo https://www.adalo.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-12
Appsmith https://www.appsmith.com · no check date recorded yet
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.