
Ask HN: Modern framework to create forms and store its results - alfageme
After a few years of working as a physio for others, my partner is finally starting her clinic soon. The question for the software she needs to run the whole thing arises. &#x2F;me wanting to help as much as I can, I&#x27;ve looking for the best options for accounting, CMS, payroll...<p>But for the &quot;initial interview&quot; she conducts with all incoming patients to gather information for a diagnostic. I haven&#x27;t found any candidates that fit her needs. I&#x27;m thinking of building a small tool with her tailor-made questions easy to use and maintain.<p>Across the different projects I&#x27;ve worked for, I&#x27;ve seen lots of basic CRUD&#x2F;form web apps being built with different stacks and general-purpose frameworks, but all ended up being hard to maintain and bloated in features. Maybe Django forms were the exception to that rule. I also took a look at https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;selfhosted&#x2F;comments&#x2F;8ghoy1&#x2F;looking_for_self_hosted_form_builders and tried a few of the options outlined there but none convinced me.<p>Do you guys know some modern and OSS form-builder I can use for this?<p>TL;DR: I&#x27;m looking for something like MS Access but modern, self-hosted and -hopefully- better looking to build custom forms, store and consume results.
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mxek
Hi, co-founder of DETA(deta.sh) here; we have a horse in this race,
nonetheless are trying to make creating and hosting micro-backends super
simple. Currently DETA ships with a micro-crud app based on a Flask-like
router.

Auto-generated UI forms and data inspection are on our radar--we'd be more
happy to give you access!

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alfageme
Saw your overview video, very interesting indeed. Are you guys planning to
release a self-hosted option? Low code & auto-gen forms are key for my use-
case.

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abdelhai
Hey Samuel, Mustafa (other co-founder) here.

> ...self-hosted option.

Yes. We can run the platform (data and code) in your AWS account. Let me know
if you would like to talk. (We are based in Germany)

> low-code

With DETA you only write business logic.

> auto-gen form

We had a POC but weren't happy with it – we'll be using a different approach
and hopefully launch in a few weeks.

Drop me a line and I'm sure we can help: mustafa ät deta.sh

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onion2k
The tech you use to build it matters a lot less than whether or not your
partner likes to use it. The user experience is more important than the
developer experience (both matter, but the user one is more important). Show
your partner examples and ask them which one they like more, and use that data
to drive the choice of tech.

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alfageme
Oh yes, the main reason not to choose any of the existing solutions I've been
able to check is UX. That's why I'm thinking on building something tailor-made
starting by capturing the most details of her process.

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matijash
Once you store the survey results, what happens next? If you just used
typeform ([https://www.typeform.com/](https://www.typeform.com/)) (they have a
really nice UX), what would you be missing?

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picsoung
(disclaimer: I work for Typeform)

Typeform is the perfect tool for this, people have used it to create "user
profile" and present recommendations depending on what they answered. (check
BeardBand example: [https://www.typeform.com/blog/inspiration/beardbrand-
persona...](https://www.typeform.com/blog/inspiration/beardbrand-personality-
quiz/))

You can also accept Payments directly on the typeform using Stripe, no need to
code that part. There are plenty of salons, freelancers and businesses that
use this feature to power their business. ([https://help.typeform.com/hc/en-
us/articles/360029570591-Pay...](https://help.typeform.com/hc/en-
us/articles/360029570591-Payment-question))

You can connect your Typeform to many other tools to automate other tasks like
adding customers to a mailing list, a loyalty program, or create a calendar
event. (you can get an overview over here:
[https://typeform.com/connect](https://typeform.com/connect), we also
integrate with connectors like Zapier, Integromat, Parabola...)

Hope it helps! Good luck kickstarting this business!

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pettycashstash2
Flask is great. Simple and zero bloat.

