Internal tools — a new product category is officially born!

Sandro Munda -

Back in 2016, I decided to take the pain out of building admin panels for web applications with Forest Admin. At the time, I knew the biggest challenge of this journey would likely be to create an entirely new product category, as back then 99.99% of admin panels were custom built. Without any doubt, I was right about that! But frankly, that’s really what has kept me so excited about building this company!

Several years down the line, the category is now a lot more mature. It took time… but I have the feeling that we are finally there! Our product category is now well defined in the market under the concept of internal tools. Having a clear name for the category is an important first step. But more importantly, seeing new actors (such as Retool, Internal or Foundation to name a few) work alongside Forest Admin at growing this space is tremendously exciting. I’m deeply convinced that no one can create a new product category alone. Competitors are simply key to helping define and educate on a new product category. With a total funding amount of around $5m for Internal, $11m for Forest Admin and $75m for Retool… there is now clear recognition of the potential of Internal Tools in the venture capital world. I can only deeply thank Craft, Notion, Sequoia and all the others for backing this space. You guys have really been instrumental in helping us pioneer this new product category! Kudos!

But despite the growing excitement around it, I can’t help but notice it is still one of the rare categories not to be referenced by Gartner yet! “Why?” can I hear you wonder… IMHO, this is simply because the category remains somewhat of a mixed bag, with similar but different pains being addressed under the concept of Internal Tools…

Definitely something I feel would be worth decrypting in a future blog post 😉Stay tuned!

What's next?

  • If you want to build your Admin Panel with Forest Admin: visit our website.
  • If you want more details on the way our customers use Forest Admin, don't hesitate to contact us.
  • If you struggle between using a low-code internal tool builder and developing internal tools on your own, read this article.