If I want a database set up in minutes just to focus on the business side and nothing else, I simply fire up a new Django project (I suspect any other framework with an ORM and auto-generated CRUD UIs would be equally competent for that).
I have nothing against Google Sheets, I really haven't put much thought into it in this context, but I would need some convincing that it's a better and easier way to kick things off.
That Django project needs a host to run on, even if it's just your local machine.
If you want others to interact with it, you need to expose it to the internet through some means and think through the security implications of doing so.
The Google Sheets approach doesn't need you to manage a process or web server. It is instantly shareable while letting Google worry about security, performance, availability, etc.
The specifics of the "what's better?" ratio can shift depending on comfort level / experience with either product, or what infrastructure you may already have available to deploy to. But building on top of GApps does mean you get a lot of useful aspects "free".
Thanks, that's a valid point. I have never thought of publishing a PoC web app as more than pushing some files on a server and editing a config file, but now I see how not everyone can be familiar with that.
You can just query a database and work with the results directly . In a dynamic language like python there is little advantage to loading rows into classes. That Django query language is so painful and opaque.
Practically, Django's admin *becomes* the SQLite UI editor you are referring to, I suspect. Starting with it, the amount of UI code, backend code or SQL code to be written becomes a matter of how far you want to stretch the PoC in either direction (more effort on the views for a prettier/more unique front-end, more controller code for more business logic/cases covered, more database work to assess how the data model will scale).
I have nothing against Google Sheets, I really haven't put much thought into it in this context, but I would need some convincing that it's a better and easier way to kick things off.