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p/glide-2Create an app from a Google Sheet in five minutes
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Amrith

Glide 1.0 - Create mobile apps from Google Sheets

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Every spreadsheet is an amazing app waiting to happen. Pick a Google Sheet and Glide assembles a polished, data-driven mobile app that you can share with a link and publish to app stores if you desire.

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David Siegel
Maker
Hello, Product Hunt! We are Antonio, David, Jason & Mark and we're building Glide to make it easy & fun for anyone to build amazing apps without code. We're not the first to build on top of spreadsheets, but we think the idea has never developed to its full potential. Spreadsheets are the most successful programming model of all time, and smartphones are the most successful computer of all time, but they've never been meaningfully connected. We're really excited to develop this concept further and we're eager for your feedback! Thanks!
Amr
@dvdsgl David – this is really great. I've been actually working for the past week on converting one of my excel sheets to an app. So I relate to the pain. And I can say this is really a step on the right way. Kudos.
David Siegel
Maker
@amrsobhy Thanks a lot! I hope Glide can help with that!
Aaron O'Leary
See a lot of products take this approach but Glide seems truly seamless and simple to use! @dvdsgl is there any major limitations for developers to take this approach? Would love to hear your thoughts!
David Siegel
Maker
@aaronoleary Thank you! There are some limitations at the moment – Glide apps are best for brochure-style apps that show a global view on a data set right now, but we are focusing on adding and editing data next. We’ve watched hundreds of developers build thousands of apps over the last 7 years, and we learned that designing a great app is often a much harder problem than writing its code. We’re tackling the challenge of designing a great app by applying high-level mobile patterns and pre-built components that bind to your data. We never want a user to have to arrange primitive components on a 2D canvas unless they really need something bespoke, and we want to empower anyone to include the best features from their favorite App Store apps with zero work. There are so many subtle details to get right to make great app experiences that we need to offer useful constraints so that app creators quickly get a result they’ll be proud to share, but there is definitely a balance between constraints and power that we'll have to play with. The spreadsheet model of data/computation is integral to our plans for Glide–Google Sheets is a starting point, but it’s also not merely one of many data sources for Glide. We think that non-programmers will be able to build serious apps with this familiar model.
Richard Goodwin
@aaronoleary @dvdsgl Do your plans include being able to pull updated data? Or is it a re-publish each time? Edit: Now that I see they are PWA's, I guess my question is more nuanced, about published apps perhaps? :)
Dylan Field
Top Product
Glide is an incredible tool! I've used it to make a few apps now and it's seamless. Excited to share it with some of my less technical friends who have always wanted to make an app!
David Siegel
Maker
@zoink Thank you! Can't wait to brainstorm with you about our future crypto components :D
Ben Tossell
I found Glide after they followed me on Twitter while I was posting some tutorials... so I gave it a go and got a product review app up in minutes: https://twitter.com/bentossell/s...
Aaron O'Leary
@bentossell You know this thing is good when the master of no code building himself gives it an endorsement!
Mahesh Babu
Is there a way to have Data Entry form for the users? Perhaps incorporate google forms?
David Siegel
Maker
@hellomahesh You can link to Google Forms at the moment, but in-app forms are coming in the next few weeks: http://help.glideapps.com/faq/ca...
Michael Roman
@hellomahesh @dvdsgl Any update on the in-app forms? Thanks!
David Siegel
Maker
@hellomahesh @michael_roman Still working on them! You can add and edit now, though, for inputting data.
Roberto Mateu
The quality of the "webapp" in iOS is amazing - absolutely feels like native app. I see the appeal for enterprise, but given the simplicity of the Google Sheets to App model, I'm going to try moving some iOS Shortcuts/IFTTT flows to apps to experiment. Congrats on launch!
David Siegel
Maker
@rmateu Thanks a lot! We're really focused on getting the little details right. In fact I think we're the only PWA on iOS to support edge-swipe ;)
Chris Strom
Congrats on the launch! Are you able to publish apps created from Glide on the app store/play store only with the Business App subscription or can you with the simple and pro levels too?
David Siegel
Maker
@marketplicity Thank you for your interest and support! For the time being, if you want to publish to stores, that's available on our Business plan. We're enabling new PWA features every week, though, so the web versions are evolving quickly and those are free & instant to share. iOS 12.2 adds even more useful PWA features.
Desi Saran
This is awesome! It looks like it has a lot of potential! A couple of quick questions - could I make a menu app for one restaurant so people can view it visually? Could I create a checklist app for a restaurant where employee have to check off items every morning and night off a checklist? Or right now is there more for static projects like brochures or menus?
David Siegel
Maker
@desi_saran Right now the data is more-or-less static, with basic Notes, Comments, and Chat components. We are focused on the ability to add and edit records next, so you'll be able to do what you describe in the next month or two.
Kirill Zubovsky
Looks fantastic and having done more work in the last year in tools like Webflow and form-builders, without writing any code, this is definitely appealing for the next generation of app creation. Q: How does the app compile? I couldn't find the answer on the website. Is it a Glide app that everyone has to install and mine loads from within, or is it a web-view that is optimized to look like a native app? Thanks! ✌YC.
David Siegel
Maker
@kirillzubovsky Each Glide app is a mobile-optimized web app (PWA) and native builds for iOS and Android, but the native builds are currently only available on our paid tier. We have a native implementation of Glide on React Native, but are learning more about what customers need when they ask for "native" and are exploring our options here.
Kirill Zubovsky
@dvdsgl Thanks! Also, how do you guys store images in Sheets ? Are all of those external urls of a 3rd party storage? I didn't know Sheets allowed for image storage.
David Siegel
Maker
@kirillzubovsky Right now you just use URLs but you can also use data URLs. It's clunky and we need to improve it.
Daniel Oertli
Brilliant! What's your UI/tech stack? Are you using Ionic or similar for the iOS-style UI elements?
David Siegel
Maker
@dco Thanks! All components are designed and implemented by us.
Ameya SK
This looks sooooo good and promising! Definitely a step in the right direction for small / static apps to at least push a working mvp out with. Going to give it a go and try and hack something off the "expected" track here! Kudos guys on a brilliant app and best of luck!
David Siegel
Maker
@ameya_sk Thanks!
John Faig
I agree that spreadsheets are apps in waiting. I'd like to see a web-based version of the app too.
Veer Dosi
I love glideapp. I have been using this for 3 months now and this fascinating journey has really got me thinking about how easy it is to build an app for your project or your startup. I would definitely recommend this app to everyone reading this because this has helped me a lot and once you get the hang of it, the experience is brilliant. thanks a lot, @dvdsg and the entire glideapp team for making this possible
Rohit Goyal

Pretty easy to build apps specially if you are looking for static apps.

Pros:

You can create beautiful apps within minutes without much hassle.

Cons:

Haven't tried for a big project yet so can't say.

David Siegel
Maker
Thanks, Rohit! Now let's build an app together :D
Sasha Radoslavov
Any live previews?
David Siegel
Maker
@sasha_radoslavov What do you mean by that? Like a spreadsheet, Glide apps are 'live previewed' as you work on them. There is no distinction between building and running them.
Anurag Mehra
Hi @imrgoyal, concept looks super amazing and easy. I'm trying to create an app using your platform however, the page is getting refreshed automatically which is becoming irritating. I'm not sure if anyone is also facing the same issue. Can you please check?
David Siegel
Maker
@imrgoyal @anuragmehra Thanks for reporting! Sounds like you are getting a crash. Can you please contact us at hello@glideapps.com with a screenshot of your Developer Console?
Sedat Yurdakan
This is one of most interesting projects I’ve seen in years. Is there a basic analytics feature? It would be very important for validating the ideas. Thanks for creating Glide!
David Siegel
Maker
@sedat_yurdakan Wow thank you! We don't offer analytics yet but yes, we agree it's very important and we plan to add it.
Arpit Choudhury
Been hearing about Glide and meaning to give it a go. But even before I do, I'd like to admit that I am so fucking excited about the possibilities such no-code tools are opening up for the masses. More power to you guys! Can we expect some integrations or at least support for webhooks?
Antonio García Aprea
@irhymeth Thanks! We're effing excited as well too ;) And yes, integrations is something you should expect from Glide in the future.
Saxon Brooker
amazing but cant use without internet
David Siegel
Maker
@saxon_brooker Offline support is on our roadmap.
Debankan
Love what I see. Need to use it on a sample sheet. But question: is the app linked to the Google sheet associatively i.e. will the app update itself if/when changes are made to the underlying sheet?