Rowy

What it is

Rowy is a low-code backend tool for Google Cloud and Firebase. Its homepage title reads "Rowy - Low-code backend on Google Cloud and Firebase", and the pitch is to manage your database in a spreadsheet UI and build backend cloud functions "without leaving your browser". It is written for makers and small product teams who use Firebase and want a friendlier way to see and edit their data and to attach logic to it. The company is Rowy Inc., according to the copyright line, and the about page calls it a fully remote, global and diverse team.

What you build and how

The data layer comes first. The homepage says "It begins with your data. Rowy displays it directly in a familiar spreadsheet UI", powered by your existing database. It lists over 30 field types, says it is fully scalable, and says your data stays on your cloud project. The Webflow template page confirms how that works: a Rowy table is connected to a Firestore database collection. So this is a spreadsheet view over Firestore rather than a separate database you move into. That is what puts it in the databases category as well as the API builders: you edit, sort and import records the way you would in a sheet, while the records live in your own Firebase project.

Logic comes second. The homepage says "With Rowy, you can write backend logic right on the same screen." It says Rowy has done the boring setup work, so you can write logic and use any npm package or API, with no docs or config needed. The pricing page describes these as Cloud Functions, and the tagline for the whole approach is "Start like no-code, extend with code". The about page words it as "Start like no-code, code anytime". A non-developer can manage records in the grid while a developer writes the functions behind it.

Getting data in from outside is covered by the webhook feature, which one template demonstrates. The "Webflow forms to Firestore" page walks through 3 steps. You set up Rowy with its guided onboarding and create a table to collect submissions. You click the webhook icon to generate an instant webhook endpoint URL, to which you can add conditions or custom parser logic. Then you point the Webflow form action at that URL with the POST method, so submissions land in Firestore instead of in Webflow's CMS. The page says Webflow forms are limited by Webflow CMS in cost, features, extensibility and scalability, and presents Rowy as the way around that. It describes Rowy as a low-code platform to build your product backend in minutes, with data from any source arriving by webhook and automation continuing through cloud functions written in code.

The homepage also carries a banner for a related product from the same team, BuildShip, described as a way to build APIs, scheduled jobs and backend workflows. The site lists BuildShip, along with pages on AI workflow and agent builders, in its footer. This entry covers Rowy only.

Looking ahead, the homepage invites visitors to "Sign up for Rowy 2.0", marked Beta, which it describes as a new way to build backend workflows visually. It asks readers to join an early users cohort and give feedback.

The site links to documentation, a GitHub repository, a Discord community, a changelog, a blog, an Experts Program and a Live demo at demo.rowy.io. The pricing page says "Rowy is also open-source and can be self hosted," next to a cloud hosted managed version on the Base plan, which is why Rowy also sits among the open-source tools here.

Plans, pricing and support

The pricing page lists a free Base tier, a paid Pro tier and a Business tier at custom pricing. The FAQ calls the free one the "free Base tier", and the Base card says it is free with no credit card needed.

The free tier is for individuals and small teams and includes:

• 1 project
• unlimited data table collections with no record limit
• unlimited Cloud Functions
• unlimited API calls, with no rate limit
• custom roles based access control
• import and export of data, in CSV, TSV and Airtable, with more coming
• 30+ column types
• row level data auditing
• community support through Discord

The page adds "We will always have a free tier and open-source version." The comparison table caps data export on Base at up to 10K rows.

Pro costs $12 per seat, per month, with a "Save 10%!" label and a one-month free trial. It is "For teams to build better across multiple projects and collaborate on data." It adds unlimited projects, full-text search, export of large datasets over 10K rows, email support, advanced filtering and sorting, cloning code across projects, and a GCP billing hard cap limit. The comparison table also lists Airtable import with realtime continuous data sync and cloning data across projects among the paid features.

Business is "Custom pricing" through a contact form, aimed at business use cases. It adds a custom domain, priority support, data version control, field level data auditing, automated data backups and forms. The table lists derivative fields, action fields, extensions and webhooks as part of the product.

Costs also arrive from Google. The FAQ explains that Rowy is connected to your own Firebase or GCP project and is 100% serverless, so there is no ongoing server cost on GCP from the platform itself. You can use Rowy's CMS without turning on billing on your GCP project, and you only need billing if you want Cloud Functions. That billing is on your own GCP project and not with Rowy. The company says you will mainly use Firestore, cloud functions and Cloud Run, and that GCP's free tier is quite generous. A detailed cost breakdown is linked from the page.

On social proof, the homepage quotes several users. Tibo, founder of TWeETHUNTER, says Rowy should be the default way for building on Firebase and Google Cloud. Hari Dulipudi, Senior PM at Finder, says getting a database ready usually takes time and Rowy was "so damn good and easy". Joe Muller, founder of ParaSightApp, writes that with Algolia and Rowy "you can spin up apps with full text search in an hour or two." The about page lists investors including Guillermo Rauch of Vercel, Nat Friedman, Balaji Srinivasan and Cassidy Williams.

On data location, the FAQ says the data you create and manage in Rowy is stored in your own Firebase or Firestore database on Google Cloud Platform and that Rowy does not store it anywhere. You decide which region the data is stored in, which the FAQ says lets you be GDPR compliant, and your data and code stay in your own Google Cloud project.

Who it suits and who it does not

Rowy suits a founder or small team already on Firebase or Google Cloud who wants a spreadsheet-style admin for Firestore and a place to write cloud functions with npm packages. At $12 per seat per month for Pro, and a free tier with no record limit, the entry price is low. An agency can connect a client's Firebase project and use the grid as a lightweight content editor. A freelancer collecting Webflow form submissions can follow the template and be live quickly.

It is a narrower choice for anyone outside Google's stack. The product is defined by its connection to Firebase and GCP, and the site names no other database. It is a backend tool, so the interface your customers see is a separate job. Because the free tier is limited to 1 project, a team with several apps needs Pro. Finally, the homepage steers visitors toward BuildShip and a Rowy 2.0 beta, a sign that the product is changing and that a long project may meet a new version along the way.