# Should NocoBase Continue as a Serious Project?

English Forum
1

After following NocoBase for a long time, I have reached a point where I seriously question whether this project should continue in its current form.

The problem is no longer missing features. Every software project has limitations. The real problem is the extremely slow pace of development and the growing gap between community expectations and actual delivery.

For years, users have requested core business features. Many functions that were available in v1 remain unavailable, incomplete, or difficult to use in v2. Discussions continue, promises continue, roadmaps continue, yet progress often feels painfully slow.

We are no longer living in 2020. We are now in an era where AI-assisted development and rapid iteration have dramatically changed the software industry. Competing platforms are moving faster, shipping faster, and responding to user feedback faster.

At some point, the community must ask a difficult question:

If a project cannot deliver essential functionality within a reasonable timeframe, what is the long-term plan? Why should businesses continue investing time, money, and trust into it?

NocoBase has good architecture and interesting ideas. Unfortunately, good ideas are not enough. Users need results.

From a user’s perspective, the project increasingly feels like an endless transition rather than a mature platform. The gap between vision and execution has become too large to ignore.

The NocoBase team should honestly evaluate whether they have the resources, development capacity, and strategic direction required to compete in today’s market. If not, the community deserves transparency rather than years of waiting.

This post is not written out of hatred. It is written out of disappointment after investing significant time in a platform that appears unable to keep pace with its own ambitions.

2

We just released 2.1, which fills in most of the missing features from 1.X. What do you think is missing now?

3

I understand your frustration, but it’s not like they’re that profitable yet. Sure, they aren’t fast, but at least they deliver reliability. Pushing too fast creates technical debt and prone to failure. and I don’t think I have a right to complain about it especially sine I’m a free user. I also have been hitting its limitation, and as a software developer myself, I understand how hard building such a big application is. so I just opt to extend the code by myself, whether by runJS, plugin, or even extending the server-side code.

3 Likes
4

A couple of months ago I would have probably agreed with your sentiment, but I actually feel that in the recent weeks they have made a lot of progress. Essential features from V1 are mostly back in place, and using the CLI with Claude Code is working very well, especially for database structure and workflows. This combination allows you to use AI to do 80% of the work, and still haven an UI to finetune the last 20% easily.

I would also encourage you to read the latest blog post which I think shows a clear vision for the product that happens to meet my needs very well. Do Software and Programmers Still Have a Future? - NocoBase

3 Likes
5

I also understand your frustrations as I’ve voiced my frustrations many times here too. However, I think the Nocobase team deserves credit for all their hard work and how they’ve really increased their tempo over the past month or two. As I understand it, Nocobase is not some undisciplined Silicon Valley startup with buckets full of VC money to play with. They are a small team (like many of us here) doing as much as they can with limited resources.

As a non-professional developer I quickly learned that relying solely on my “vibe coding skills” is a recipe for disaster. Admittedly it’s not always possible, but when you can, building a project with open-source solutions as a foundation is a much smarter and safer way to go. Thousands of Vibe-Coded Apps Expose Corporate and Personal Data on the Open Web | WIRED

Two ways I’ve found helpful for focusing the nocobase team on priorities I consider important:

  • Purchase commercial plugins. Nocobase, like any other company, needs revenue. To be clear, most of us don’t need a full commercial license (yet) and 2.0 is not enterprise ready yet anyway. This is why I strongly recommend that Nocobase return to the a la carte plugin purchasing system as it was previously.
  • Contribute to the community. If you built something helpful, share your repo and help make Nocobase better for everyone. When Nocobase releases an update you were waiting for or does something else awesome- give them a pat on the back and say thanks!
2 Likes