Show HN: Visual DB – Web front end for your database (update)
by sandhya6 | 2025-11-11 16:48:50+00:00
Hi HN, I’m Sandhya and we have built Visual DB — a web front end for databases. It lets you create data-entry forms, spreadsheet-like grids, and reports directly on top of your existing relational database.

Here’s a quick walkthrough: https://youtu.be/4zv_HQKdKeI (13 minutes)

WHAT PROBLEM IS THIS SOLVING?

Building CRUD apps with master-detail forms, transactions, and proper concurrency controls typically requires weeks of custom development and ongoing maintenance. Visual DB lets you build these applications in hours. Developers can focus on backend business logic while Visual DB handles the UI layer.

THE FLAW IN DATABASE-SPREADSHEET HYBRIDS

Many organizations turn to database-spreadsheet hybrids (such as Airtable) as an alternative to custom development. However, these tools all share the same flaw: they abandon database fundamentals at the application layer.

Developers choose Postgres for strong consistency, data integrity, and ACID transactions—fundamental requirements for mission-critical data. Yet even when built on Postgres, these tools use spreadsheet semantics—letting users overwrite each other’s changes, failing to treat records as atomic units, and mixing concurrent edits. The result: the very inconsistencies databases are designed to prevent.

If you're a software developer, you'd never accept a version control system where users constantly overwrite each other's changes. And yet this is what database-spreadsheet hybrids do with your data. Simply using Postgres as storage won't give you ACID guarantees if your UI implements spreadsheet semantics.

HOW VISUAL DB FIXES THIS

Visual DB is a traditional ACID-compliant database application, not a database-spreadsheet hybrid. It implements database semantics with proper concurrency control to prevent the "lost update" and "write skew" problems that plague database-spreadsheet hybrids. When conflicts occur, users get explicit notifications and a visual merge interface. Changes are never silently overwritten. More details: https://visualdb.com/concurrencycontrol

As a database-focused tool, Visual DB includes features you won't find in database-spreadsheet hybrids: query builders and query parameters for server-side filtering (loading subsets, not full tables), AI assistance for query building, and full support for Row-Level Security (RLS).

See the full feature comparison matrix here: https://visualdb.com/comparison

TECH STACK

Since this is HN, many readers will be interested in our tech stack. We are using Kubernetes in the backend, hosted on Azure. To provide free Postgres instances we have integrated with Neon’s claimable database feature. UI is built using React and TypeScript.

CHANGES SINCE LAST UPDATE

We introduced Visual DB to HN over a year ago and received lots of feedback (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41503251). We have incorporated all of the feedback. Some of it required major overhaul: Allowing Visual DB to be self-hosted required significant re-architecting. In addition we have added a ton of new features including master-detail forms, input validation in sheets, visual conflict resolution, ability to review and revert changes, row-level security, SQLite support, and many, many more features.

FEEDBACK REQUESTED

We’d love your feedback! To test drive go to https://visualdb.com At a high level, did we strike the right balance between power and ease of use? This is always one of the hardest decisions, especially for a database front end. Visual DB exposes queries and query parameters in the UI, while most products in this space hide them. In this and many other ways, Visual DB is closer to Microsoft Access than to database-spreadsheet hybrids.