[Feature request] Mount any existing database

[MitPitt]

A killer feature of nocodb is being able to mount any existing db (PostgreSQL, SQLite, and others) and turn it into a spreadsheet, gallery, kanban, or add a form. Currently teable only works with the db it was initialized with.

Teable should have this feature too. It would make Teable a great addition to pretty much any other project with a database. You could even create templates to instantly create dashboards for specific project databases.

[tea-artist]

We are very interested in this feature. Before making a decision, we need to conduct more research on user scenarios. Below are some of my questions:

1. Is the ability to modify and edit database fields important? In my perception, the database schema in an existing database is a very crucial part that should not be arbitrarily changed, as the database structure is tied to the stability of the software running on it. Once modifications are made, the application will almost certainly crash immediately.

2. Support for field types. The field types in relational databases are designed for developers, broadly supporting numbers, text, dates, Boolean values, and JSON. If the conclusion from question 1 is that modifying fields is unacceptable (which I tend to believe), then it would be difficult to expand into simpler new field types without significantly degrading the user experience, although it could also be said to be quite useful. We could refer data to tables controlled by our software through external junction tables to further maintain some relationships. If modifying database fields is acceptable, then to some extent, the software essentially takes over the database. This seems difficult to be compatible with existing businesses (databases). If anyone has use cases in this regard, we welcome you to provide them to us.

3. There are already many excellent low-code products that can connect to databases to build applications, such as Appsmith, Budibase, etc., which also include table interfaces. Of course, they also have some issues with high learning curves. However, for teams capable of maintaining an existing database (usually with engineers who have already developed some applications), this seems not to be a big problem.

[christophberger]

Maybe worth noting that NocoDB keeps its configuration and metadata in an internal noco.db database, thus keeping the impact on the mounted database minimal.

[tea-artist]

Hi everyone, after our discussion, we have decided to implement this capability in future versions, thanks for the feedback!