Most people do not go looking for an Airtable alternative because Airtable is bad. It is a genuinely good product, and for building a relational app without writing code it is still close to the best thing available.
They go looking because of the invoice, or because of a wall they hit at 50,000 records. It is worth being precise about both before comparing anything, since the shape of the pricing is what determines whether an alternative actually helps you.
What does Airtable actually cost?
Airtable bills per collaborator with edit rights, and caps records per base:
- Free — 1,000 records per base, up to 5 editors.
- Team — 50,000 records per base, $20 per collaborator per month billed annually, or $24 billed monthly.
- Business — 125,000 records per base, $45 per collaborator per month billed annually, or $54 billed monthly.
Two consequences follow, and they are the reason this page exists. First, cost scales with headcount, not with usage: eight people who each open Airtable twice a month cost the same as eight people who live in it. Second, the record cap is per base and cumulative across the tables inside it — a base with one 50,000-row table and a base with two 25,000-row tables are both at the Team ceiling. Hit it and the base stops accepting new records until you archive, split, or upgrade. Your data is not deleted.
For an eight-person team on Team, that is $1,920 a year for 50,000 records per base. Some teams look at that and think it is fine. Others start reading pages like this one.
1. Tablitsa — if the data started as a spreadsheet
Disclosure: this is our product, so treat the enthusiasm accordingly. Here is the honest shape of it.
Tablitsa is a spreadsheet interface with a database behind it. You import a CSV or XLSX file, the rows go into a database, and you get a grid that looks and behaves like a spreadsheet — except that columns have real types, only the visible rows are loaded, and you can ask questions of the data in plain English rather than writing a formula.
Pricing is flat: €29/month Pro, €99/month Team, with a free tier and a 14-day trial on the paid plans. Collaborators are included in the plan rather than billed per head — 3 on Pro, 10 on Team. Rows are capped per sheet: 1,000 on Free, 100,000 on Pro, 1,000,000 on Team.
Choose it if your data arrives as spreadsheets and mostly stays tabular, you want a predictable bill, and the thing you do most is ask questions of a large table. Do not choose it if you need linked records across tables, Kanban and calendar views, or a large automation ecosystem — Airtable does those and Tablitsa does not. The Free plan is also solo-only; collaboration starts on Pro, whereas Airtable’s free tier gives you five editors. There is a longer, feature-by-feature comparison here.
2. Baserow — open source, self-hostable
The closest open-source analogue to Airtable’s interface. Self-host it and there is no per-seat cost and no record cap beyond what your Postgres instance will hold; there is also a hosted plan if you would rather not.
Choose it if you have somewhere to run it and someone who will notice when it stops. The trade-off is the one every self-hosted tool has: the licence is free and the operations are not. You now own backups, upgrades, and the 2 a.m. disk-full page.
3. NocoDB — a spreadsheet UI over your existing database
NocoDB’s premise is different from everything else here: point it at a database you already have — Postgres, MySQL — and it gives you a grid interface over the real tables. The database stays the source of truth.
Choose it if you have a production database and want non-engineers to work with rows in it without a custom admin panel. Do not if you were hoping not to think about a database at all.
4. Notion — if the table is part of a document
Notion databases are good at being embedded in the context that explains them: the project brief with the task table inside it. They are weak at scale, and weak at anything resembling analysis.
Choose it if the data is small and the writing around it is the point. Not for tens of thousands of rows.
5. SmartSuite — Airtable with more process
Aimed squarely at the same buyer, with heavier workflow, permissions, and project-management features. Still per-seat.
Choose it if you left Airtable wanting more structure and process, not less. If you left because of per-seat pricing, this does not solve your problem.
6. Rows — spreadsheet with integrations built in
A spreadsheet where fetching from an API or a SaaS tool is a first-class formula rather than a script. Best when the value is in pulling live data together.
Choose it if your table is a dashboard assembled from other systems. Not if it is a large static dataset you need to query.
7. Google Sheets — the one you already have
Worth naming honestly, because a large number of Airtable migrations are really people who never needed Airtable. Sheets is free, universal, and everyone can use it.
Its ceiling is 10 million cells per spreadsheet, shared across all tabs, blank cells included — at 26 columns, roughly 384,000 rows. It will feel slow well before that, for reasons that have more to do with formulas than with size. And it has no schema: any cell can hold anything, forever.
How should you choose?
Ignore feature lists. Answer three questions.
- Why are you actually leaving? If it is per-seat cost, only a flat-priced or self-hosted tool fixes it — moving to another per-seat product moves the invoice, not the problem. If it is the record cap, ask what row limit the alternative has and whether it is per base, per sheet, or per workspace. They are not comparable numbers.
- Is your data relational, or is it a big table? Genuinely linked records across several tables is Airtable’s home ground, and most alternatives are worse at it. If your “database” is one large flat table you filter and total — which is far more common than people admit — a spreadsheet-first tool will suit you better.
- Who runs it? Self-hosting removes the licence cost and adds an operational one. That is a good trade with an ops team and a bad one without.
If the answers are per-seat cost, one big table, and nobody, please, that is the case Tablitsa was built for. Import a spreadsheet and see whether it fits — the Free plan needs no card, and Pro and Team have a 14-day trial.