About this guide

Contents

1. Who it is for
2. How it is made
3. Ownership
4. Corrections

Search results for building internal tools with AI are dominated by vendor pages, each placing its own product first, and by lists that repeat feature claims without prices or limits. This guide compares the platforms on the same published criteria and shows where every fact came from.

Who it is for

Operations leads, finance and IT managers, and founders of companies with roughly 20 to 500 people who run important work on spreadsheets and rented software, and who are weighing whether to build their own tools instead. We assume the reader knows the company's processes in detail and wants the trade-offs stated plainly.

How it is made

Each platform profile is built from the vendor's own pricing, product and security pages, its published customer stories and reputable third-party research. Every fact carries a numbered source with the date we opened it, and every platform is compared on the same seven criteria, set out on the methodology page.

We review the main comparison at least once a quarter, and sooner when a platform changes its prices or plans. Each page shows its last update and keeps a short change log.

Ownership

OpenLazarus, the company behind one of the platforms reviewed, owns this guide. OpenLazarus is assessed against the same criteria as every other platform, its limits are stated as plainly as theirs, and the methodology page sets out the one situation for which it is ranked first.

Corrections

If a price, plan detail or claim is wrong or out of date, tell us. We check it against the source, correct the page and note the change.

Further reading

• Guide · Build vs buyBuild vs buy internal tools in the age of AI buildersAI has made building cheaper, but not free. The evidence points to a middle option for most companies, and to a short list of cases where buying is still the better decision.
• Guide · SpreadsheetsHow to replace spreadsheets with internal tools built with AINot every spreadsheet should become an app. The ones that act as shared databases usually should, and AI builders have made that move far shorter than it was.
• Guide · Security and accessSecurity and access control for internal tools built with AIAI writes the tool in minutes. Deciding who may see, change and approve each record still takes a deliberate hour, and the platforms place those controls on very different plans.