Glide API Critical Issues - Unusable for Production Apps

Feature Requests
1

:police_car_light: Critical API Issues Making Development Nearly Impossible

After months of working with Glide API, I need to highlight critical issues that make it almost unusable for serious development:

:cross_mark: Problem 1: Encrypted Column Names

API returns completely unreadable column names:

json

{
  "Name": "John Doe",           // Only this is readable
  "jGa1O": "john@email.com",    // What is jGa1O?!
  "H76kQ": "+1234567890",       // What is H76kQ?!
  "TibYN": "New York"           // What is TibYN?!
}

This makes code completely unmaintainable.

:cross_mark: Problem 2: Zero Computed Columns Support

  • Relations = Missing
  • Lookups = Missing
  • Math columns = Missing
  • Templates = Missing

50% of our app functionality is invisible to API!

:money_bag: Real Impact on Development:

  • 3x longer development time
  • Unmaintainable code with cryptic IDs
  • Complex workarounds required for basic functionality
  • Cannot build reliable integrations

:hammer_and_wrench: What I’m Forced to Do:

  1. Hit undocumented schema endpoint for column mapping
  2. Use webhooks to capture computed values
  3. Build complex abstraction layers
  4. Maintain manual documentation of every column ID

This is NOT sustainable for production apps.

:folded_hands: URGENT Feature Requests:

1. Readable Column Names

json

// Add API parameter: ?readable_names=true
{
  "customer_name": "John Doe",      // Clear!
  "customer_email": "john@email.com", // Obvious!
  "customer_phone": "+1234567890"   // Perfect!
}

2. Computed Columns Support

json

// Add API parameter: ?include_computed=true
{
  "customer_name": "John Doe",
  "order_count": 5,           // From rollup
  "total_spent": 1250.00,     // From math  
  "last_order": "2024-06-12"  // From lookup
}

:bullseye: Why This Matters:

Glide has incredible UI/UX but the API is killing developer adoption.

Companies choose other platforms solely because of API limitations, despite preferring Glide’s interface.

Please prioritize this! The community desperately needs these basic API features.

Current Status:

  • :white_check_mark: Beautiful apps in Glide
  • :cross_mark: Cannot integrate with external systems
  • :cross_mark: Cannot build automation
  • :cross_mark: Cannot scale beyond simple use cases

Who else is struggling with these API limitations?

Glide team - can we get timeline estimates for these critical features?

2

I assume Glide sets column names to prevent conflicts, like when multiple columns have the same name. The API can’t access computed columns, partly because it doesn’t know which user’s data to use—if there are 10 users, which one should it look at? A good workaround is to find a way to move the needed values into basic columns.

1 Like
3

+1 Computed columns need to be available

1 Like
4

it’s the columns ID’s u can check all the table ID’s by pressing show API and see the ID for each column, and btw even tables got ID’s
And.. Upvoted!

5

Glide must start treating its API like a first-class citizen – just like Airtable does.
If you want developers to take Glide seriously in production environments, the current API limitations are a deal-breaker.

:police_car_light: Here’s the bottom line:
:white_check_mark: Airtable, Supabase, Notion, even Google Sheets – all expose clear, readable column names and include computed fields in their APIs.
:cross_mark: Glide, on the other hand, gives us:

Obfuscated column keys (jGa1O, X9lpZ)

Zero access to computed fields (relations, lookups, math)

No schema metadata unless we reverse-engineer it

No way to use Glide as a reliable backend in Make/n8n

:repeat_button: Why does this matter?
Most of us building in Glide don’t work in isolation. We need to:

Automate workflows in Make.com, n8n

Connect to Xano, Zapier, webhooks, analytics platforms

Maintain logic and data across systems

Right now, the only way to do that is by hacking around Glide’s limitations:

Mirroring computed columns into text fields

Using undocumented schema endpoints

Manually mapping obfuscated keys

That’s not a developer experience. That’s technical debt.

:hammer_and_wrench: What Glide needs to do:
?readable_names=true → Human-readable keys for developers

?include_computed=true → Optional access to computed values

/schema endpoint → Official, documented metadata

API parity with the actual UI – if it’s visible in the app, we should be able to access it via API

Glide’s UI/UX is amazing – but we need to be honest:
:prohibited: It’s not a production-ready platform for developers until the API gets a serious upgrade.
The community is hitting the same walls over and over again.

Let Glide be more than a no-code showcase.
Let it be a serious platform for builders.

1 Like