ThinkForms — relational spreadsheets, Python formulas and shareable forms

ThinkForms is live at https://forms.thinkhead.org, powered by Grist.

It sits between a spreadsheet and a database. Columns have real types — dates that are dates, money that sorts and totals, dropdowns that only accept the values you allowed. Formulas are written in Python, one per column, applied to every row and recalculated automatically, so a calculation can never be current on some rows and stale on others.

Any table can be published as a form and filled in by someone with no Think account at all — their submission arrives as a new row, and they never see the document itself. That capability is what the service is named after.

Also included: attachments stored alongside records, live collaboration, access rules down to individual rows and columns, and a full REST API.

ThinkForms replaces a HomeBox deployment that was retired the same week after its users rejected the field model — see the Why page for the full comparison, and the selection research for the original five-way evaluation.