The ultimate Airtable guide: Features, pricing, reviews, and alternatives
If you look up "work management tools" online, you'll find hundreds of suggestions from sponsored ads, company sites, software review sites, and blog posts. Among these, Airtable will undoubtedly appear as one of the most prominent tools for work management.
If you're wondering if Airtable is the right solution for you, we've got you covered. We've created an exhaustive guide addressing Airtable's features, limitations, integrations, pricing, support, and alternatives. Read on to see if Airtable can meet your needs.
Get StartedWhat is Airtable?
Airtable is a work management tool used to manage, track, and visualize data. It's also a low-code/no-code platform where users can automate workflows to save time on repetitive tasks. It comes with prebuilt templates for different use cases.
Like most modern work management tools, Airtable allows users to create and customize tables to store large amounts of data. Each table has records (rows) and fields (columns), with fields capable of holding different types of data, such as text, numbers, attachments, checkboxes, dropdown lists, and more.
Airtable features
Airtable offers powerful relational database capabilities, letting you establish relationships between multiple tables. Users can tailor custom solutions for various use cases, from sales and marketing to inventory management and recruiting.
Airtable, like most work management tools, offers various formats to view data. Some of these views include grid, calendar, gallery, and form views, as well as Kanban boards. Each view can also be customized with filters, enabling users to interact with their data in meaningful ways.
Multiple users can work simultaneously on the same database. This ensures that everyone has access to the latest developments in a workspace.
Importantly, Airtable lets you automate workflows. Users can create a single trigger or build a multi-sequence workflow through trigger-and-action logic. They can also use JavaScript to set custom automation.
Airtable integrations
Airtable integrates with popular tools like Google Drive, Salesforce, Asana, Jira, and Zendesk. You can see the full list on Airtable's integration page.
Despite these features and integrations, Airtable also comes with baggage.
Airtable limitations
Not good for small businesses
Though Airtable's features and integration capabilities are tempting, it falls short for small and medium-sized businesses due to its steep pricing and complicated setup. Smaller teams often find the pricing and extensive options too much to handle, leading to inefficiencies and financial strain.
Here's a verified review from an Airtable customer on G2 that captures this concern accurately:
Our startup was initially attracted to Airtable due to its comprehensive features. However, when our financial circumstances changed and we needed to adjust our plan, we found Airtable's support to be lacking. While they did respond to our communications, there was a distinct lack of flexibility or understanding regarding our situation. Despite numerous attempts to negotiate and propose alternative solutions, the responses we received were rigid and dismissive of our particular circumstances. This experience has shown us that while Airtable may be a practical tool for stable businesses, it may not be the best fit for startups that need agility and understanding from their service providers. Based on our experience, we recommend startups to carefully consider the terms of their contract and the level of customer support before choosing Airtable.
- Verified Airtable User, G2
Unintuitive
Airtable isn't for users who are new to work management. Setting up the bases initially is difficult for people used to working with spreadsheets but who want to move on to a comprehensive work management tool.
New users are often left on their own to figure out how the tool works, which leads to unnecessary confusion:
As a new platform user, I find the variety of options for tables, views, and fields a bit overwhelming. It leaves me feeling like, 'I don't know what I don't know.
- Verified Airtable User, G2
Limited customizations
With Airtable, something as simple as showing or hiding elements based on conditional filtering isn't possible if you're on the free or team plans.
Administrator controls like viewing information about shared links, workspaces, bases, and user activity are only possible if you're on the enterprise plan—which strongly implies that Airtable has shifted its focus towards enterprises.
Airtable alternatives
Zoho Tables
Monday.com
Smartsheet
Trello
ClickUp
Zoho Tables
Zoho Tables is a no-code work management tool that enables users to organize their data, collaborate contextually, and streamline workflows. It combines the simplicity of a spreadsheet with the power of a database, making it an ideal tool for small and mid-sized businesses.
If you're a spreadsheet user who's upgrading your work management flow or a user of a sophisticated software solution optimizing your software spending, Zoho Tables is a good solution.
The greatest advantage of Zoho Tables over Airtable is its intuitiveness. It has a rich user interface that lets people, even with zero coding experience, tailor workflows and set up automation with a couple of clicks.
Here's what the CEO of Proactivo, Eduardo Beracasa, had to say about Zoho Tables:
The most adaptable and user-friendly solution for managing any type of job requirement is, without a doubt, Zoho Tables. It blends lovely simplicity with strong functionality that provides its users with countless opportunities.
Monday.com
Unlike Airtable, monday.com doesn't concentrate on database management, nor does it have a spreadsheet interface with rows and columns. Instead, it has boards to assign tasks, create workflows, collaborate with teammates, populate data fields, and create views.
Both tools offer similar views, like Gantt, gallery, form, and kanban. But monday.com, being a productivity tool, takes it up a notch by offering more views to nurture task management. The Workload view shows who's over or under capacity, so you can assign tasks accordingly. The Roadmap Tracker view communicates quarterly and yearly plans to stakeholders. The Burndown view helps track pending work versus the time left in a sprint.
Unlike all the tools mentioned on this list, monday.com offers a blank view where users can add their own widgets to create a custom view. If tracking work and boosting your team's productivity is your goal, monday.com is a good fit.
Here's a verified review from a monday.com user on G2:
It is ideal for project management and team collaboration, ranging from the most basic tasks to agile sprints and software development. Nonetheless, for basic operations, it may be less appropriate due to its pricing model, as firms with limited resources may find greater value in less expensive solutions that provide key functionalities at a reduced cost.
Smartsheet
Smartsheet is an enterprise work management tool that's used to manage complex, structured projects requiring detailed reporting and task dependencies. It has an Excel-like look and feel and even follows the same terminologies like row, column, cell, sheet, and count. This makes it easy for spreadsheet users to switch to Smartsheet.
While Airtable is more data-oriented, Smartsheet is more project-oriented. It has helpful features like Dynamic View to implement steps that every team member needs to follow to complete their tasks. Another helpful feature is Resource Management, which helps to manage teams, see their workload, track time, and assign tasks accordingly. Team managers also get access to reports to identify bottlenecks and recurring issues in the project.
If project management with detailed analytics is your use case, Smartsheet should fit your needs.
Here's what a Smartsheet user had to say on G2:
I love the report setup and form feature. The workspaces are easy to setup and the automation helps build a true platform. The dashboards make a great display to show analytics to non-users. It's very easy to integrate to all users, whether they are good with computers or not.
Trello
Trello takes a slightly different route than the other tools we've covered so far. It's a work management tool that is famous for its kanban-style project tracking. Users create boards to represent projects, with lists (columns) representing stages or categories, and cards (tasks) that move between lists. It's great for users who want a straightforward and visual view to track workflows and tasks.
While Airtable also provides kanban views, it lacks features like Card Aging, which visually ages cards to highlight stale or inactive tasks. Another feature it's lacking is Card Voting, which allows team members to vote on cards, which can be useful for prioritizing tasks or making decisions.
Here's a review from a Trello user on G2:
Trello is straightforward to use, intuitive, and full of excellent features. It makes project management in Kanban style easy to follow. There are demo boards that you can view to give you an idea of all the possibilities Trello can help you with. Lots of integrations and power-ups to link with other apps makes it powerful.
ClickUp
ClickUp lets teams organize tasks, plan activities, build workflows, and set goals from the big picture to the microscopic details. While Airtable focuses on database management, ClickUp heavily focuses on team collaboration and productivity. Users can set deadlines, track time, assign sub-tasks, set task dependencies, and add checklists to their projects.
In addition to all the views that Airtable offers, ClickUp also offers views like Mind Map to visualize data, Workload to visualize the amount of work each team member is assigned, Chat to start threaded conversations, and Dashboard to transform the project into lists, cards, charts, and graphs. Team members can also share documents, wikis, and knowledge bases directly to the workspace and work together in real time.
Here's a verified review from a ClickUp user on G2:
ClickUp is a Swiss Army knife for task management and tracking progress across the whole team. Thoughtful features like task grouping, sub-tasks, and authority-assignment tables with customization options make it easy to tailor as requirements. Great platform to pin and track everyday tasks with minimum technical knowledge required.
Airtable pricing
Now that we've looked at some of Airtable's competitors, let's talk about its pricing. Apart from the free version, Airtable offers three plans. The team plan is priced at
$24
per month per user
$54
per month per user
To purchase the enterprise plan, users have to get in touch with the Airtable sales team directly to get a quote. AI features can also only be purchased separately as add-ons.
For a tool that's not as sophisticated as a full-fledged no-code/low-code app-building platform, Airtable is expensive.
On the other hand, an alternative like Zoho Tables offers advanced features and automation but is priced at just
$4
per month per user
keeping small and medium businesses in mind.
Airtable support
A large portion of Airtable's customers are enterprises, so it's natural that they get first priority when it comes to customer support. In fact, small and medium businesses that purchase the team plan aren't even eligible for email support.
Lack of follow-up from Support and the general 'we're drowning over here!' tone that comes across whenever we do get a response. It does not provide confidence that this is a platform that can scale with our business.
- Verified Airtable User, G2
Customers on the business and enterprise plans have also raised concerns about the quality of Airtable's customer support:
We are a paying customer on the pro tier, and today I had a response to a functionality query two weeks after raising it, to basically say, 'Sorry, your question is too complicated for us to answer it.’
- Verified Airtable User, G2
Is Airtable a good fit for you?
In 2023, Airtable's CEO, Howie Liu, announced that Airtable had completely transitioned to being an enterprise-focused company. This makes sense, as Airtable is well suited for enterprises who require complex functionalities.
But for small and mid-sized businesses, a competitor like Zoho Tables is the better option. It bridges the gap between a complicated work management tool, like Airtable, and basic tools, like spreadsheets.
Working with spreadsheets feels like being in a 2D world, and Zoho Tables grants access to a multi-dimensional world of structuring and manipulating data. At Cloud Lion, we use Zoho Tables to perform complex data migrations and build solutions with sophisticated architecture.
Opting for the right tool can significantly impact your business’s productivity and success. For those seeking simplicity and value, Zoho Tables might just be the better choice.