kintone vs Retool Comparison: Everything You Need to Know Before Choosing

Kintone is a customisable workplace platform that brings team data, tasks and communication together in one central place, developed by the Japanese software company Cybozu. It differs from both conventional project management tools and pure database builders by treating structured data and conversation as inseparable. Teams build their own applications — a sales pipeline, a recruitment tracker, an expense approval process, a customer support log, an equipment register — through a drag-and-drop field editor requiring no code, and every record within those applications carries its own comment thread. Discussion therefore attaches to the specific item being discussed rather than scattering across email and chat channels where context is lost, which is the platform's central design argument and the reason its users describe it as replacing both a database and a group inbox. Applications are assembled by dragging field types onto a form: text, numbers, dates, dropdowns, checkboxes, file attachments, lookups to other applications, calculated fields and related record lists. Views are configured per user or role as lists, calendars, charts or Kanban boards, with filters and permissions controlling visibility at record and field level. Process management defines multi-step approval workflows with assigned responsibilities, status transitions and automated notifications, so requests route themselves rather than depending on someone forwarding an email. Spaces group related applications, threads and members around a team or project. Reporting produces cross-tabulations and graphs from application data without exporting. Integration is available through APIs, plug-ins and a marketplace of extensions, alongside connectors to common business services. Because business users build and change applications themselves, processes can be adjusted as the work changes without a development request — the characteristic benefit for the small and mid-sized organisations and departmental teams that adopt it. A discounted non-profit programme exists. Pricing starts from around USD 24 per user per month with a free trial; there is no permanently free version.