Buying snapshot
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| Decision point | What Budibase states |
|---|---|
Deployment | Self-host with Docker (single ARM-compatible image), Docker Compose, Kubernetes, Digital Ocean or Portainer, or use the managed Budibase Cloud |
License | GPL v3 for the platform; MPL for the client and component libraries; Budibase paid features under the Business Source License |
Cloud billing unit | Actions: each agent action, workflow step, or row create, update or delete in the Budibase DB or a SQL DB counts as one; custom SQL queries and API requests are not included as actions |
Built-in database rows (Cloud) | Budibase DB rows limit: 50,000 on Pro, 250,000 on Premium, 500,000 on Business, unlimited on Enterprise |
Security | ISO 27001 certified, per Budibase; the platform offers custom RBAC, SSO, SAML, backups and a public API, with audit logs on the Enterprise plans (Cloud and self-hosted) |
Support | Community support on the free open-source plan; email support from Business; priority support/SLAs on Enterprise |
Our take
Budibase is a good fit if you can run it on your own infrastructure: the open-source plan gives the full builder for agents, apps and automations with no licence fee. Choose Budibase Cloud only after you have estimated your monthly action volume, the main input for sizing a plan alongside creator and workspace needs.
Evaluate Budibase
Comparisons
Where it stands out
Free to run on your own infrastructure. Budibase says its open-source self-hosted plan is free to use indefinitely, with no software licensing fees. A team can build and run real agents, apps and automations before it pays anything.
Model choice stays with you. Agents run with OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral or custom model providers, and you can connect your own AI provider keys. You are not tied to one model vendor's terms.
Agents that act, not only answer. Budibase says agents can reach over 10,000 operations across 100s of tools, ground answers with retrieval workflows including pgvector support, and read internal tables and external APIs. Its own examples create Jira issues and send Slack messages.
A built-in database to start from. Budibase DB stores tables, columns and rows inside the platform and works alongside external data sources, so a process-first prototype does not need a database connection on day one.
Your apps keep their own licence. Because the client and component libraries are MPL, the apps you build can be licensed however you like, even though the platform itself is GPL v3.
Product screenshot
Trade-offs to weigh
Hitting the action limit stops work. On Cloud, actions are hard monthly limits: when you reach yours, you must move to a higher tier or plan to continue running agents and automations. Busy automations need headroom, not a plan sized to an average month.
A second builder changes the plan. Pro and Premium include 1 creator, and only Premium and Business offer the Creators add-on. A Pro team that adds a second builder must move to Premium or higher.
Identity and audit controls sit in Enterprise. Active Directory/SCIM, audit logs and 365 days of logs appear only in the Enterprise plans, on Cloud and self-hosted, and both are priced through sales. Teams with those requirements cannot use the free or self-serve plans for production.
Outgrowing the free plan means a sales call. For self-hosted teams, the next plan up is self-hosted Enterprise, which is priced as Custom through sales. Budget time for that conversation before the free plan becomes a constraint.
Chat channels are still arriving. Agents run inside Automations, Budibase Chat and Discord today; Budibase says Teams and Slack are coming soon.
Pricing and plan conditions
Cloud plans are sized mainly by actions, with per-seat add-ons for end users and creators. Budibase sets monthly prices at the yearly price +20%, and add-ons follow the same yearly/monthly toggle. On yearly billing, end users cost $5/user/mo as an add-on on Pro, Premium and Business, and extra creators cost $50/creator/mo as an add-on on Premium and Business. Budibase recommends Cloud if you want managed infrastructure, built-in scalability, collaboration tools, AI credits and support, and self-hosting if you require full control over your infrastructure and deployment.
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| Plan | Published price | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
Pro (Budibase Cloud) | $19 / month; action options shown: 5K and 10K actions | 2K Budibase AI credits, 1 creator, 1 day logs, 1 workspace, unlimited agents, synchronous automations; 14 day free trial; add-on: end users |
Premium (Budibase Cloud) | $49 / month; action options shown: 20K and 50K actions | Everything in Pro, plus: 10K Budibase AI credits, 1 creator, 7 days logs, 10 workspaces, custom branding, backups and restore, SSO; 14 day free trial; add-ons: end users, creators |
Business (Budibase Cloud) | $299 / month; 250K actions | Everything in Premium, plus: 50K Budibase AI credits, 3 creators, 30 days logs, unlimited workspaces, environment variables, enforced SSO, user groups, email support; 14 day free trial; add-ons: end users, creators |
Enterprise (Budibase Cloud) | Custom; custom actions; contact sales | Everything in Business, plus: Active directory/SCIM, 365 days logs, audit logs, priority support/SLAs, Micro Frontends (MFEs); add-ons: air-gapped deployment, onboarding and training |
Open source (self-host / on-premise) | Free; unlimited actions | 1 workspace, unlimited apps, automations, agents and users, community support, SSO |
Enterprise (self-host / on-premise) | Custom; unlimited actions; contact sales | Everything in open source, plus: custom branding, backups and restore, environment variables, enforced SSO, user groups, Active directory/SCIM, 365 days logs, audit logs, priority support/SLAs; add-ons: air-gapped deployment, onboarding and training |
Public signals
About these signals
Verified factual signals from public sources. They indicate observable activity or interest, not total adoption, product quality, or cost.
2.4k GitHub commits 90d28.4k GitHub stars0 vulnerabilities across 1 package
See all signals from 7 sources
npm · @budibase/client@3.38.1
Alternatives to Budibase
The reviewed substitutes for Budibase among the internal tool builders, and what would make each one the better answer.
Direct alternatives
Reviewed substitutes: products bought for the same job, where a team picks one.
- Retool
- Choose Retool if you need enterprise-grade features like SSO, audit logs, staging environments, and a polished component library, and your budget supports $75 per user per month on paid plans.Applies to: Choosing between two products of the same kind for one job.
Other approaches
A different approach to the same problem. Each substitutes only for the workload named beside it.
- Cursor
- Both end in an internal application. Budibase assembles one from components and connects it to data with little code; Cursor helps a developer write the application directly. The decision follows who is building and how much the tool has to fit an existing codebase, which is a real 2026 question rather than a product-class coincidence.Applies to: Building an internal tool: assemble it in a low-code builder, or write it with an AI assistant.
- Appsmith
- Choose Appsmith if you want an open-source internal tool builder with better developer tooling and Git integration than Budibase.Applies to: Choose Appsmith when open-source transparency, full code control, and Git-native workflows are priorities. With 40,000+ GitHub stars and an Apache 2.0 license, Appsmith gives engineering teams complete visibility into the codebase and zero vendor lock-in. Its centralized IDE with auto-complete, debugging, and linting rivals traditional development environments.
- PHPRunner
- Budibase can replace PHPRunner for internal database applications when a shared application and automation platform fits the workflow. Compare operating a Budibase instance or cloud plan with maintaining generated PHP on a compatible web server; prototype schema, permissions and writes.Applies to: Internal database forms, reports and record workflows; application platform versus generated PHP runtime.