Adalo vs. Kintone

At a glance

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

Kintone

Best for

Best for teams that have outgrown a shared spreadsheet and want to build their own workflow apps without a developer.

Small and mid-sized
Enterprise

Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.

Full Comparison

Criterion	Adalo	Kintone
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 $24 / user / month Five users minimum, so the smallest subscription is $120 per month. Kintone publishes one plan with every feature included, and offers special pricing for 501(c)(3) nonprofits, education and government organisations.
Free trial	Free plan with unlimited test apps, 500 records per app and no publishing	30-day free trial with access to every feature, including a consultation with a product specialist
Users	Not stated	5 users minimum
Output	Native iOS and Android apps plus a responsive web app from one project	No-code business apps: shared databases, forms, workflow and team spaces
API	Yes, a Collections API and a Notifications API, plus custom actions against any REST API	Yes, a REST API for records, apps, files and spaces as well as users, departments and groups, plus webhooks and JavaScript APIs
Languages	Not stated	7: Japanese, English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Thai and Brazilian Portuguese
Hosting	Not stated	Vendor-hosted cloud
Made in	Not stated	Japan
What you build	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	No-code business apps built from drag-and-drop forms and shared databases, with process management for approvals and workflow, team Spaces for discussion tied to the records, and a library of more than 50 templates. Kintone AI configures forms and workflow steps from plain language and checks settings, then searches records, summarises comment threads and surfaces trends
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	A drag-and-drop app builder rather than a generated codebase, extended with JavaScript customisations and packaged plug-ins
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	A built-in database that replaces the spreadsheet, with granular permissions and revision history on records, plus connectors to services such as Microsoft 365, Slack, Okta and Docusign
Connectors	Zapier, custom actions that call any REST API and external collections that read and write REST data, plus Google Sheets, Stripe and Google Maps. The Notifications API can be triggered from tools such as Make. Custom integrations and custom actions start on Professional; the Xano integration and the App and Collections API come with Team	REST API, webhooks and JavaScript and CSS customisation, plus native packaged plug-ins and third-party extensions such as a QuickBooks sync by FujiSoft, KrewDashboard by MESCIUS and Formstack Documents by Zapier
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	Vendor-hosted cloud, reached from browsers, smartphones and tablets
Governance and admin	App editors grow by plan, from 1 on Starter to 5 on Professional and 10 on Team. Every editor added to an app has full access to it, including deleting it, and Adalo does not support two people editing the same app at once. Design versions on paid plans keep up to 10 earlier versions of screens and layouts but not database changes; version history and white labelling come with Team, and Adalo Blue adds dedicated infrastructure and on-premise deployment	Permissions by department, space, app, record and field, downloadable audit logs with alert emails, SAML 2.0 single sign-on, two-factor authentication, IP address restrictions, and password, session and account lockout policies set by the administrator
Payments	Yes, Stripe payments collected inside the app	No payment collection of its own. None of the thirty native plug-ins is a payment gateway, and the third-party extensions Kintone names handle QuickBooks data sync, dashboards and document generation rather than checkout, so a provider is reached like any other service through the REST API, a webhook or a JavaScript customisation
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	Customisation through JavaScript customisations and distributable plug-ins packaged for Kintone apps, with a REST API and webhooks for outside systems
AI assistant	Ada on every plan, the free one included, with no token or usage charge: Magic Start builds screens, a database, navigation and sample data from a description, Magic Add adds features to an existing app on request, an element on the canvas can be pointed at and changed by instruction, and X-Ray checks the app for performance issues, broken links and missing data connections before publishing. The pricing page labels prompt building and prompt editing as beta	Kintone AI: AI App Creator and AI Process Creator suggest form fields and workflows in chat, AI Search builds chatbots over chosen apps that answer within each user's permissions, and AI Thread Summary, AI View Analysis and AI App Settings Review summarise threads, analyse records and check apps against admin rules
Pricing model	Flat monthly price per team, with plans set by the number of published apps, app editors and storage. Adalo charges no per-user, per-action or token fees, and annual billing is 20 percent cheaper than monthly	One plan with every feature at $24 per user per month, five users minimum ($120 a month), with special pricing for nonprofits, education and government on request
AI features	Yes	Yes
Deployment	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based
Support	Email helpdesk, Community forum	Email helpdesk, Community forum
Onboarding	Documentation and knowledge base, Video tutorials	more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Video tutorials, Live online demos and webinars, Personal consulting
Company size	more entries Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise	Small and mid-sized, Enterprise
Integrations	more entries Stripe, Zapier, Make, Google Sheets, Google Maps, Xano, Airtable	Microsoft 365, Slack, Okta, Docusign

Compare more tools

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 Kintone $24 / user / month
Free trial Adalo Free plan with unlimited test apps, 500 records per app and no publishing Kintone 30-day free trial with access to every feature, including a consultation with a product specialist
Company size Adalo Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise Kintone Small and mid-sized, Enterprise
Output Adalo Native iOS and Android apps plus a responsive web app from one project Kintone No-code business apps: shared databases, forms, workflow and team spaces
API Adalo Yes, a Collections API and a Notifications API, plus custom actions against any REST API Kintone Yes, a REST API for records, apps, files and spaces as well as users, departments and groups, plus webhooks and JavaScript APIs

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

Kintone

Strengths

One plan with every feature included, so nothing has to be negotiated into a higher tier
Kintone AI works on the configuration, setting up forms and workflow steps from plain language
REST API, webhooks, JavaScript customisations and distributable plug-ins for extension
Granular permissions and revision history on records
Interface available in seven languages, including Japanese, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese
30-day trial covers every feature and includes a consultation with a product specialist

Limitations

Five-user minimum puts the smallest subscription at $120 per month
Vendor-hosted cloud only, with no self-hosted or on-premise option published
The AI assists with configuration and search rather than generating a whole application from a prompt
Nonprofit, education and government pricing is not published and has to be requested

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.

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Kintone

Kintone $24 Per user, per month, with a five-user minimum ($120 per month). One plan with all features: no-code application building, process management, the collaboration suite, unlimited custom views, open API connectivity and mobile access.

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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. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.

Kintone

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. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.

How we check reviews

Reviews are not published yet. The form on a tool's page works and reaches us, but nothing from it appears on this site, so no score here is based on a review. The rules below are the ones that will apply once reviews go live.

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Where this comes from

Adalo https://www.adalo.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-12

Kintone https://www.kintone.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-20

This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.