# Sheet Ninja

11 Hacker News commenters recommended Sheet Ninja and 12 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Lets you use a Google Sheet as a quick backend without setting up a database. Critics mainly object to paid plans, request limits and a distracting landing page.

## Why people recommend it

- Quick backend without database setup (2 comments): "it's a much lower friction onboarding story than "set up a database."" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47566379)) "Really good project for a quick data back end." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47562451))
- Cool, great project (2 comments): "Cool project though the only risk I see is that if the target audience are vibe coders" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47562611)) "This is a great project, very cool" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47565864))

## What people warn about

- Not free; paid plan questioned (5 comments): "Sheet Ninja isn't free. Even on their side, "free" does not mean what you think it means." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47562621)) "Except the sheets-to-api SaaS charges $9/month if you want more than 250 requests." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47562733)) "A pay option like this definitely seems worse than the Firebase backend" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47563280))
- Landing page scrolling and carousel problems (3 comments): "The animations in the page keeps interrupting me and scrolling me up after I scroll past them." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47562311)) "Just impossible to read the landing page on mobile due to endless carousel sliding" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47562486)) "If I scroll down it auto scrolls up after 2 seconds." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47562353))
- Low request and capacity limits (2 comments): "Except the sheets-to-api SaaS charges $9/month if you want more than 250 requests." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47562733)) "tiny capacities for every metric" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47562787))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [PocketBase](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pocketbase.md): 67 recommend
- [InstantDB](https://hackerapproved.com/p/instant.md): 23 recommend
- [PostgREST](https://hackerapproved.com/p/postgrest.md): 12 recommend
- [Hasura](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hasura.md): 7 recommend
- [PostGraphile](https://hackerapproved.com/p/postgraphile.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Sheet Ninja", https://hackerapproved.com/p/sheet-ninja/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).