Can Glide really be used to build a SaaS business? As I see it right now, the main issues are:
Security: Keeping data properly segregated between customers. You can use private users, but then you only get 50 on Pro and 100 on Business plan, so that does not really scale.
Security: If you want to integrate the app with external services via Zapier (for example), then to bring data back to Glide (right now) you need to use Google Sheets (for example), rather than Glide Tables. Is it really safe to keep mixed client data in one Google Sheet, even if row owners or roles is used?
Rows per project and updates: For the kind of app I’m thinking of, 25k rows shared between customers just isn’t enough, so scalability isn’t there. Big table may be the solution here, but then it depends on the price per row - my understanding is this would be available on Business and Enterprise plans. Updates - I have not managed (or tried) to work out if 10k or 25k per month would be enough as yet.
Assuming a SaaS type offering with Glide just doesn’t quite make sense yet (TBD), what other business models could be pursued successfully?
Sell the app as a Glide Template? Do enough people know about Glide, or care enough, to make this viable?
Sell the app as a white labelled service on a per company basis? I.e. use the template and create an instance per customer (hooking with their Google Sheets / Zapier) and offer custom updates as a service.
Has anyone done either of these options successfully? Am I missing another business model? Examples would be super helpful!
Final thought: Glide is a great product in my experience and I hope in future they have the bandwidth to consider supporting the SaaS use case fully!
Good point! As far as I saw this API has not been added as an option in Zapier yet for some reason, but I suppose it’s probably straight forward to add it there or use make.com instead.
That part was referring to the updates, which I understood is reset each month.
Private Users on its own doesn’t help with data segregation, it just restricts who can sign into your App. To get data segregation you need to use Row Owners (which are free), and for your use case probably Roles as Row Owners (which are not free).
But yes, private user limits would be an issue. For any sort of scale you’d need to be on an Enterprise Plan.