Airtable, last valued at $11B for its no-code software, lays off over 250

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • SurveyJS - Open-Source JSON Form Builder to Create Dynamic Forms Right in Your App
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  • WorkOS - The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS
  • insomnia

    The open-source, cross-platform API client for GraphQL, REST, WebSockets, SSE and gRPC. With Cloud, Local and Git storage.

    Well more than anything, 90% of the use cases are people using it as essentially a GUI CURL. There's countless open source alternatives [1] [2]. They can't ever charge too much money because the space isn't exactly hard to enter.

    [1] https://github.com/Kong/insomnia

  • Restfox

    Offline-First Minimalistic HTTP & Socket Testing Client for the Web & Desktop

  • SurveyJS

    Open-Source JSON Form Builder to Create Dynamic Forms Right in Your App. With SurveyJS form UI libraries, you can build and style forms in a fully-integrated drag & drop form builder, render them in your JS app, and store form submission data in any backend, inc. PHP, ASP.NET Core, and Node.js.

  • cal.com

    Scheduling infrastructure for absolutely everyone.

    Apparently it's 155 engineers (if LI data is to be believed), and about an equal amount of Sales employees [0].

    There's definitely value in the space, but I struggle to imagine how the ends (capturing that value) justifies the means (how they're pursuing that value).

    If you know your way around CalDAV [1], you can build the most valuable 20% of their features in a weekend. A team of 3-4 could build the most valuable 80% in a month or two. In fact, some people have not only done that but kept going, and we have FOSS tools like https://cal.com as a result, that are arguably easier to use.

    As a board member/founder/executive, one has to in the mirror each night, and feel confident saying "I'm running this company responsibly".

    Especially if you're working in a purely digital space (which Calendly is), you have to bend really far to justify hiring that many people. IDK, maybe I'm a standard deviation or two away from norms on frugality, but this baffles me.

    [0]: To contrast, WhatsApp sold in (!) 2014 (!) with 32 engineers (~50 total heacount), servicing 450mm active users. So, Calendly have 10x the headcount, on .2x the valuation.

    [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalDAV

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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