Updated August 2026
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    28k

    Budibase: Maintenance, Licence and Alternatives

    Build and automate internal tools, admin panels, dashboards, CRUD apps, and more, in minutes (alternative to Outsystems, Retool, Mendix, Appian).

    TL;DR • Budibase • as of August 2026

    Budibase is an open-source software development project positioned as an alternative to Retool, Internal tools, with 28k GitHub stars and a health score of 100/100. It committed 13272 times in the last twelve months across 12 of those months, and its status is actively maintained. Licence: ⊘ Proprietary. It has real momentum, so treat it as a live competitor rather than a stale repository.

    28k
    GitHub stars
    100/100
    Health score
    13272
    Commits (12 mo)
    12/12
    Active months

    Maintenance health

    Status Actively maintained — Committed within the last 45 days.
    Last commit 2026-08-14
    Days since last commit 3
    Commits, last 3 months 2805
    Commits, last 12 months 13272
    Months with activity 12 of 12
    Last release 2026-08-04
    Archived No
    Licence ⊘ Proprietary
    Category Software Development
    Positioned against Retool, Internal tools

    Health score combines commit recency, twelve-month commit volume, months with activity, release recency and archive state. Metadata refreshed August 2026.

    What the licence lets you do

    ⊘ Proprietary

    Non-standard or mixed licensing. Check the repository before commercial use.

    This matters most when you plan to sell a hosted version. A permissive licence means anyone — including a competitor with more capital — can do the same, so your defensibility has to come from distribution, support or data, not from the code.

    What Budibase means for your idea

    Budibase is shipping code consistently, so a buyer comparing your product will find a maintained free option. Price and position against the total cost of self-hosting it, not against the paid incumbent's list price.

    Assume every prospect can find a free version in five minutes. Your wedge has to be something open source structurally cannot deliver: compliance, support SLAs, managed hosting at scale, or a workflow the maintainers refuse to build.

    Budibase: common questions

    Is Budibase still maintained in 2026?

    Actively maintained. Budibase recorded 13272 commits over the last twelve months, with activity in 12 of those months and 2805 commits in the last quarter. Last commit: 2026-08-14. Last release: 2026-08-04. Committed within the last 45 days.

    Can I use Budibase commercially?

    Budibase is published under ⊘ Proprietary. Non-standard or mixed licensing. Check the repository before commercial use.

    Is Budibase a good Retool, Internal tools alternative?

    Budibase targets the same job as Retool, Internal tools and is actively shipping. Adoption sits at 28k stars. Whether it is a good replacement depends on your deployment constraints: self-hosting adds infrastructure, upgrade and security work that a commercial subscription absorbs for you.

    How crowded is the Software Development category?

    100 open-source implementations, 58 of them actively maintained, led by Dify.ai at 153k stars. Saturation score 80/100 — Crowded. Free, maintained alternatives already dominate this category.

    Budibase alternatives in Software Development

    Hoppscotch Community Edition

    Alternative to Postman, API development

    80k

    Fast and beautiful API request builder.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Gitea

    Alternative to Code hosting & collaboration

    57k

    Git with a cup of tea! Painless self-hosted all-in-one software development service, including Git hosting, code review, team collaboration, package registry and CI/CD.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Appwrite

    Alternative to Firebase, Backend-as-a-Service

    57k

    End to end backend server for web, native, and mobile developers 🚀.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    BSD-3-Clause

    Competing with free? Check the market first.

    IdeaProof scores your idea against live competitors, market size and 1,000+ documented startup failures in about two minutes.