Glide App Examples from 5+ years of Glide Development

Introduction

I have plenty of Glide app examples to talk about, especially after 4+ years, 300+ Glide apps, 40+ Glide templates, and 150+ Glide template sales later built with Glide.

I did not believe it in February 2019 when Glide claimed to build apps from Google Sheets.

I was clearly wrong.

While I journal my experience building with No-code platforms like Glide Apps as a Glide Apps Certified Expert, this article will also double up as a repository of some useful, unique, and interesting Glide app examples for you to peruse and understand what kind of apps can be built in Glide.

Glide App Examples of Internal Tools and Utilities

Queuing app

An extremely popular restaurant has extremely loyal patronage but not enough seats to manage the walk-ins at the restaurant. Their ideal solution was to develop a queuing app or a waitlist management app, with a WhatsApp Business API integration for automated messages.

When they first reached out with mockups and a flow of messages I wasn’t sure if Glide could serve their needs, or if what Glide could do would fulfill their requirements.

1 week of development later, I came up with an app that would allow users to submit their table request, provide them with an estimated wait time, and keep an open communication channel via WhatsApp until they’re seated, without the need for WhatsApp Business APIs.

This app became so popular with restaurant patrons that they would fill out their table requests ahead of time and it caused chaos! We then iterated the app to take table requests only from a single kiosk at the restaurant. This Glide app example further helped us roll out similar apps for other restaurants owned by the parent company.

Inventory Management

A cannabis products delivery company in California couldn’t keep a tab on where their products were, or how many were there in any particular location. The app I developed for them would allow them to check in new inventory into any particular location, move inventory from one location to another, move inventory from a location to a delivery rider, and eventually declare a sale of an item. In the end, with this Glide app example, the business would be able to see the exact units of each product available at any location or see the units of a particular product held at all locations.

Impact Showcase

A US-based company manages corporate volunteering and employee engagement programs for companies. They wanted an app that showcases all their events in the context of UN Goals each event was aligned with. The app would also list the impact of each event on social impact-related metrics, and the same metrics at an aggregate level to showcase the impact of the work that they do.

The company does incredible work in the social and environmental impact sector and wanted to showcase its work for others to see, appreciate, and eventually volunteer. This Glide app example caters to exactly that requirement.

Field Sales & Quotes Tracker

I developed this app for a chemicals manufacturer and reseller based in Mumbai, India. It was developed for the sales staff to their customer data, plan visits to customers, gather the customer’s requirements, and send a quote to their own accounts department for approval. The app helped the client digitize a paper-based process and get all the data in a single place for analysis at the corporate level.

Home Loan Calculator built with Glide Apps

One of my first commissioned Glide Apps, and an early Glide app example, I built a home loan calculator using Glide Apps for a real estate broker in the US. This app doubled up as a lead generation utility for the broker.

• Business/App Owner: Real Estate Broker
• App type: Lead Generation/Calculator
• Audience: Commercial and Residential Real Estate Buyers

Quick Math Tests administered via Glide Apps

A math tutor in Canada wanted to evaluate his students’ math skills. The initial implementation of this quick math test administration app was messy and spanned multiple tabs with unstructured data. The final version of this Glide app example was built using Glide Apps, Typeform, and Zapier. I managed the user registrations, both parents and students, in Glide and administered the timed tests using Typeform. The results were written back to the Glide App using Zapier, for the students and their parents to check and revisit. This was one of the B2C Glide app examples that I built.

• Business/App Owner: Teacher/Tutor
• App Type: User Administration, Leaderboard
• Audience: Students and their parents

Restaurant Tips Capture, Calculation, and Distribution using Glide Apps

This is a Glide app example that was built for a brewery called Off The Rails Brewery in Sunnyvale, California. The founder was savvy with Google Sheets and had all the calculations in place for ad-hoc calculations of revenue, broken by food and drinks, gratuities, and tips.

However, running these calculations every day was a challenge, and getting the staff to enter the data every day in the right format was another. The app we built allowed each staff member to log their tips and bills, mark who (roles and individuals) assisted them while on duty, and spit out each person’s individual share from that person’s tips. All this information was then rolled up to the day level to calculate each person’s payouts for the day.

• Business/App Owner: Restaurants
• App Type: Internal Calculator
• Audience: Restaurant Staff

Advertising Copy Generation using Glide Apps and OpenAI Integration

An advertising industry veteran from Denmark wanted to leverage OpenAI to help other people in his industry come up with copy, without having to start from a blank slate. The client’s initial outreach was to build this app using Softr, but Glide suited the requirements better.

The client came up with voices, their prompt templates, and the structure of the final prompt. I created a Glide app that would send the prompts to OpenAI using APIs and save the results for the prompt. The users could generate more and more copies until they were satisfied that they had something better than nothing to start their copywriting process by getting their creative juices flowing.

• Business/App Owner: Advertising Industry Veteran
• App Type: Internal Tool
• Audience: Copywriters

Glide App Examples of Journaling and Data Logging/Entry Apps

Habit Tracker

An entrepreneur from the UK wanted a habit tracker built based on a new philosophy around developing sticky habits. This was a successful prototype and provided the validation required to pursue this idea by having a custom-built native app for iOS and Android.

Expense Tracker

An expense tracker was one of my most purchased Glide Apps templates. Several customers bought it and customized it on their own, while a few asked me to customize it to cater to their specific needs. In most cases, it was for personal and family use.

Political Campaigning

A client in Israel wanted an app designed to help manage the campaigning activities of volunteers of a party. The request was last-minute and we moved quickly to develop the app for volunteers of a political party to add voter data and sense the pulse of a voting district in the upcoming elections.

Car Health Monitoring for Insurance

A serial entrepreneur from Israel wanted to develop an app that would reward car owners to log their car details periodically. The journaling habit would allow them to request monetary and non-monetary rewards from insurance providers. The app would remind users to log their entries when it was due and also show them metrics about their usage by car (in case of multiple cars). The MVP was successful, it raised funds and allowed the entrepreneur to jump into launching a full version of the product using custom software development.

Group Fitness Challenge Tracker

A fitness center in Chennai, India launched an offline 3-month fitness challenge for their gym members. The center wanted an accountability system and a system to measure the progress of each participant across different stages of the challenge. I developed an that would allow participants to log their daily activity (workout and nutrition), log their weight weekly, and their performance on a set of exercises at the end of each month.

The performance of each member would then be visible for coaches and the respective member to see and get motivated to do better.

Glide App Examples of Directories/Listings and Reviews-based apps

Review app for Internet Creators

A Hollywood (and a Bollywood) actor, for his side quest, wanted a platform where people could rate and review their favorite creators on the internet. The creators were rated on multiple parameters like quality, value for money, etc., and also allowed for qualitative feedback and comments by other users. The app helped its users evaluate if becoming the creators’ subscribers was worth it.

Directory of Bookstores all across the World

Back when Covid-19 first showed up, an internet friend in India, who also happens to be an ardent book and bookstore lover, wanted to help bookstores across the world raise money to survive the lockdown by selling gift cards and books. The app was supported by volunteers across the world who quickly added 300+ bookstores in a single app for people to find their favorite bookstores and ways to support them during this tough time.

The app was widely covered in the media by FastCompany, NowThisNews, and LitHub.

Covid-19 Resources in India

The second wave of Covid-19 in India was a horrible one. People were scampering for beds, oxygen cylinders, drugs, food, and whatnot.

A past client of mine discovered that people were sharing resources on Twitter, but it was difficult to find this information for those who were looking for it.

We teamed up, and I drafted the first version of the app within 2 hours, and my client set up a small team of volunteers to add resources to the app. Before we knew it, the app had blown up. My client and I, both had decided to keep our names hidden, but it was amusing to me when my roommate forwarded the ‘viral app with all covid resources’ to me, knowing that I develop Glide Apps. He was surprised to find I was the developer.

This app, too, was widely covered in the media, by IndiaTimes and RestofWorld.

The app became so popular that ~200 signed up for Glide Apps to get free rows of data for our app to accommodate new resources.

Availabilities at Assisted Living Facilities (ALF)

A client in Florida, USA helps ALFs improve their operations and generate additional revenue. I developed an that would list availabilities on a single platform for their target audience to find in a single place. The app would also take in requests for placements for the staff members to place the users in the most appropriate available facility.

Reviewing Government Agencies

A client in the US wanted a platform where past vendors could review government agencies based on how it was to work with them. The app would collect qualitative feedback about an agency, and also collect quantitative feedback on factors like Communication, Scope Creep, and Pay. All the individual scores would then be rolled up at the agency level for other vendors to evaluate if they should work with the government agency.

Favorite Restaurants Across the World

An angel investor (Figma, Loom, Telegram, etc.) based in the Netherlands is an avid world traveler and foodie. And his friends and family love knowing where he is, which restaurants he is exploring, and his recommendations. He wanted to collate all his favorite restaurants in a single place, for his friends and family to peruse. It was kind of a personal app, but I loved how somebody is journaling their food expeditions in a single place. I hope this app helps him reminisce the good times 30 years later!

Glide Apps Examples of Marketplace Apps

Tech Sales Recruitment Platform

A German company helps career changers find entry-level technical sales jobs in established SaaS companies. I developed this app over a year and a half with the team.

The app would allow recruiters to:

• manage their company profiles on the platform,
• search and filter candidates that meet the company requirements,
• shortlist candidates for team review,express interest to interview candidates,
• review candidates keen on interviewing with the company,
• track the status of recruitment for any particular candidate.

For candidates, the app would allow them to:

• manage their own profile,

• accept interests from recruiters,

• browse companies actively recruiting,

• express interests in companies they would like to interview with.

The response to the app was so wild that they declined to accept the funding from the German version of Shark Tank.

I built a similar app for a company based in Belgium to help companies recruit interns. In many ways, it was similar to the Tech Sales Recruitment Platform above, but there were finer changes to the app that emanated from how the process was handled differently by the users of the app.

Furniture Rental Platform

This was one of the most complex apps I built for a furniture company based in the UK, that wanted to venture into furniture rentals. The needs of the app made me come up with my own version of the dynamic shopping cart concept in Glide Apps. In fact, the explainer video for this concept is the most-watched video on my YouTube channel.

The app would allow users to:

• search furniture items by range, rooms, etc.
• select different duration/terms for rentals
• see pricing based on the duration/terms selected
• add items to their cart
• select insurance for their order
• place orders
• follow up on orders through delivery

The work I did as part of developing this app helped me launch a couple of templates around dynamic shopping carts.

Model Recruitment platform

A client based in Korea launched a startup in the fashion and modeling industry. The platform allows brands to find modeling talent and book them for brand shoots after carefully evaluating their profiles.

The app allows brands to:

• search talent by gender, age, nationality, location, keywords, etc.
• evaluate the profiles based on their portfolio and vital stats
• download a 1-page profile of the model
• shortlist profiles
• compare shortlisted profiles

The app allows the admins and the talent to manage their own profiles to make them more presentable and appealing.

Glide Apps Examples of Apps for Community

Social Exchange Platform

I built a barter, trade, and exchange goods & services app for a community initiative based in Hawaii, US. The app is aimed at bringing the community together on a single platform and exchanging produce, products, services, and time with one another and helping each other grow.

The application focused on trading the traditional way, any goods and services can be exchanged from professional skills to ‘Grandma’s mango harvest.’ Described as a digital Ahupua’a or system of shared abundance, the App launched on June 16th and aims to expand the aloha spirit globally.

The app raised some funds after participating in the Purple Prize in 2020 and ending up as a finalist.

The app was widely covered in the media: CivilBeat, Kawaiola, and The Moy Media Show.

Here’s the founder talking about the app and the initiative.

Mental Health Forum

This was built as an MVP for a mental health and wellness company in India. The app took the shape of a forum where users would post questions about things that are affecting them in their personal and professional lives. Mental Health Experts on the platform would then answer questions from users. Other users would then upvote the most helpful comments.

The app that was developed as part of this project made way for a forum template in the Glide Apps Template Library.

Sharing Knitting Patterns

A knitting enthusiast in Denmark wanted to share knitting patterns with members of the community.

The app would allow users to search for knitting patterns by the type of apparel they would like to knit. The app would also show the yarn composition and list the patterns that use a particular yarn. For each apparel, the app would list the primary information about the apparel like size, price for pattern, and total price. The app would then list yarn and brand options too, along with information like needle size, level, # yarns needed, # threads needed, etc.

Summary

This list of Glide app examples should help you understand what kind of apps can be built with a No-code platform like Glide Apps. With the help of the screenshots listed above, you can get an idea of the kind of UI that can be developed with Glide too, and the kind of functionality that can be achieved with Glide. In conclusion, these Glide examples should help you evaluate if Glide is the right platform to help digitize your business by developing internal tools.