# Cordango vs Retool: what a new internal app inherits > Retool now generates apps from a description and its enterprise tier has RBAC, audit and self-hosting. The difference is what each new app starts with. Checked against Retool's own documentation. Source: https://www.cordango.com/vs/retool/ Language: en [Home](https://www.cordango.com/) [Compare](https://www.cordango.com/vs/) Cordango vs Retool # Cordango vs Retool Both build internal apps from a description now. The difference is what the app starts with. Retool has moved well past the SQL-and-JavaScript canvas it is remembered for. Its current app builder generates working React apps from a description, its enterprise tier carries organisation-level roles, audit logging, SSO and SCIM, and it can run on your own infrastructure. Anyone still telling you Retool is developers-only has not looked recently. So the interesting question is not who has which feature. It is what a new app begins with. In Retool you connect the resources an app needs and decide, per app, who may do what with them. In Cordango the company is already on the platform before the first app exists: the organizations, the people, the teams, the roles and the history are there, and a new capability reads them rather than being pointed at them. Fact-checked 25 August 2026 Feature availability and pricing change. Every row is checked against the vendor's own current documentation, linked at the foot of this page. Default means it is there without anyone setting it up. Available means the vendor supports it, sometimes only on a particular plan. Build or configure means it is possible and it is your work. Not a focus means the product is aimed somewhere else. ## The short version. Where Retool wins - DEV SQL, JavaScript and your own React components wherever you want them - DATA Connects to the databases, APIs and warehouses you already run - RUN Cloud, self-hosted or inside your own VPC, your choice - YEARS A component library and a customer base with real production mileage Where Cordango wins - CTX Your organizations, people and teams are in the app before you build it - RBAC Rights checked under every app, on every read and every write - LOG One field-level history across every capability, not per app - EU German data centres, with nothing for you to operate - ASK Too complex to generate? We build it on the same core. ## Side by side. Cordango vs Retool, compared across the dimensions that change the decision. Fact-checked 25 August 2026. | | Cordango | Retool | | --- | --- | --- | | Building an app by describing it | Default the normal way in, alongside ready-made capabilities | Available the AI app builder generates and edits React apps from a prompt | | Code-level control over the result | Not a focus purpose-built screens from a shared vocabulary. No canvas, no formula language. | Default SQL, JavaScript and custom React, as deep as you want to go | | Shared company records across every app | Default organizations, people and teams are there before the first app | Build or configure point every app at the same source, and keep it that way as apps multiply | | Organisation-level identity and roles | Default Microsoft and Google sign-in on every plan, SAML and SCIM higher up | Available org and object permissions throughout, SSO and SCIM on Enterprise | | Authorisation inside the app | Default enforced below the application, per entity, per field and per command | Build or configure you decide per app what each group may do with each resource | | Audit across every app | Default field-level history produced by the runtime, nothing to model | Available audit logging on the Business and Enterprise plans | | Connecting outside systems | Available REST and MCP over your own data. A narrower connector set than Retool has. | Default one of the widest integration ranges in the category | | Managed hosting | Default backups, updates and patching are ours | Default Retool Cloud | | Self-hosting and on-premises | Not a focus Cordango is a managed service. If you have to own the infrastructure, Retool wins this row outright. | Default self-hosted and VPC deployments on Enterprise | | German or EU data residency | Default German data centres, sub-processors published | Available an EU region on Retool Cloud, or self-host wherever you like | | Taking the result elsewhere | Not a focus your data exports. The app is a definition on the platform. The compiler and CLI are Apache-2.0, the platform is not. | Available app definitions export, and self-hosting keeps the whole thing inside your estate | | Who has to build it | Default you describe it, or you ask us to build it on the same core | Available the AI builder lowers the bar. The deep work still rewards engineers. | | One contract for the whole platform | Default apps are not priced separately. The tenth capability does not add a line item. | Default one Retool contract, published per builder and per end user | ## The architecture difference. Retool’s unit is the app, and an app begins by connecting resources. You choose the database, the API, the warehouse, and then you decide which groups may read and write through that app. Done carefully across a portfolio, that produces something coherent. Done at the pace internal tools actually get built, it produces twelve apps with twelve opinions about what a customer is. Cordango’s unit is the capability, and it connects to nothing. The organizations, the people and the teams are platform records, and rights are checked underneath every capability rather than configured inside each one. The second capability is less work than the first for the same reason the twentieth is: none of them defines a company. That trade is real in both directions. Retool will take you places Cordango will not go, because Retool hands you SQL, JavaScript and the deployment target. Cordango hands you fewer decisions. Where Retool wins Retool is the better choice when a technical team wants deep control over queries, logic and deployment, or when owning the infrastructure is a hard requirement. ## Which one should you pick? ### Pick Retool if - 01 Your engineers build and maintain internal tools as part of the job - 02 The data already lives in databases and APIs you run - 03 You want control over queries, logic and pixels - 04 Owning the infrastructure is a requirement, not a preference ### Pick Cordango if - 01 Nobody has time to build internal tools, they just need to exist - 02 The same customers and colleagues should appear in every app - 03 Somebody will ask who can see what, and the answer should already exist - 04 German hosting is on the requirement list rather than the wish list SRC ## Where these facts come from. - [Retool app builderdocs.retool.com/build/apps/concepts/app-builder](https://docs.retool.com/build/apps/concepts/app-builder) - [Retool governance and permissionsdocs.retool.com/org-users/concepts/governance](https://docs.retool.com/org-users/concepts/governance) - [Retool pricingretool.com/en-EU/pricing](https://retool.com/en-EU/pricing) **What we can show you, and what we cannot.** Cordango holds no ISO 27001, SOC 2 or C5 certification today, and has not commissioned an external penetration test yet. We would rather you read that here than find it in procurement. [Security and permissions at Cordango](https://www.cordango.com/security/), and the [data processing agreement](https://www.cordango.com/dpa/) in full. NEXT ## Bring one internal workflow. See what it inherits. Bring a workflow you would otherwise wire up in Retool. We will build it in the demo, on a company platform where the customers, the people and the rights model already exist. [Book a demo →](https://www.cordango.com/contact/) [All comparisons →](https://www.cordango.com/vs/)