# How to Vibe Code Your Own SmartSuite (and Stop Paying for It)

> Connected GRC Platform for the Enterprise

- Site: https://smartsuite.com
- Category: Work OS & Enterprise Productivity
- Verdict: **Serious undertaking** (45/100 vibecodeable)
- Estimated effort: 3-5 months of part-time development

## Verdict

Build a personal project management subset instead of trying to clone SmartSuite, because engineering a dynamic runtime relational schema with 40+ custom field types and workflow automations is a massive multi-month trap.

SmartSuite is an enterprise Work OS disguised as a simple database app. While AI coding tools can quickly scaffold a basic Next.js CRUD skeleton with Tailwind and a Postgres database, building the core engine—runtime schema definitions, deeply linked relational record types, formula engines, and visual automation triggers—requires solving complex state management and database abstraction challenges that take months of rigorous coding. Furthermore, implementing contextual permissions, audit logging, and AI workflow assistants pushes this past a casual weekend project.

### What you can't replicate

- SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, and ISO 27001 compliance posture
- Enterprise sales motions and trust with Fortune 500 risk departments
- A library of 200+ battle-tested vertical solution templates

## What it does

SmartSuite is an AI-native work management platform and Work Operating System designed to unify data, collaboration, workflows, and governance across an organization.

### Core features

- Dynamic Relational Database with 40+ field types
- Multiple View layouts (Grid, Kanban, Card, Dashboard)
- Visual Workflow Automation Builder with triggers and actions
- AI Field Agents and Copilot for natural language generation
- Record-level comments, @mentions, and activity feeds
- Granular role-based and solution-level permissions
- Data import/export via CSV and spreadsheet parsing
- REST API and webhook integration dispatcher

## The business

### Pricing

- Team: $15/mo — For teams that need a better way to manage workflows
- Professional: $32/mo — For teams and departments who need more advanced features to manage their workflows.
- Enterprise: Custom — For organizations that need scalable workflows with advanced features, security, and support.

### Funding

$38M raised.
- Seed Round ($25M)
- Series A ($13M)
Investors: Canapi Ventures, Sorenson Capital, High Alpha

Founded 2021.
Team size: 18-60.

## The hard parts

- Building a generic runtime relational schema engine that supports 40+ column types without crashing index integrity
- Executing dynamic formula and rollup calculations across linked records efficiently
- Orchestrating multi-step workflow automations with condition evaluation and retry loops
- Enforcing nested field-, row-, and view-level access permission checks on every query

## How to vibe code SmartSuite

### Prerequisites

- Node.js (free): Required runtime for executing the Next.js and TypeScript project stack.
- GitHub (free): Version control repository host for tracking iterations and deploying code.

### Recommended AI tools

- Claude Code: Unmatched agentic capacity for scaffolding complex multi-file full-stack database architectures and debugging relational query trees.
- Cursor: Exceptional code editor for fine-tuning complex React UI components, grid views, and form field renderers with live diff reviews.

### Stack

- Frontend: Next.js with React, Tailwind CSS, and shadcn/ui components
- Backend: Next.js App Router API Routes with TypeScript
- Database: Neon (Serverless Postgres with Prisma ORM)
- Auth: better-auth
- Payments: None (Personal use clone)
- Other: Vercel AI SDK for LLM field assistants and copilot integration, Resend for email notification alerts

### Hosting

- Vercel (Hosting the Next.js web application and serverless API endpoints): $0-20/mo
- Neon (Managed serverless Postgres database storage): $0/mo

### Build guide

1. **Project Scaffolding & Database Schema Initialization** — Initialize the Next.js project with Tailwind CSS, configure Prisma ORM with Neon Postgres, and establish the foundational database models for Workspaces, Solutions, Tables, Fields, and Records.

```
Create a new Next.js project using the App Router, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS. Initialize Prisma with a Neon PostgreSQL connection string. Design a robust relational schema for a Work OS clone: Workspace (id, name), Solution (id, workspaceId, name), TableModel (id, solutionId, name), FieldDefinition (id, tableId, name, type [text, number, select, date, relation], options [JSON]), and Record (id, tableId, data [JSON holding key-value pairs of field IDs to values]). Include proper foreign key constraints, indexes on tableId and workspaceId, and seed a default workspace with sample tables via a migration script. Ensure clean separation of concerns across lib and components directories.
```

2. **Authentication & Workspace Management Setup** — Implement authentication using better-auth, connecting user sessions to the database and ensuring users can create and manage distinct workspaces.

```
Integrate better-auth into the Next.js application supporting email/password and session cookie management. Create user and member tables in Prisma matching better-auth specifications. Build an onboarding and workspace selection flow that automatically provisions a default personal workspace upon first login. Add middleware to protect dashboard routes and inject the active workspace context into request headers. Create clean login, registration, and account settings screens styled with Tailwind and shadcn/ui components.
```

3. **Dynamic Grid View & Relational Record Editor** — Build an interactive spreadsheet-style grid view supporting dynamic column types, inline cell editing, sorting, filtering, and pagination.

```
Develop a feature-rich Grid View component in React that renders records dynamically based on table FieldDefinitions. Implement virtualized or paginated table rendering supporting text, number, select badges, and date picker inputs. Add inline editing capabilities that update record JSON data via Server Actions with optimistic UI updates. Include sorting by column header, filtering by field values, and a modal for creating new records with custom-rendered inputs according to field types.
```

4. **Kanban, Card Views, and Dashboard Widgets** — Implement alternative layout views including a Kanban board grouped by status select fields and summary dashboard metric widgets.

```
Build a Kanban View component that allows users to group records by any 'select' or 'status' field type. Implement drag-and-drop or status-dropdown updates to move cards between columns, triggering immediate backend updates. Create a Dashboard view featuring customizable metric widgets (record counts, sum totals, progress trackers) querying solution data in real time. Ensure seamless switching between Grid View and Kanban View within any solution table.
```

5. **Workflow Automation Engine** — Create a visual and backend execution engine for simple trigger-action workflow automations within solutions.

```
Build a workflow automation engine supporting event triggers (e.g., 'When Record Created' or 'When Status Changes to X') and execution actions (e.g., 'Send Email' or 'Update Field'). Create database models for Automations (id, solutionId, triggerType, conditions [JSON], actionType, actionConfig [JSON]). Implement a background execution handler called via API routes or Server Actions whenever a record is modified, evaluating conditions and executing the configured action using Resend for email notifications and Prisma for record updates.
```

6. **AI Field Copilot & Natural Language Assistant** — Integrate the Vercel AI SDK and Anthropic API to provide AI field summarization and natural language record generation helpers.

```
Integrate the Vercel AI SDK into the application using Anthropic Claude models. Build an API route for an 'AI Field Assistant' that can summarize text record fields, classify incoming request descriptions, or generate draft responses based on record context. Add a floating AI Copilot chat drawer to the solution interface that can answer questions about the current table records, filter rows via natural language prompts, and execute database queries safely.
```

### Cost vs paying

**Starting costs (one-time):**

- Custom domain registration: $12 one-time
- Total: ~$12 one-time

**Ongoing costs (monthly):**

- Vercel Hobby Hosting: $0/mo
- Neon Serverless Postgres: $0/mo
- Anthropic API credits for AI Copilot: ~$5/mo
- Total: ~$5/mo

- Paying for the SaaS instead: $32/mo (Professional Plan per user)
- Build time: 40-60 hours
- AI tool credits: $20/mo (Claude Pro / Cursor Pro)
- Break-even: Instant (for personal use)

## Sources

- [SmartSuite Official Homepage](https://smartsuite.com)
- [SmartSuite Pricing Matrix](https://smartsuite.com/pricing)
- [Business Wire: SmartSuite $38M Series A Announcement](https://www.businesswire.com)