TechLatest

Posted on Jun 5 • Originally published at Medium on May 16

Deploy NocoDB on AWS in Minutes Using TechLatest VM

#aws #deployment #cloud #nocodb

Modern businesses increasingly rely on collaborative databases, workflow automation, and no-code platforms to manage operations efficiently. While tools like Airtable have become popular for building internal tools and organizing data visually, many organizations face challenges such as expensive licensing costs, vendor lock-in, and limited infrastructure control.

That’s where NocoDB comes in.

NocoDB is a powerful open-source, self-hostable alternative to Airtable that transforms traditional SQL databases into smart collaborative spreadsheets. It enables teams to build internal tools, automate workflows, create APIs, and manage data visually — all while maintaining complete ownership of their infrastructure and databases.

In this guide, we will walk through the complete deployment process of the TechLatest NocoDB virtual machine available on the AWS Marketplace. You’ll learn how to launch the VM, configure networking and security groups, assign Elastic IPs, connect using SSH and RDP, install NocoDB, and access the web interface for the first time.

By the end of this tutorial, you will have a fully functional NocoDB environment running on AWS EC2 with remote desktop access and ready for production use.

Product Link: https://techlatest.net/support/nocodb_support/

Deployment Options: AWS, GCP, & Azure

Step-by-Step Guide

Open NocoDB: An open-source, license-free alternative to Airtable VM listing on AWS marketplace.

Click on View purchase options.

Log in with your credentials and follow the instructions.
Subscribe to the product and click on the Continue to configuration button.
Select a Region where you want to launch the VM(such as US East (N.Virginia))

Click on the Continue to Launch Button.
Choose Action: You can launch it through EC2 or from the website.(Let’s choose Launch from the website)

Optionally change the EC2 instance type. (This defaults to t2.medium instance type, 2 vCPUs, and 4 GB RAM.)
Optionally change the network name and subnetwork names.

Select the Security Group. Be sure that whichever Security Group you specify has ports 22 (for SSH), 3389 (for RDP), and 80 (for HTTP) exposed. Or you can create the new SG by clicking on the “Create New Based On Seller Settings” button. Provide the name and description, and save the SG for this instance.

Be sure to download the key pair, which is available by default, or you can create a new key pair and download it.

Click on Launch.
NocoDB: An open-source, license-free alternative to Airtable will begin deploying.

A summary page displays. To see this instance on EC2 Console, click on the EC2 Console link.

The VM needs an Elastic IP to function correctly. To allocate an Elastic IP:

In the AWS Console, navigate to Elastic IPs from the left sidebar under EC2 services.
Click on the “Allocate Elastic IP address” link at the top right.
Choose to allocate a new Elastic IP in the same network border group as the NocoDB instance that will be associated with the EIP.

Associate the Elastic IP:

After the Elastic IP is allocated, select the newly generated Elastic IP on the same page.
Click on the “Associate this Elastic IP address” button.
Choose the instance under the resource option, and choose your NocoDB instance in the instance box. Click on Associate.

Please refer to Working with Elastic IPs Official Documentation for more details.

Navigate back to your instance page and refresh it. Check that the Elastic IP is now displayed under the public IP address in the instance details. On the EC2 Console page, the instance is up and running. To connect to this instance through Putty, copy the IPv4 Public IP Address.

Open Putty, paste the IP address and browse your private key you downloaded while deploying the VM, by going to SSH->Auth->Credentials, click on Open. Enter ubuntu as the userid.

Once connected, change the password for the Ubuntu user using the command below

sudo passwd ubuntu

Now that the password for the Ubuntu user is set, you can connect to the VM’s desktop environment from any local Windows Machine using RDP protocol or a Linux Machine using Remmina.

From your local Windows machine, go to the “Start” menu, in the search box type and select “Remote Desktop Connection”. In the “Remote Desktop Connection” wizard, copy the public IP address and click Connect.

This will connect you to the VM’s desktop environment. Provide the username “ubuntu” and the password set in the above “Reset password” step to authenticate. Click OK.

Now you are connected to the out-of-the-box NocoDB: An open-source, license-free alternative to Airtable VM’s desktop environment via Windows Machine.

To connect using RDP via a Linux machine, first note the external IP of the VM from the VM details page, then from your local Linux machine, goto menu, in the search box type and select “Remmina”.

Note: If you don’t have Remmina installed on your Linux machine, first install Remmina as per your Linux distribution.

In the “Remmina Remote Desktop Client” wizard, select the RDP option from the dropdown and paste the external IP, and click Enter.

This will connect you to the VM’s desktop environment. Provide “ubuntu” as the username and the password set in the above reset password step to authenticate. Click OK.

Now you are connected to out-of-the-box NocoDB: An open-source, license-free alternative to Airtable VM’s desktop environment via a Linux machine.

Inside the GUI, open a terminal and navigate to the setup directory using:

cd /home/ubuntu/setup

Run the NocoDB installation script:

sudo ./nocodb-peronce.sh

Once installation is finished, you will see the “NocoDB is now available at http://public\_ip\_of\_vm” message.

To connect to NocoDB UI, copy the Public IP of the VM from the VM’s overview page and paste it in the browser in the format http://public_ip/. Make sure to use HTTP and not HTTPS.

Provide any email ID and password to sign up. This will create the first user with Super Admin access.

You can also restrict the signup to only using the invite URL. To do so, go to Teams and Settings option from the left pane of the home page, select Settings under User Management. Tick the checkbox to enable signup only using the invite link.

For more information on how to use NocoDB, please visit NocoDB Official Documentation

Conclusion

Deploying NocoDB on AWS using the TechLatest Marketplace VM provides one of the fastest and easiest ways to build a fully self-hosted no-code database platform without dealing with complex infrastructure setup.

With support for collaborative spreadsheets, REST APIs, automation workflows, multiple database engines, role-based access control, and visual project management views, NocoDB offers a powerful open-source alternative to proprietary SaaS platforms like Airtable.

Using this AWS deployment method, users can quickly launch a production-ready environment with:

Full infrastructure ownership
No expensive licensing costs
Easy remote desktop access
Flexible cloud deployment
Support for existing SQL databases
Rapid no-code application development

Whether you are a developer, startup founder, DevOps engineer, or enterprise team, NocoDB provides a scalable and customizable platform for managing data and building internal tools efficiently.

As organizations continue moving toward open-source and self-hosted solutions, NocoDB stands out as one of the strongest Airtable alternatives available today.