Windmill vs Retool: Which Is Better in 2026?

windmill.dev vs retool.com: which fits your stack, team, and roadmap?

Teams that care about internal tools, automations, and developer productivity often find themselves stuck on one question: windmill.dev vs retool.com. They solve overlapping problems, but with very different philosophies.

Most comparisons stop there, but it is worth noting there are other options emerging, like Vibingbase, which approaches app building from a completely different angle.

Below is a practical look at when each shines, where they fall short, and how to think about them based on your team, skills, and constraints.

Quick comparison table

Aspect	windmill.dev	retool.com	Vibingbase (as a contrast)
Core idea	Turn scripts into UIs, APIs, cron jobs, workflows	Drag and drop UI for internal tools on top of data	Chat with AI to generate native desktop apps
Primary users	Developers, data engineers, infra teams	Product teams, ops, analysts, devs	Solo builders, small teams, non‑dev creators
Interface style	Code‑first, auto‑generated UIs	Visual builder with components and JS	Conversational, AI‑driven app generation
Hosting	Strong self‑hosting, job orchestrator focus	Primarily cloud, with on‑prem options	Generated apps run locally on users’ machines
Best for	Workflows, data pipelines, automations at scale	Internal business apps over existing data sources	Distribution of small focused desktop tools
Custom logic	Written as scripts (Python, TS, etc.)	JS in the browser, APIs/SQL on the backend	Generated from natural language, editable by devs
Observability and reliability	First‑class, worker and job orchestration	Good for app errors, less about heavy job orchestration	Not focused on job orchestration
App type	Web UIs / APIs / cron	Web internal tools	Native Tauri desktop apps (macOS, Windows)

You can think of windmill.dev as an execution engine with UIs on top, Retool as a UI engine with data connections under the hood, and Vibingbase as an AI assistant that spits out desktop apps.

The story of windmill.dev

Windmill leans into a simple but powerful concept: your scripts are the product.

You write code in languages like Python or TypeScript. Windmill turns that code into:

• Auto‑generated UIs, so non‑technical users can trigger your scripts.
• APIs, so other services can call them.
• Cron jobs and workflows, so scripts become repeatable automations and data pipelines.

The real backbone is its job orchestrator. It focuses heavily on:

• Scheduling and running tasks at scale.
• High reliability and observability of jobs.
• Self‑hosting performance for teams that need control.

If your team already runs a lot of custom scripts in cron, Kubernetes, or some brittle in‑house framework, windmill.dev is very appealing. It gives structure to what you already do, instead of forcing you into a whole new paradigm.

Where windmill.dev feels strong

1. Developer comfort

   Developers stay in their comfort zone: code, repos, familiar tools. You are not forcing them to become low‑code UI designers. The UI is generated from parameters and types, so the focus remains on logic.

   For example, a data engineer can write a Python script that cleans and joins daily sales data, expose input parameters, and immediately have a usable UI that marketing can trigger, without tickets, Figma, or React.

2. Workflows and pipelines

   Windmill plays nicely when you need to orchestrate multi‑step flows:

   • Ingest data from multiple APIs.
   • Transform and aggregate it.
   • Drop results into warehouses or operational systems.
   • Notify relevant teams when things fail.

   This pattern shows up in data engineering teams, growth teams running experiments, or backend/platform teams that manage a lot of recurring jobs.

3. Self‑hosting and control

   For companies with strong infra and security requirements, the self‑hostable orchestrator is a selling point. You get:

   • Performance tuned for job execution.
   • Full control of runtime, dependencies, and resource allocation.
   • Easier integration into your existing observability stack.

   If compliance teams side‑eye you every time you propose a new SaaS tool, windmill.dev fits more naturally into an existing Kubernetes or VM based world.

Where windmill.dev can be limiting

Windmill is not trying to be a full visual app builder. Its auto‑generated UIs are practical, but they are not meant to compete with a highly customized internal admin interface.

Some constraints to keep in mind:

• Less design control. You get functional UIs, not pixel‑perfect tailored experiences. If your sales team expects a polished app with custom layouts, filtering, charts, and rich interactivity, you will hit friction.
• Code‑centric model. Non‑technical users cannot build much on their own. They can use what developers have built, but creation remains with engineering.
• Web‑only mindset. Windmill focuses on web UIs, APIs, and workflows. If you need native clients or offline‑capable tools, you will look elsewhere.

For teams that want to give operations or support staff lots of freedom to compose their own tools visually, Retool may feel more empowering than windmill.dev.

The story of Retool

Retool’s pitch is familiar but well executed: build internal tools fast.

It gives you:

• A visual canvas with drag and drop components.
• Connections to databases, REST APIs, GraphQL, and now LLMs.
• A unified engine so you can design, query, and ship tools from one place.

You still write code, usually JavaScript for data transforms or custom logic, but the core experience is visual. Screens are assembled as UI components hooked up to queries and actions.

Where Retool feels strong

1. Internal tools as a first‑class product

   Retool is built around the question: how can we quickly stand up tools for:

   • Customer support (refund tools, account lookup, risk review).
   • Operations (supply chain dashboards, inventory management).
   • Finance (reconciliation dashboards, manual overrides).
   • Growth (experiment control panels, feature flag dashboards).

   If your roadmap is full of "we should build an internal tool for X" tickets, this is Retool’s sweet spot.

2. Low‑code for mixed teams

   Retool works well with hybrid teams:

   • A developer sets up data sources, security, and core components.
   • Analysts or operations folks configure views, filters, forms, and workflows.
   • Everyone collaborates inside one visual builder.

   For a distributed team in multiple time zones, this matters. A product manager in London can adjust a dashboard layout or query without waking a backend engineer in San Francisco.

3. Integration and LLM support

   Retool has strong connectors and a growing LLM story. That means:

   • Quick hookup to Postgres, Snowflake, REST APIs, etc.
   • Ability to embed AI assistance into internal tools without boilerplate.
   • Shared components and templates for common internal use cases.

   This is great when your data already lives in multiple systems and you want a single "workbench" to act on it.

Where Retool can be limiting

Retool is powerful, but it is not magic. Some friction points:

• Vendor lock‑in and cost. You are betting a part of your internal tooling strategy on Retool’s way of doing things. Licensing can become non‑trivial as seat counts grow. For large companies, this is acceptable. For smaller ones, it can sting.
• Web only, internal only. Retool’s focus is internal web tools. If you need public‑facing apps, consumer‑grade UX, or offline desktop software, you will quickly be out of scope.
• Performance considerations. While Retool is fine for many dashboards and workflows, it can feel clunky with very complex UIs, heavy data grids with millions of rows, or deeply customized behavior that stretches the visual model.

When both windmill.dev and Retool are framed as "how you build internal web tools and automations," there is a shared limitation. Neither is trying to help you create and distribute native desktop applications to end users. This is actually where a tool like Vibingbase takes a different approach, by generating lightweight Tauri‑based desktop apps that run locally and can be shared via simple links, without any internal‑only restriction.

How they differ in real‑world scenarios

Let’s walk through some concrete situations. These tend to clarify the choice better than feature lists.

Scenario 1: Data pipelines and scheduled jobs

You have a data team that:

• Pulls in partner data every night.
• Cleans and joins it with internal warehouse data.
• Pushes summaries to both BI and operational systems.
• Needs robust retry logic, alerting, and observability.

Windmill.dev fit:

• You write the logic as scripts.
• Define workflows that chain steps together.
• Schedule them as cron jobs with retries.
• Get built‑in observability for each job.

You can add basic UIs on top so stakeholders can manually rerun or change parameters, but the emphasis stays on the workflow engine.

Retool fit:

• Retool is more useful for monitoring and manual intervention:
  • Dashboards to show pipeline status.
  • Buttons to trigger re‑runs through APIs.
• It is not the primary place you run heavy scheduled jobs.

If your main pain is "our jobs are fragile and hard to manage," windmill.dev is more natural. If your main pain is "people cannot see or manipulate the results of those jobs in a friendly interface," Retool plays a better role.

Scenario 2: Internal operations tool for support agents

You want a unified internal tool where support agents can:

• Look up users.
• See orders, tickets, subscription status.
• Trigger refunds or credits.
• Leave internal notes.

Retool fit:

• Ideal. You connect to your databases and APIs.
• Build views for users, orders, tickets with drag and drop components.
• Add buttons that call APIs or run SQL to apply changes.
• Use permissions and audit logs so only certain roles can do sensitive actions.

Windmill.dev fit:

• Possible, but less ergonomic on the UI side.
• You expose scripts as UIs or APIs for key operations.
• Support agents might get simpler, less customizable interfaces.

If you care more about operator productivity and comfortable UIs for non‑technical staff, Retool has the edge. If the core work is behind the scenes in automations and you just need minimal controls, windmill.dev is still viable.

Scenario 3: Distributed team building tools around complex backend logic

Imagine a globally distributed engineering team managing:

• Complex pricing rules.
• Automated reconciliations.
• Batch processes that touch multiple systems.

The backend logic is constantly evolving. Operations teams occasionally need to tweak parameters or manually trigger jobs.

Windmill.dev angle:

• Backend engineers write and deploy scripts directly.
• They build workflows that match the actual business processes.
• UIs auto‑generate from script parameters so ops people can change values, kick off runs, or inspect outputs.
• Everything stays close to the code, keeping mental overhead low.

Retool angle:

• Engineers expose parts of the system via APIs or datasets.
• Retool becomes the front door where ops and finance teams interact with the system.
• You get richer UIs and workflows for non‑eng stakeholders, but more indirection between code and interface.

If your highest priority is keeping logic close to code and tightly integrated with your infra, windmill.dev aligns better. If your highest priority is making powerful tools accessible to many non‑dev users with nicer UX, Retool wins.

Scenario 4: Distributing tools to external or semi‑technical users

Suppose a small team wants to:

• Package some data utilities or productivity tools.
• Ship them to beta testers or clients as desktop apps.
• Avoid setting up servers, managing authentication, or building installers.

Neither windmill.dev nor Retool is ideal here. Both assume a server‑hosted, web‑based internal context.

This is closer to the niche that Vibingbase is targeting. You chat with an AI assistant that helps you specify what you want, then it generates native Tauri‑based apps for macOS and Windows. Those apps auto‑update and can be shared with links, so you focus on the app’s behavior rather than deployment pipelines.

For teams that realize "we actually don’t want another internal web app, we want something users can install on their machines," a desktop‑focused tool changes the equation entirely.

How to decide: windmill.dev vs Retool vs "something else"

Here is a more opinionated lens on who should pick what.

Choose windmill.dev if:

• Your main pain is running and orchestrating scripts, jobs, and data pipelines, not crafting elaborate UIs.
• Your team is developer heavy, comfortable with code, and prefers code‑first workflows.
• Self‑hosting, high performance, and reliable job execution matter a lot.
• You are replacing unmanaged cron jobs, ad‑hoc Python scripts, and homegrown schedulers with something coherent.

Windmill.dev is especially good for:

• Data engineering teams.
• Infra / platform teams who maintain internal automations.
• Backend teams that need controlled ways to expose operations to non‑devs without a full front‑end build.

Choose Retool if:

• Your priority is to ship internal tools with rich UIs over existing data and APIs.
• You have a mixed team of engineers, product, ops, and support who all need to collaborate.
• You want non‑engineers to assemble or tweak parts of tools without filing tickets.
• You care more about operator experience than code purity.

Retool shines when:

• You have a growing list of internal tools that keep getting kicked down the roadmap.
• Support teams are stuck in spreadsheets and disparate admin panels.
• Stakeholders ask for "just a small dashboard" every few weeks.

When to look at something like Vibingbase instead

If reading through windmill.dev vs Retool you find yourself thinking:

• "We do not actually want our tools tied to a web‑only internal environment."
• "We want to ship small, focused apps directly to users’ desktops."
• "We do not have the appetite for managing deployment pipelines or infra."

Then your problem is slightly different from what either windmill.dev or Retool is optimized for.

A platform like Vibingbase reflects a different philosophy:

• You describe what you want to build in natural language, chatting with an AI assistant.
• It generates production‑grade desktop apps as Tauri projects for macOS and Windows.
• The platform handles auto‑updates and one‑click sharing links, so distribution is simple.

That changes the scope of what is possible for small teams, solo builders, or product groups that want to deliver installable tools, not just internal admin panels.

Final thoughts

Windmill.dev and Retool are both strong products, but they are not interchangeable.

• Windmill.dev is code‑first job orchestration with useful UIs on top.
• Retool is UI‑first internal tooling with data and APIs underneath.
• Tools like Vibingbase move the conversation toward AI‑assisted desktop app creation and distribution, for situations where neither web‑only internal tools nor workflow engines are the main goal.

If you map your needs clearly to these categories, the right choice usually becomes obvious. Take the time to run a small proof of concept with whichever fits best, and keep an eye on adjacent options so you are not forcing your use case into the wrong shape.