TechLatest

Posted on Jun 5 • Originally published at towardsdev.com on May 19

Deploy NocoDB on Azure in Minutes Using TechLatest VM

#opensource #azure #nocodb #deployment

Organizations today need flexible, scalable, and collaborative platforms to manage data, automate workflows, and build internal tools quickly. While platforms like Airtable offer an easy-to-use no-code experience, many businesses eventually face challenges such as expensive subscription costs, limited infrastructure control, and vendor lock-in.

That’s where NocoDB provides a compelling alternative.

NocoDB is a powerful open-source, self-hostable Airtable alternative that transforms traditional SQL databases into smart collaborative spreadsheets. It enables teams to visually manage data, create APIs automatically, build internal applications, and automate workflows — all while keeping 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 Microsoft Azure Marketplace. You’ll learn how to create and configure the VM, assign a static public IP, configure networking and security settings, connect through SSH and RDP, and access the NocoDB web interface for the first time.

By the end of this tutorial, you will have a fully functional NocoDB environment running on Microsoft Azure, ready for database management, no-code development, automation workflows, and collaborative business applications.

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

Deployment Options: AWS, GCP, & Azure

Step-by-Step Guide

Open NocoDB: An Opensource License free alternative to Airtable VM listing on Azure Marketplace.

Click on Get It Now

It will take you to the Product details page. Click on Create.

Select a Resource group for your virtual machine
Select a Region where you want to launch the VM(such as East US)

Note: If you see “This image is not compatible with selected security type. To keep trusted launch virtual machines, select a compatible image. Otherwise, change your security type back to Standard” error message below the Image name, as shown in the screenshot below, then please change the Security type to Standard.

Optionally change the number of cores and amount of memory.

Select the Authentication type as Password and enter Username as ubuntu and the Password of your choice.

Optionally change the OS disk size and its type.

Optionally change the network and subnetwork names. Be sure that whichever network you specify has ports 22 (for SSH), 3389 (for RDP), and 80 (for HTTP) exposed.
The VM needs a static IP address to work correctly. To get the Static IP, on the Networking page, click on Create New under the Public IP dropdown.

On the Create Public IP address page, select the Static radio button and click Ok at the bottom of this page.

The VM comes with the preconfigured NSG rules. You can check them by clicking on the " Create New option available under the security group option.

Optionally, go to the Management, Advanced, and Tags tabs for any advanced settings you want for the VM.
Click on Review + create and then click on Create when you are done. The virtual machine will begin deploying.

A summary page displays when the virtual machine is successfully created. Click on the " Go to resource link to go to the resource page. It will open an overview page of the virtual machine.

If you want to update your password, then open up the left navigation pane, select Run command, select RunShellScript, and enter the following command to change the password of the VM.

sudo echo ubuntu:yourpassword | chpasswd

Now that the password for the Ubuntu user is set, you can SSH to the VM. To do so, first note the public IP address of the VM from the VM details page, as highlighted below.

Open Putty, paste the IP address, and click on Open.

You can also connect to the VM’s desktop environment from any local Windows machine using RDP protocol or a local Linux machine using Remmina.
To connect using RDP via Windows Machine, first note the public IP address of the VM from the VM details page, as highlighted below.

Then, 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 (e.g., “ubuntu”) and the password set in the above 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.

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 Microsoft Azure using the TechLatest Marketplace VM provides a fast and production-ready way to launch a fully self-hosted no-code database platform without dealing with complex infrastructure setup.

With support for collaborative spreadsheet interfaces, REST API generation, SQL database integrations, automation workflows, role-based access control, and multiple project management views, NocoDB offers a powerful open-source alternative to proprietary SaaS platforms like Airtable.

Using this Azure deployment approach, users can quickly provision a scalable cloud environment with:

Full infrastructure ownership
No expensive licensing costs
Easy RDP and SSH access
Flexible Azure scalability
Rapid internal tool development
Support for existing SQL databases

Whether you are a developer building API-driven applications, a startup creating internal tools, or an enterprise looking for a self-hosted Airtable alternative, NocoDB provides a modern, flexible, and highly customizable solution for cloud-native workflows.

As organizations continue shifting toward open-source and self-hosted infrastructure, NocoDB stands out as one of the best no-code database platforms available for Azure cloud deployments today.