Airtable stands as a cornerstone in project management and cloud collaboration. However, its steep pricing propels users to seek more economical options. Hence, we’ve meticulously curated a roster of the finest alternatives that not only offer affordability but also include cloud storage sans additional fees, boast user-friendly interfaces, and uphold relational database support. Our selection prioritizes platforms that excel in velocity, adaptability, automation, plugin integration, and beyond. Without further ado, let’s delve into our compilation of top Airtable alternatives, featuring a blend of self-hosted solutions and open-source software.
Top Alternatives to Airtable (2022)
Discover the top 10 alternatives to Airtable, spanning cloud solutions, self-hosted platforms, and open-source frameworks.
Understanding Airtable
Airtable merges database functionalities with spreadsheets to create a detailed cloud collaboration service. It enables tracking task progress, managing workflows, assessing team workload, and automating tasks through third-party plugins.
Various views facilitate project comprehension within your company’s roadmap. Airtable enables streamlined collaboration, allowing multiple individuals to work together in a single workspace, while effectively monitoring progress. Noteworthy Airtable features include low-code database management, third-party plugin support, diverse views, cross-table functionality, intuitive UI, rapid data retrieval, and task prioritization.
Reasons to Seek Airtable Alternatives
Although Airtable offers excellent support for large teams, its pricing deters many users, particularly smaller organizations and startups. Currently, Airtable charges $10 per month per user on an annual plan, amounting to $200 per month for a team of 20, which is unsustainable for small businesses. Furthermore, additional charges apply for exceeding the 5GB storage limit.
In addition, essential features like the Gantt chart and Timeline views require an upgrade and are inaccessible to Plus customers. To access these advanced features, users must subscribe to the $20 per month plan, which is a common offering on other platforms.
Considering your needs, explore Airtable alternatives that prioritize affordability, enhanced features even on basic plans, and unrestricted third-party integration.
Explore Top Alternatives to Airtable (with Pros and Cons)
1. Notion
For a comprehensive cloud collaboration platform akin to Airtable, consider Notion. It transcends mere spreadsheet management, providing a unified workspace for teams of any size. Notion enables team member integration, document sharing, task assignment, wiki creation, campaign initiation, and seamless third-party tool integration. Diverse templates are available, facilitating project organization by owner, status, calendar, and more.
Notion supports drag and drop functionality akin to Airtable, facilitating seamless task management and project progression. Its user interface mirrors Airtable’s, integrating numerous cohesive features. Notably, Notion allows customization of pre-made templates without requiring coding expertise. Moreover, it provides APIs for task automation, enabling integration with social media platforms, Slack, Hootsuite, and others. Overall, Notion offers more value than Airtable at half the price, making it a compelling option worth exploring.
| Pros | Cons |
| Single workspace | Overwhelming for new users |
| Supports automation | |
| Multiple views, including Kanban | |
| Drag and drop support |
Pricing: Free for Individuals; Pro plan starts at $4 per month
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2. Asana
Asana is a strong alternative to Airtable, particularly for larger teams needing to maintain context across roadmap, projects, and campaigns. It offers various views like List, Board, Timeline, Calendar, Progress, and Workload. In comparison, Airtable provides Grid, Kanban, Calendar, and Gallery.
Advanced search, progress reporting, and portfolio management are supported in Asana, surpassing Airtable. Notably, Asana offers unlimited storage without additional charges, along with access to extensive activity history. Furthermore, Asana seamlessly integrates with third-party tools like Slack, Google, and Microsoft Office. In summary, Asana’s user-friendly interface facilitates efficient workflow planning and organization, resulting in enhanced productivity.
| Pros | Cons |
| Multiple views | Improved UX |
| No extra charger for data storage | |
| Third-party integration available |
Pricing: Free for Individuals; Premium plan starts at $10.99 per month
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3. Zenkit
Zenkit, akin to Airtable, offers a robust project management suite distinguished by a powerful framework facilitating workflow insight. Beyond mere spreadsheets and databases, Zenkit enables task customization through diverse templates, reminders, and various data views, including Calendar, Kanban, List, Mindmap, and Wiki. Additionally, it supports the Gantt chart, a feature absent in Airtable.
Zenkit excels in task management, offering bulk actions—a significant advantage for larger teams. Additionally, it provides global search, workload monitoring, and a suite of applications including a To-Do app, Hypernotes, and a chat app. In summary, Zenkit emerges as an outstanding alternative to Airtable, catering comprehensively to project management needs. Consider exploring its mindmap view for enhanced conceptualization.
| Pros | Cons |
| All-in-one platform for project management | File management could be improved |
| Database, collaboration, Hypernotes | |
| Bulk actions |
Pricing: Free for Individuals; Plus plan starts at €9 per month
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4. ClickUp
ClickUp is another alternative to Airtable for no-code project management. It provides a single workspace for building projects, tracking progress, and collaborating with team members. It includes resource management, real-time reporting, goals reminders, and more for a productivity-driven suite, akin to Airtable. You can manage spreadsheets in multiple views, with drag and drop, timeline management, workload view, etc.
ClickUp features a Goals tool for project or roadmap tracking. It also supports relational databases, enabling seamless data merging and syncing between databases. Additionally, you can establish conditional automation workflows with over 100 third-party tools. Innovative features like customizable board views, Docs and notepad, custom roles, API support, Team chat, and workload views are also available. Overall, ClickUp presents a compelling alternative to Airtable worth immediate consideration.
| Pros | Cons |
| Real-time reporting, goals reminder | Some integrations are slow to respond |
| API support, relational database | |
| Customizable data view |
Pricing: Free for Individuals; Pro plan starts at $5 per month per member
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5. Coda
Coda is a popular platform that consolidates work into a single, streamlined document. Its key feature is no-code implementation, enabling easy integration across projects, documents, and spreadsheets. The table feature seamlessly converts docs into databases with a single click. The Lookup feature facilitates visual data connections across multiple sources. Additionally, Coda provides a diverse selection of templates for campaigns, roadmaps, and project tracking.
Comparing Pricing: Coda significantly undercuts Airtable. For instance, with a 10-user team, expenses on Airtable reach approximately $150, while Coda achieves comparable functionality at just $100. Coda emerges as a compelling and economical alternative, offering support for third-party tools, cross-table functionality, forms, and revision history.
| Pros | Cons |
| Affordable | UI Enhancements Needed |
| Database Support | |
| Cross-Table Functionality |
Pricing: Free for Individuals; Pro plan starts at $10 per month per Doc Maker
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6. Trello
For small teams, Trello outshines Airtable. It’s a robust collaboration platform facilitating easy project tracking and task completion. Trello’s simplicity in interface and seamless onboarding stand out. While lacking some features of Airtable, Trello nails the essentials: task scheduling, team calendar sharing, and task prioritization.
Both Trello and Airtable offer Kanban-style views, yet Trello excels. Its task card interface is exceptional, supporting checklists, labeling, and threads. In summary, Trello emerges as a user-friendly project management solution, especially suited for small businesses.
| Pros | Cons |
| Ideal for small teams | Moderate feature set |
| Excellent Kanban view | |
| User-friendly |
Pricing: Free for Individuals; Pro plan from $5 per month
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7. SeaTable
For a self-hosted alternative to Airtable, consider SeaTable. Its on-premise solution is popular for its robust framework, allowing you to store and control access to your data on either Linux or Windows servers. The free version includes 2000 rows and 1GB of storage.
Concerning automation, SeaTable enables script creation for workflows. You can utilize over 100 plugins from its repository, expediting tasks. Additionally, it facilitates recurring processes. SeaTable’s deployment is robust, allowing creation of over 50,000 rows, surpassing Airtable’s capacity. In summary, SeaTable serves as an excellent self-hosted alternative to Airtable.
| Pros | Cons |
| Self-hosted and affordable | Some APIs lack essential features |
| Efficient | |
| Supports more rows than Airtable |
Pricing: Free for Individuals; Plus plan starts at €7 per month per user
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8. Baserow
If you seek the optimal open-source alternative to Airtable, Baserow stands out. It’s more cost-effective and can be self-hosted without extra charges, offering flexibility to switch servers. You can develop custom plugins, templates, extend rows limitlessly, and utilize its hosted SaaS version.
Regarding UI, Baserow resembles Airtable, making migration seamless for those considering a switch. What sets Baserow apart is its remarkable speed and flexibility, stemming from self-hosted deployment. In essence, for users seeking an open-source alternative to Airtable, Baserow stands out.
| Pros | Cons |
| Open-source and self-hosted | Requires self-installation |
| Great speed and flexibility | |
| Affordable |
Pricing: Free for Self-hosted users, Paid plan starts at $5 per month per user
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9. NocoDB
For another open-source alternative to Airtable, consider NocoDB. Self-host your database server and connect existing databases like MySQL, PostgresSQL, etc. NocoDB also converts databases into smart spreadsheets effortlessly. Popular among the open-source community for its robust framework, APIs, and third-party integration support, it facilitates team collaboration, task assignment, progress tracking, reminders, and more.
Like Airtable, NocoDB offers various views such as Gallery, Calendar, and Kanban. Notably, NocoDB is completely free to host. This stands as a significant reason to prefer NocoDB over Airtable. So, why wait? If you can host your server, deploy NocoDB for streamlined workspace organization.
| Pros | Cons |
| Free and Open-source | Requires self-installation |
| Convert your SQL database into a smart spreadsheet | |
| Manage and track tasks, with third-party integration |
10. Microsoft Lists
If you seek an Airtable alternative from Microsoft, consider Microsoft Lists. Recently announced as part of Microsoft 365, it provides comparable features. You can generate spreadsheet-like lists, organize events, track issues, manage inventory, and more from a unified workspace. Choose from numerous ready-made templates and easily share tasks with team members.
If you’re already a Microsoft Office user, it gets better. Microsoft Teams integrates directly with Lists, so real-time conversations are just a click away. Besides, you can view your lists in Grid, Gallery, or Calendar view, or create your custom view. Automation support is available via Microsoft’s Power Automate app. Overall, Microsoft Lists is a strong alternative to Airtable for existing Microsoft users.
| Pros | Cons |
| Great for Microsoft users | Not for everyone |
| Supports Lists, multiple views, automation | |
| Includes Office apps |
Pricing: Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan starts at $5 per month per user
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Pick the Best Alternative to Airtable from Our List
These are the 10 best alternatives to Airtable. For project management, they offer reliability, fast connectivity, multiple views, and features like wikis, notes, and charts. We’ve also included self-hosted and open-source options. If you’re interested in Zapier alternatives, check our linked article. Questions? Let us know in the comments.
Pritam Chopra is a seasoned IT professional and a passionate blogger hailing from the dynamic realm of technology. With an insatiable curiosity for all things tech-related, Pritam has dedicated himself to exploring and unraveling the intricacies of the digital world.
