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OpenLegacy vs Retool comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

OpenLegacy
Ranking in AI Software Development
78th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
API Management (33rd)
Retool
Ranking in AI Software Development
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the AI Software Development category, the mindshare of OpenLegacy is 0.4%. The mindshare of Retool is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI Software Development Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Retool0.5%
OpenLegacy0.4%
Other99.1%
AI Software Development
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1042905 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP, Chief Enterprise Integration Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The biggest advantage is how simple the technology was.
I'd like to see OpenLegacy develop its low-code/no-code (LCNC) solutions. They've expanded somewhat their horizons for integration beyond mainframe CICS, which is their sweet spot. They have some tooling in that area, but it's not as good as it needs to be. OpenLegacy handles the bread-and-butter TP monitoring stuff, but I am working for one of the six banks in the United States still using the Hogan mainframe, which has a slightly proprietary mechanism. But OpenLegacy currently doesn't have a connector for Hogan. So it would help if they could build one. That would appeal to financial institutions that still use Hogan, like US Bank, Wells Fargo, KeyBank, and Vanguard.
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

"It is possible to connect a service to a mainframe program or back transaction in a matter of minutes or hours at the most."
"The product has helped our business by allowing us to become more efficient in data handling."
"It is possible to solve larger legacy API issues on an enterprise level with this product."
"The speed of development of production, especially in specific environments like IBM mainframes, has been valuable."
"Using mainframe programs (not screens), the OpenLegacy services do not require any changes by the mainframe programmers, thus reducing development cycles."
"OpenLegacy opens the door to connect modern web products to our old legacy system."
"The biggest advantage of OpenLegacy was how simple the technology was, and we were able to build out the OpenLegacy parts very quickly, putting together a couple hundred APIs in six months."
"Without OpenLegacy, it would take us several months to create the same services."
"Retool provides us with the opportunity to save time and be more efficient."
"Retool provides built-in features with all processing happening within the platform, which is a significant advantage."
"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."
"There are several key aspects to Retool that make it stand out. Firstly, its extensive range of components makes integration straightforward. Secondly, its support for SQL and JavaScript allows for the implementation of complex logic, which is particularly beneficial for developers like yourself with experience in .NET development."
"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 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."
"We have seen a return on investment because we are building these internal dashboards 30 to 50% faster, so we are saving approximately 30 to 50% of an employee's time."
"With the help of Retool, we saved a lot of time; for instance, we made a similar project before that took two to three weeks to implement the same features, but with Retool, we could check our API right away very quickly, saving around twenty percent of our time and allowing us to visualize how our API works, see the drawbacks, and make changes to our FastAPI backend."
 

Cons

"Debugging and logging for programmers could be better."
"I would like to see SSL out-of-the-box. OpenLegacy certainly does SSL, but it was not the default for our use case. We are currently working with OpenLegacy to cross the SSL bridge and suspect that most users will want to do the same."
"Customer support for the product is slow and not very good. It makes using the product difficult if you need help quickly."
"We would also be more than happy if the product had the option to work in the opposite direction – the ability to consume REST/SOW services in the outer world from the mainframe."
"I'd like to see OpenLegacy develop its low-code/no-code (LCNC) solutions. They've expanded somewhat their horizons for integration beyond mainframe CICS, which is their sweet spot. They have some tooling in that area, but it's not as good as it needs to be."
"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible and allow for once-off payment versus annual licensing. This would be more appealing to companies in Latin America."
"The UI of Retool could be improved, as I am not fond of the current design, and there should be a platform for learning how to use Retool efficiently, especially since our software team customizes it for their needs, leaving the operational team with limited knowledge on how to customize it."
"The components are changed frequently, which is very irritating."
"The part where we can add some custom logic or custom plugins could be better."
"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 is more suited for startups, but it can get messy at scale."
"Retool should add more resource integration."
"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Retool is that it is straightforward but somewhat pricey compared to other industry leaders such as Sentry and others."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible and allow for once-off payment versus annual licensing. This would be more appealing to companies in Latin America."
"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."
"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 tool is a little bit expensive."
"The pricing is very expensive. It costs for each user, for automated users, open-end users, et cetera."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Retool?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Retool is that it is straightforward but somewhat pricey compared to other industry leaders such as Sentry and others. I feel it is an eigh...
What needs improvement with Retool?
I do not have specifics on how Retool can be improved because we are using it for internal tool building only. Regarding needed improvements, perhaps Retool can focus on not building customer-facin...
What is your primary use case for Retool?
We started using Retool last September, so it has been more than nine months now. Our main use case for Retool is an internal operations dashboard built in Retool for our AI agents. Whenever we shi...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Many of openLegacy's global customers are among the Global 100 companies. Review case studies in these industries: Agriculture, Airport Authority, Automotive, Auto, Finance, Insurance, Government, Healthcare, Manufacturing, and Retailwww.openlegacy.com/case-studie...
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Find out what your peers are saying about OpenLegacy vs. Retool and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.