Retool
p/retool
Build internal tools, remarkably fast
Jamie Cuffe

Mock API Generator — Generate custom data & API to build apps in less than 30s

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Generate a REST API with read + write endpoints on top of a sample dataset in less than 30 secs. Customize your dataset with dozens of datatypes. Built for testing, BI demo data, prototypes and more.
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Benoit Chambon
Guess we should show it to our dev team, what do you think @nazim_m ? ;) Congrats on the launch team!đź‘Ź
Jamie Cuffe
@nazim_m @benoit_chambon Thanks Benoit! Hope it's helpful to you and the team at Koinju. Let us know if you have any feedback we'll be adding more datatypes and functionality over the coming days
Sydney Cohen
Makes sense to type the data in each of the columns in the dataset. Also the fake data is pretty useful, and helps a lot when prototyping. Someone sent me your hunt today because we made something relatable, from a JSON you can create an API in seconds, you can check it out on PH: https://www.producthunt.com/post....
Jamie Cuffe
@chnsydney Super cool tool you've built! We'll be sure to send over anyone looking for the JSON -> API route too
Dominic Whyte
Hello Product Hunt! @cuffejamie and I are engineers here at Retool. We often need to spin-up APIs for demos, testing, prototypes, etc. Getting realistic data in the right shape and hosting it over and over became tedious so we built an API Generator. Our engineering and sales teams use the API Generator to quickly define custom datasets and create read + write REST endpoints. We used it this past week to demo a content moderation dashboard for a customer. The realistic data helped our prospect relate to our product before they had connected their live database. We hope it’s useful for you all, too. Here’s how you can use the API Generator in your apps, prototypes and demos: - Build custom datasets with dozens of datatypes from cities to logos to IP addresses - Preview your dataset in a live table and download it as a CSV - Generate a REST API that persists this data with read + write endpoints We’d love any input on 1) how useful our 1.0 version is and 2) what we can add to make it better. If you have any questions, we’re here to answer! Thanks for having us :)
Andrew Mason
@cuffejamie @dominicwhyte amazing! I'm so excited you built this.
Jamie Cuffe
Thanks @andrewmason - really appreciate you taking a look! Let us know if you have any feedback as you try it out
Jackie B
@cuffejamie @dominicwhyte Really pumped about this! Issue a lot of our founders at Rosecliff have as well
Dmitriy
Congrats on launching, @dominicwhyte @cuffejamie! This looks particularly useful for prototyping applications without having to spin up a backend. Would you consider adding a GraphQL endpoint as well for those of us using Apollo client in our frontends?
Jamie Cuffe
@dominicwhyte @dmiafa Yes exactly! I've been use this for prototyping my frontend progress while our backend eng team works on the infra. Thanks for taking a look!
Dominic Whyte
@dmiafa GraphQL is next up! Do you mainly need read QraphQL operations or also writes? (We're looking into adding both but want to make sure we prioritize correctly)
Dmitriy
@dominicwhyte Reads would be great to get us started! This way we can demo our frontend components with life-like data from the get-go. However, if we were able to get write too that would be the cherry on top!
Dominic Whyte
@dmiafa got it, thanks for the feedback! We'll let you know as soon as that's out
Rahul Nair
This will be a very useful tool by the looks of it. Congrats team for the product launch. Will definitely this out.
Shharrnam Chhatpar
Really cool product @dominicwhyte, @cuffejamie ! Really looking forward to using the tool to help us in unblock the frontend team from the backend team at AnalyticsVerse. Earlier we had to create mock endpoints on our own. This helps us save time and efforts, and enables us to move faster. Kudos to the team at Retool!
Dominic Whyte
Great to hear @sharnam19 ! Let us know know if there's anything we can add to help out your teams at AnalyticsVerse :)
Jamie Cuffe
@dominicwhyte @sharnam19 Thanks for checking this out! Yes exactly! I've been use this for prototyping my frontend progress while our backend eng team works on the infra. Curious to learn more about how you were mocking these internally on your own as we think about how to find more users with this same pain point
Bartek Najdecki
Really grate tool! It seems that it can be great for prototyping. Do you support exporting/updating via e.g. swagger? Do you support other types of APIs like graphql or gRpc?
Kevin Koste
Love this @cuffejamie @dominicwhyte! Does this tool create a SQL table for each dataset? For my use case, it would be nice to automatically generate the CREATE TABLE statement!
Jamie Cuffe
@dominicwhyte @kevinkoste Thanks for checking it out! Yes today in our backend it creates a table in our postgres DB. In V2 we're hoping to generate a postgres DB for you and give you the creds to be able to use that in Retool or anywhere else!
Jamie Cuffe
Awesome thanks @kevinkoste! Huge fan of what you all are building at Blobber too!
Kevin Yang
This is amazing! I've been looking for a simple mock data generator for a while. Nothing has satisfied all my requirements until now! I've already shared this with my team and we will be using it religiously. Couldn't ask for a better tool from some amazing builders!
Dominic Whyte
Great to hear @realkevinyang ! Keep us posted with how that goes + if you have any questions
ayberk bozkus
I think, there are too many api builders. What is your difference ?
Dominic Whyte
@ayberkbozkus thanks for the comment! We built the API generator because we needed a tool that allows us to generate an API and define a custom dataset that we could query + write to. We found tools that would help us do some of this but not all at once. Let us know if there's anything we could add to make it more useful to you!
Jamie Cuffe
@ayberkbozkus thanks for checking this out! Two other pieces that are top of mind for me: 1. We wanted more custom datatypes so we could properly test internally and make our prototypes/demos look more realistic. We'll continue adding dozens of predefined types and ways to create your own customer datatypes 2. We were tired of paywalls, etc when using data generator products so we put this up directly on the site. No signup required and it's free!
Paul Griffin Petty
How is this different & better than faker.js? And why haven't you resolved this: https://marak.com/blog/2021-04-2...
Tim Masek
Hey @dominicwhyte and @cuffejamie! Looks awesome. Do I need to know how to code to use this?
Sid Puri
@dominicwhyte @cuffejamie @tim_masek stepping in here. You do not need to know how to code to use this. You can generate dummy datasets just on the webpage. this would be something you could use to build out a great demo of a product you're looking to build
Jamie Cuffe
@dominicwhyte @tim_masek For some more context, we actually built this for our sales team who largely do not code. They're able to spin up custom datasets for demos and export as a CSV or using 1-click API templates. Before we needed engineers to do this. Hope it's helpful for you and the team!
Eugene Hauptmann
Love it! Any plans for CLI? @dominicwhyte
Jamie Cuffe
@dominicwhyte @eugenehp Thanks Eugene! CLI support is a great idea! Currently we let you consume the API via CLI with the 1-click curl commands but you're thinking generating the dataset via CLI right? Let us know any thoughts on how you'd hope that would work - it's definitely something we'd be interested in exploring in V2
Leg Warmers For Babies
Makes sense to type the data in each of the columns in the dataset. Also the fake data is pretty useful, and helps a lot when prototyping.
Dominic Whyte
@legwarmersforbabies Glad that's proving useful! Let us know if there are any datatypes you'd like us to add - we're adding a bunch of new ones in the coming days
Nazim @Koinju
It could save us a lot of time in code & maintenance, we'll give it try. Thanks for sharing !
Dominic Whyte
Thank you @nazim_m !
Jamie Cuffe
@nazim_m Thanks for taking a look! Would love to learn more about the maintenance pain as we think about how to find more users with this same pain point - we found the same thing.
Dávid Sipos
Nice tool! Congrats on your launch!!
Rose Xi
Awesome work, looking forward to trying it out w my team :)
Dominic Whyte
Thanks @jessica_ma, let us know if you have any feedback once you do!
Daniel G Wilson
This is awesome! Was just looking for something similar to this.
Dominic Whyte
Great to hear @danielgwilson1 ! We're adding GraphQL support shortly in case that's of interest
Serhii
Congrats on the launch! Looking forward to testing it
Joshua Herzig-Marx
This is pretty cool - definitely going to share w/ my engineers!
Jamie Cuffe
Thanks @joshua_herzig_marx! Ping us with any feedback as you give it a try