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Adobe ColdFusion vs Retool comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.4
Adobe ColdFusion improved development speed, reduced errors, and saved costs, enhancing efficiency by 15% for $400K projects.
Sentiment score
6.0
Reducing developer needs and using affordable tools led to significant cost savings and justified user fees.
Our development cycle improved by around 25 to 30%, which allowed us to deliver more.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
We had fewer front-end resources, and while developing with Retool, we did not need many front-end team members, which saved on salaries.
software engineer at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I think we can see time saved to start the proof of concept and maybe money saved because I was able to develop the mobile app alone without needing additional resources.
IT consultant for healthcare sector at Freelancer
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Adobe ColdFusion support receives positive feedback for responsiveness, effective technical assistance, and customizable best practice templates.
Sentiment score
5.0
Retool's support is responsive and helpful, with users suggesting chat for improvement amid varied experiences with assistance resources.
The technical team also helped us towards the relevant documentation and provided step-by-step assistance whenever needed.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
The customer support is amazing; overall, AWS customer support is very professional and fast.
software engineer at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Technical support team is available, but I haven't needed to contact them.
Full Stack PHP/Python AWS Developer at Binary Port
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Adobe ColdFusion offers excellent scalability for enterprise apps, efficiently managing increased workloads and high-demand scenarios in clustered environments.
Sentiment score
6.6
Retool is scalable and efficient, supporting large user bases and datasets with customizable security and effective performance management.
Adobe ColdFusion is very scalable, and I have found it easy to scale as our needs have grown.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
It's scalable and doesn't experience any slowdown when handling increasing data volumes.
Full Stack PHP/Python AWS Developer at Binary Port
Retool is more suited for startups, but it can get messy at scale.
software engineer at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Adobe ColdFusion is highly stable for enterprise applications, with strong support despite occasional difficulties in large applications.
Sentiment score
8.3
Retool is generally stable and reliable, with occasional issues, garnering mostly positive ratings from users.
It supports load balancing, clustering, and high availability.
Software Developer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
We run several business-critical applications on it, and there are few issues that we encounter.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Retool is stable in my experience.
IT consultant for healthcare sector at Freelancer
 

Room For Improvement

Adobe ColdFusion needs modernization, better documentation, cloud compatibility, enhanced integrations, and improved developer resources for optimal user experience.
Retool struggles with customization, integration, support, and documentation, requiring better tools, language support, and user resources.
Expanding the ecosystem and improving integration with popular DevOps and cloud-native tools would be beneficial.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Retool needs more customization options, as it should not be limited to a few customization features; it should be broader, with more features available for users to utilize.
software engineer at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
AI tools, features, and machine learning capabilities should be added as they would be helpful in the future.
Full Stack PHP/Python AWS Developer at Binary Port
There should be better documentation or support for non-technical users, providing a platform to learn and implement Retool effectively.
Construction Data Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Adobe ColdFusion is praised for straightforward enterprise pricing, though open-source alternatives like Lucee offer potential cost savings.
Retool offers competitive pricing, appealing to small teams with free plans and larger deployments facing affordable user costs.
It is positioned more towards the enterprise market, so it's not the lowest-cost option compared to some open-source alternatives.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing experience were good as the free plan was enough for us.
IT consultant for healthcare sector at Freelancer
 

Valuable Features

Adobe ColdFusion enables rapid development with strong integration, security, and database support, reducing costs and facilitating enterprise applications.
Retool simplifies UI dashboard creation with easy API integration, supports complex logic, and enhances efficiency for teams and startups.
Adobe ColdFusion reduces development cost, with less boilerplate code compared to Java or .NET.
Software Developer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The rapid development capabilities really stand out, especially the built-in tags and functions that simplify database interaction, form handling, and API creation.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Retool positively impacts our organization by saving costs compared to using other data repositories, and teams prefer Retool for daily tasks that perform customizations to showcase web pages or link their data backend, making it more efficient and cost-effective than other software available in the market.
Construction Data Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Retool provides built-in features with all processing happening within the platform, which is a significant advantage.
Full Stack PHP/Python AWS Developer at Binary Port
The best features Retool offers include the ability to quickly create a mobile app and use this mobile app in a native mobile app for Android.
IT consultant for healthcare sector at Freelancer
 

Categories and Ranking

Adobe ColdFusion
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
19th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Low-Code Development Platforms (19th)
Retool
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
AI Software Development (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Rapid Application Development Software category, the mindshare of Adobe ColdFusion is 1.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Retool is 1.4%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rapid Application Development Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Retool1.4%
Adobe ColdFusion1.6%
Other97.0%
Rapid Application Development Software
 

Featured Reviews

OA
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Rapid development has improved enterprise workflows but still needs a more modern ecosystem
One of the best features of Adobe ColdFusion in my experience is how quickly I can develop and deploy applications. The rapid development capabilities really stand out, especially the built-in tags and functions that simplify database interaction, form handling, and API creation. It allows me to focus more on business logic rather than focusing on boilerplate code. I also find the debugging and logging tools helpful, such as being able to trace errors and monitor performance directly from the administrator. It basically speeds up troubleshooting significantly. If I had to choose one feature of Adobe ColdFusion that saves me the most time or reduces my workload the most, I would say the rapid development capabilities, especially the built-in tags and database integration features. That has saved me the most time because Adobe ColdFusion makes it very easy to connect to a database, execute queries, and handle data with minimal boilerplate code. Overall, it allows me to spend more time focusing on optimizing logic and improving user experience rather than dealing with infrastructure and repetitive setup tasks. One additional feature of Adobe ColdFusion that I can mention is the security capabilities. Adobe ColdFusion provides helpful tools for securing applications, such as role-based access control, session management, and built-in protections against vulnerabilities like CSRF and XSS. This feature basically reduces the amount of custom security code that we have to write.
YL
IT consultant for healthcare sector at Freelancer
Has provided a quick way to build mobile apps and could improve usability for non-technical users
The best features Retool offers include the ability to quickly create a mobile app and use this mobile app in a native mobile app for Android. I found the process of creating and deploying those mobile apps for Android with Retool to be smooth as the documentation is very good, and I found answers and examples to create a mobile app. I can access a debug mode in the mobile app which was really convenient to make tests and find what can be improved, where I have a problem, and how to correct it. Retool positively impacted my organization as the proof of concept we built gave us a way to convince power users and key users before developing the real software. It was a way to maintain the launch date of the project, which helped speed up the project timeline and save resources.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
15%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Adobe ColdFusion?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Adobe ColdFusion has been good. It is positioned more towards the enterprise market, so it's not the lowest-cost option compared to some op...
What needs improvement with Adobe ColdFusion?
I don't believe I have much knowledge on how Adobe ColdFusion can be improved, but currently, with the way I'm using it, it's very fine. Because I couldn't find any improvements that could be neede...
What is your primary use case for Adobe ColdFusion?
I use Adobe ColdFusion basically to build REST APIs consumed by my iOS and Android apps.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Retool?
I found it affordable regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing.
What needs improvement with Retool?
Retool has some drawbacks, including limited customization; of course, it has limitations compared to React, where you can customize it as you want, but with Retool, there is limited customization....
What is your primary use case for Retool?
I used Retool in one of my projects a few months ago. The project involved making a monitoring real-time IoT system for IoT devices, and we used Retool as an internal dashboard. We had a stack of a...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Inspirus, Promisan, Webapper, Giva, Frontech Solutions Inc, Digicon, ITX Corp, Wall Street Magnate, SimulTV, ten24 Digital Solutions, Prospective Medical Data International Inc, Alcatel-Lucent
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Find out what your peers are saying about Adobe ColdFusion vs. Retool and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.