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Microsoft Power Apps vs Retool comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Power Apps
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Low-Code Development Platforms (1st)
Retool
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
AI Software Development (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Rapid Application Development Software category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power Apps is 9.9%, down from 16.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Retool is 1.2%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rapid Application Development Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Power Apps9.9%
Retool1.2%
Other88.9%
Rapid Application Development Software
 

Featured Reviews

BS
Automation Enthusiast at Self employed
Low-code AI workflows have streamlined content curation and currently support rapid app creation
Microsoft Power Apps could be improved because there are still a lot of jargons and too many moving parts. For example, if you look at Copilot, the term Copilot is confusing in the sense of whether it is Copilot in M365, Copilot Studio, or Copilot in Microsoft Power Apps. There is a plan designer which uses Copilot. The whole thing how AI has been positioned is still not lucid for the end user. An end user wants to know exactly what they want and where they go to get it. I think that could also be because things are evolving so fast. From an end-user perspective, the way it has been positioned, the clarity and the boundaries between the different types of offerings and AI offerings available is confusing as of now. There should be better clarity on that. The biggest issue I have, and I have also spoken to a few of my clients about this, is the licensing model. In traditional software development, almost 95 percent of the time, the development team bears the cost of the licenses. For example, if I develop something, I may have to pay licenses for four or five different software that I use. As a user, if you use my services, you probably pay something to me as a subscription, but you do not have to bother about the licenses. All that is wrapped under the hood. Unfortunately, in Power Platform as such, and even in other low-code things like UiPath, if you use a premium feature such as Dataverse, almost everything ends up using Dataverse or SQL Server or some relational database. If you use that, then as an app builder or app maker you have to have a premium license. The end user too would need to have a premium license. That really makes the adoption prohibitive. It is too expensive. We are talking about something like around just for Microsoft Power Apps alone, approximately twenty dollars per month, which is extremely high. Another point to consider for what else can be improved in Microsoft Power Apps is that one does not know what compute power one is getting when one buys a license. If you look at the licensing model, you will get to know how much of Dataverse storage you will get in terms of log storage, database storage, and file storage. However, you do not get to know how much of compute power is being given to you. I do not think Microsoft has an SLA saying that any request of a certain amount, such as MB per second, you will get a response time of whatever, one by sixtieth of a second or some millisecond. I do not think that they have that performance SLA in place. They do have storage SLA which comes with the license, but they do not have a corresponding SLA for performance.
YL
IT consultant for healthcare sector at Freelancer
Has provided a quick way to build mobile apps and could improve usability for non-technical users
The best features Retool offers include the ability to quickly create a mobile app and use this mobile app in a native mobile app for Android. I found the process of creating and deploying those mobile apps for Android with Retool to be smooth as the documentation is very good, and I found answers and examples to create a mobile app. I can access a debug mode in the mobile app which was really convenient to make tests and find what can be improved, where I have a problem, and how to correct it. Retool positively impacted my organization as the proof of concept we built gave us a way to convince power users and key users before developing the real software. It was a way to maintain the launch date of the project, which helped speed up the project timeline and save resources.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I like the solution's ability to approve some tasks electronically."
"It's very easy to build an app using this solution."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"Generating reports is very fast with Microsoft PowerApps. It's stable and scalable as well."
"The tool helps simplify tasks like conference room bookings, onboarding new employees, managing documentation processes, or handling form submissions; PowerOps can adapt to various use cases. Its ability to develop templates and seamlessly integrate data makes it a valuable tool. It can be integrated with Microsoft Copilot."
"The most valuable feature is the time-to-market because you can make apps pretty fast."
"Microsoft PowerApps's most valuable features we found are that it's very similar to the other Microsoft products, you can do the basic automation quite quickly. The interface is similar to the other Microsoft products which makes it easy to navigate around because we are used to Microsoft products."
"It is easy to use."
"Retool positively impacted my organization as the proof of concept we built gave us a way to convince power users and key users before developing the real software."
"Retool's most valuable features are its drag-and-drop components and the ability to customize them extensively."
"The stability is okay."
"Retool positively impacted my organization as the proof of concept we built gave us a way to convince power users and key users before developing the real software."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is connectivity with APIs and other databases."
"Retool positively impacted my organization as the proof of concept we built gave us a way to convince power users and key users before developing the real software."
"Retool positively impacts our organization by saving costs compared to using other data repositories, and teams prefer Retool for daily tasks that perform customizations to showcase web pages or link their data backend, making it more efficient and cost-effective than other software available in the market."
"Retool can be used with many applications as it is language independent; anyone can use it easily and create various visualizations regardless of their programming knowledge—this is the main reason I recommend it."
 

Cons

"We'd like to see more integration capabilities in the future."
"It has to improve the threshold limit where it can handle data beyond 5000 items."
"The solution must provide more integration with third-party applications."
"Because we have a lot of data and users, achieving an appropriate level of security and privacy is sometimes difficult, especially for sensitive data."
"A downside is that Power Apps is primarily designed to work within the Microsoft ecosystem. It’s unsuitable for publishing apps outside the network, so you need additional Microsoft technologies for broader use. While it’s very scalable for simple apps, it's not ideal for large-scale enterprise applications."
"The tool's documentation can be better. The information in the documentation needs to be updated."
"I would like to see more improvement, for example, in direct collaboration."
"They probably need to improve intelligent document processing."
"The solution lacks inbuilt customization to customize bar charts."
"The components are changed frequently, which is very irritating."
"In the mobile app development, you have to use JavaScript to interact with components, and for non-technical users, it's already too technical, so Retool has to add some integrated solutions."
"Retool should add more resource integration."
"The part where we can add some custom logic or custom plugins could be better."
"Retool could enhance support, including efforts to establish support centers in Europe, which was lacking previously. However, the community is still in the growth phase, leading to potential delays in receiving responses to queries."
"In the mobile app development, you have to use JavaScript to interact with components, and for non-technical users, it's already too technical, so Retool has to add some integrated solutions."
"Retool, being a low-code/no-code platform, could improve by allowing users, particularly non-technical users, to use it more easily."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company has non-profit licensing, and hence, it is affordable. Pricing depends on usage."
"The cost for licensing could be lower."
"The company has a subscription where you can use certain features for free, but there are features that require a premium subscription to use."
"One of the main things about this solution is the price. The cost for Salesforce is $35, $25, or $10 per user per month. PowerApps costs much less than that. It is at a good price point. It may change in the future, but at this point, its price is pretty fine."
"The product is inexpensive."
"The enterprise-level costs a great deal of money, and you have to purchase additional licenses to scale it."
"We would advise organizations that this solution has a high-price point. However, the cost is justified for how comprehensive the package is, and all components of the solution are available under the standard license plan; there are no hidden costs involved."
"Microsoft Power Apps is not an expensive solution."
"The tool is a little bit expensive."
"I don't know Retool's current pricing, but it cost around $12 per month earlier."
"For me, I'm in India right now, and we have Retool's subscription for one team member for $10 per month."
"The pricing is very expensive. It costs for each user, for automated users, open-end users, et cetera."
"For new users, evaluate the scale of their administrative needs as Retool provides excellent free services for smaller setups, but larger deployments might require transitioning to a paid plan."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
14%
University
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise50
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

How would you choose between Microsoft PowerApps and Salesforce Platform?
I think it depends on your use case. If your organization uses Microsoft Enterprise products, PowerApps will work better in your environment. Similarly, if you have a Salesforce integration in pla...
Would you choose ServiceNow over Microsoft PowerApps?
Hi Netanya, I will choose ServiceNow because ServiceNow is a very good tool compared to Microsoft PowerApp. Because ServiceNow has a very strong module (Performance Analysis) reporting which will ...
Would you choose Microsoft Azure App Service or PowerApps?
Microsoft Azure App Service is helpful if you need to set up temporary servers for customers to run their programs in locations that other cloud providers do not cater to. When servers are closer t...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Retool?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing experience were good as the free plan was enough for us.
What needs improvement with Retool?
Retool, being a low-code/no-code platform, could improve by allowing users, particularly non-technical users, to use it more easily. In the mobile app development, you have to use JavaScript to int...
What is your primary use case for Retool?
My main use case for Retool involves an inventory app project. I built a mobile app to make an inventory of chemistry products. Retool helped me with that project as it was a good way to show a qui...
 

Also Known As

PowerApps, MS PowerApps
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TransAlta, Rackspace, Telstra
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power Apps vs. Retool and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.