Google Sheets is where most business data starts. pylo is where it goes when several people, systems and rules depend on it: data model, API, permissions, forms, admin UI, flows and analytics in one system, hosted in Germany.

TL;DR

Google Sheets is one of the most used database in the world that was never meant to be one. It is free, shared in a second and everyone knows how to use it, which is why inventories, customer lists, order logs and production plans end up there. The limits are the ones every team hits eventually: one flat grid where relations are VLOOKUPs, no way to hide a row from someone who can see the sheet, a formula that silently breaks, no record of who changed a cell beyond version history, and an API with quotas. pylo is a backend platform that keeps what people like about a sheet, a table everyone can work in, and adds what a sheet cannot do: entities with relations, a typed GraphQL API, permissions down to the record and field, forms, admin views, flows and an event log of every change, hosted in Germany. If you calculate and analyse, keep Sheets. If you run the business on it, pylo is the better home for that data.

What is pylo?

pylo is a Backend-as-a-Service platform from Germany that you can use to build the operating system for your company. You model entities, fields and relations in the admin panel or through the API, and pylo generates a typed GraphQL API immediately. The same permission model governs data, the admin UI, forms, flows, dashboards and the MCP server. With pylo flows you build automations on top of your own data model and connect the tools you already use. The admin UI, forms and import profiles mean people without a developer background can move their sheets over and keep working with the data.

What is Google Sheets?

Google Sheets is Google's spreadsheet, free with a Google account and part of every Google Workspace plan. A spreadsheet holds up to 20 million cells or 100 MB, up to 100 people can edit it at the same time, and version history shows earlier states of the file. Sheets has formulas, pivot tables, charts, data validation, protected ranges, connected sheets for BigQuery, Apps Script for automation, a REST API with quotas and Gemini features for writing formulas and summarising data. AppSheet builds simple apps on top of a sheet, and Google Forms writes responses into one.

At a glance

From one sheet to related records

A sheet is at its best as one flat table that a few people look at. The trouble starts when the data has structure: products, suppliers and stock movements end up as three tabs held together by VLOOKUPs, or as one wide tab where the supplier's address is retyped on every row. A sort in the wrong column, a formula that stops at row 500 or a colleague who pastes over a validation rule, and the numbers are wrong without anyone noticing.

In pylo each tab becomes an entity, each lookup becomes a relation and each column becomes a typed field: text, number, date, enum, relation, file, JSON or rich text, with validation built in. Add an entity, a field or a relation in the admin panel and the typed GraphQL API updates at once, without migrations or redeployments. Relations work across your whole workspace, you filter across them and group aggregations by any field, and API requests are unlimited on every plan. The default list view still looks like a table, with multi-select, bulk edit, copy and paste of large datasets and customisable columns, so the team keeps the way of working it knows.

Permissions that follow the data everywhere

Google Sheets shares a file. Protected ranges stop people from editing cells, but anyone who can open the sheet can read every row in it, which is why teams end up with a sheet per region, a sheet per customer and IMPORTRANGE formulas between them. pylo separates tenants at the row level. Inside a tenant, any entity can act as the requester (ARO) and any entity as the requested object (ACO), with hierarchies and field-level rules. Every path into the data is GraphQL, so the same rules apply to the API, the admin panel, forms, flows, dashboards and MCP. The purchase price stays hidden from the sales team, the salary column from everyone but HR, and nobody needs a second copy of the sheet.

pylo flows instead of Apps Script

Automation in Sheets means Apps Script someone wrote two years ago, or a Zapier or Make scenario that watches for new rows and has its own quotas and error inbox. In pylo you build automations in a visual workflow engine called pylo flows. Any event on your data can start a flow, and so can a cron schedule or an incoming webhook. Flows include retries, custom rate limiting, error handling and full event logs, everything is statically typed, and pylo ships integrations for email sending and a range of third-party systems. For anything else you write a flow action in TypeScript. A reorder alert when stock drops below the minimum, a confirmation when a row is approved or a nightly sync with the shop runs on the server, with a log of every run.

Admin views and forms built on the same permissions

The grid is the interface in Sheets, and everyone who enters data sees the whole sheet. pylo's admin UI is there from the moment you create an entity. You compose list and detail views from predefined components, decide who sees what and show or hide fields depending on a record's state. pylo forms are public or authenticated web forms with hidden fields, conditional rendering, validation rules and direct mapping to your entities, including relations, so a colleague in the warehouse, a supplier or a customer enters data through a form that cannot break a formula.

Events and dashboards built in with pylo analytics

Version history in Sheets shows what the file looked like yesterday, not who changed the stock level of one product and from what to what. Every create, update and delete in pylo emits an event with the full before and after state, stored on every plan, which you can combine with external events you bring in through the API. You build dashboards on records and events together, with the same permissions as the rest of pylo. For the analysis you still want in a spreadsheet, export any view as CSV or read it through the API.

AI and MCP with guardrails

Gemini in Sheets helps write formulas and summarise ranges inside the file. pylo's MCP server is ready to connect, for developers who use agentic coding and for team members who want to ask questions about their records. The AI gets exactly the connected user's read permissions, nothing else. pylo never applies an AI's writes directly: they arrive as proposals that a human accepts or declines inside pylo, whatever AI client someone uses.

File handling

A sheet holds a link to a file in Drive, with Drive's own sharing rules. pylo stores files in EU-hosted object storage with public or private links, no file size limit and any file type, as fields on your entities with the same permissions as the rest of the record.

Agencies and multi-tenant work

With pylo, agencies run many client workspaces from one user account, where each workspace is its own tenant with its own permissions and one login switches between them. The database separates tenants with row-level security, and client staff get access without paying per seat. In Sheets, every client gets their own file and the agency maintains the formulas in each of them.

Pricing

Sheets is free or already paid for with Workspace, so the cost is never on the invoice. It is in the hours spent fixing broken formulas, reconciling three copies of the same list and the automation tool bolted on top. pylo bills per workspace with unlimited users, and every plan includes the backend, flows, the admin UI, forms, analytics and personal onboarding. Plans differ only in included usage. Especially on the free plan, pylo gives you more than a sheet for business data: 5,000 records, relations, permissions and an API at no cost.

Hosting, compliance and reliability

All pylo content data, data models and databases live in data centres in Germany. Our subprocessor list is public and names every non-EU parent company openly. A GDPR data processing agreement is part of the terms, and we never use customer data to train AI models. Paid plans come with a 99.5% availability SLA, hourly encrypted backups kept for 30 days at a separate German location, and support from the team that builds the product.

Google stores Sheets data in its data centres worldwide. Keeping it in Europe requires Google Workspace data regions, which come with Enterprise Plus and Frontline Plus or as a paid add-on on other plans. Google offers a DPA for Workspace customers and holds the usual certifications.

Where Google Sheets is the better choice

We would rather tell you than have you find out later:

• Your whole company runs on Google and you need something deeply integrated.

• Ad-hoc analysis of an export: paste, sort, filter, done.

• Everyone already knows it, and a new sheet costs nothing and needs no setup.

• Up to 100 people can edit at the same time, with comments and version history, inside Google Workspace.

• Google has formal certifications and a far larger ecosystem of add-ons and tutorials

If the sheet is a calculation or a one-off list, keep it. pylo is for the sheet that quietly became the system the company runs on.

Where pylo is a great Google Sheets alternative

We think these are the main reasons to pick pylo over Google Sheets:

• Records with relations instead of cells with lookups. Products, suppliers and movements are linked entities, not three tabs held together by VLOOKUPs.

• Data that cannot quietly go wrong. Typed fields, enums, required fields and validation stop the wrong value from entering in the first place.

• Permissions down to the record and field. One list, and every person sees exactly the rows and columns they may see.

• A real API. Typed GraphQL with unlimited requests on every plan, so your shop, your accounting tool or a script reads and writes the same data without quotas.

• Automation with a log. Flows with event, cron and webhook triggers, retries, rate limiting and typed actions replace Apps Script and Zapier.

• Forms that write records, not rows. Public or authenticated forms mapped to entities and relations, with file uploads and no Google account required.

• Change history for every record. Every change is an event with before and after state, and dashboards sit next to the data.

• A familiar table view. Multi-select, bulk edit, copy and paste and custom columns keep the team productive from day one.

• AI access that's safe for production. MCP runs with the connected user's exact read permissions, and every write goes through human approval as a proposal.

• No per-seat pricing. Unlimited users and API requests and all features on every plan, only three meters are billed: flow actions, records, and file storage/traffic.

• German hosting from a German company. pylo hosts user data in Germany on every plan and the DPA is part of the terms. You get a 99.5% SLA from the first paid plan, hourly backups with 30-day retention and personal support from the people who build the product.

FAQs - Questions and answers about pylo

• Is pylo a spreadsheet like Google Sheets? No, pylo shows your data in configurable list and detail views, not in a simple spreadsheet. With multi-select, bulk edit, copy and paste of large datasets, formula fields for computed values and customisable columns, the default view feels close to a spreadsheet, but pylo is built as a backend that non-developers can also work with.

• Can I keep using Google Sheets for analysis? Yes, you can export any pylo view as CSV, read the data through the API or let a flow write a summary into a sheet. Many teams keep Sheets as the reporting layer and move the source data to pylo.

• How do I move my sheets to pylo? Download each tab as CSV and import it with pylo's import profiles, which map columns to fields, use any field as the matching key and turn lookups into relations. The migration section below walks through it.

• Is pylo open source? No, but you can export all data at any time as CSV or JSON or through the API. The data models, flow definitions and generated SDK code are yours to keep, even after you leave.

• Where exactly is my data? Content data is in data centres in Germany and backups are kept at a different German location.

• Can I get access now? pylo is currently in private beta. Request access and we will set up your first entities with you on a call and onboard you personally for your first project.