Hey Patrick!
Retool designed the Public Apps feature to support applications that are truly accessible to the public (examples could include an application that includes a form for collecting local news reports or a public-facing COVID tracking site). We're actually expanding the availability of Public Apps to more cloud plans soon because we've seen customers build really amazing things with them.
We're removing password protection for several reasons:
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Rather than asking for improvements to password protection, many of our customers have pulled us to help support secure experiences that leverage our user model and permissions.
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We've since shipped Retool Embed and Retool Portals to let you do just that.
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We want Public Apps to be truly public!
If you're exposing Retool to external users, I'm happy to discuss which approach makes more sense. But rolling your own authentication on top of Public Apps is also against our Acceptable Use Policy.