Airtable and Baserow are popular no-code databases, but when it comes to choosing between them, Airtable’s pricing and limitations are an important consideration. The platform offers various features and pricing tiers, but is it really the best value for your business?
In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at Airtable’s pricing structure, discuss its hidden costs, and explore its limitations. We’ll also demonstrate why Baserow’s advanced features and open-source core make it a more cost-effective solution for businesses dealing with large volumes of data and a growing number of users.
Airtable is a cloud-based data management tool that combines the simplicity of a spreadsheet with the functionality of a database. It allows users to create custom databases to organise, store, and manage data in a flexible and collaborative way. While it has many uses, it’s most suited for businesses that are already familiar with Excel or Google Sheets, but require more features for managing their projects.
Its main benefits include:
In terms of pricing, Airtable offers a tiered pricing model, with four different plans to cater to businesses of varying sizes and needs. It’s important to note that all of its plans impose limits on the number of records and the amount of attachment space per base, as well as limitations on automation per base. So, if you’re dealing with large amounts of data, you might find that Airtable isn’t enough for you.
Plan | Features | Price |
---|---|---|
Free plan | 1,200 records per base 2GB attachment space per base 2-weeks revision history |
Free |
Plus plan | 5,000 records per base 5GB attachment space per base 6-month revision history |
$10 per user per month |
Pro plan | 50,000 records per base 20GB attachment space per base 1-year revision history |
$20 per user per month |
Enterprise plan | 250,000 records per base 1,000 GB of attachments Add on professional services |
Pricing on request (estimated to start at $35 up to $75 per user per month |
Airtable plans are charged per seat. If you are on Airtable’s Free plan, you can add viewers and commenters to your workspace for free. If you are on a paid Airtable plan, you will be charged for all collaborators who have edit or comment permissions to at least one base in the workspace. This might be affordable for small teams, however, the costs can quickly add up for larger organisations with multiple users.
While Airtable has many useful features, its limitations and hidden costs can make it less suitable for larger teams with big data volumes and lots of users. If you’re looking for an alternative that offers more flexibility, scalability, and better value for money, you might want to consider Baserow.
Although it may seem initially straightforward, Airtable’s pricing structure may end up being more than you bargained for. For example, the Pro plan allows for 50,000 records per base, but as your business grows, you’ll need to upgrade to Enterprise which can be much more expensive. On Enterprise, the limit is 250,000 records per table, however, some users say they experience slowdowns at only 50,000 records per table.
In addition, as a closed-source platform, Airtable doesn’t allow users to modify or extend its core functionality to meet specific business requirements. This lack of customisation can result in the need for third-party integrations. Although Airtable offers a number of native integrations, many businesses find that they need to rely on external tools like Zapier to connect with other applications, which can increase the overall cost and complexity.
What’s more, being locked into Airtable’s ecosystem means that your business relies on a single provider for updates, improvements, and support. And since Airtable is a cloud-based platform, your data is stored on their servers, which might not be suitable for businesses with sensitive data or strict security requirements.
Baserow’s hosted SaaS offering comes as a free plan, a Premium plan ($5 per user/month), and an Advanced plan ($20 per user/month). All hosted plans have unlimited databases, with a 3,000, 10,000, and 250,000 row limit respectively. Baserow’s hosted plans offer twice the value for money than Airtable’s plans, with twice the storage and 5x the row capacity.
Unlike Airtable, Baserow also offers open source, self-hosted plans that you can host on-premise or in the cloud. All of Baserow’s self-hosted plans offer unlimited databases, unlimited rows, and unlimited storage. They also offer complete control over your data and hosting environment, which can be crucial for businesses with strict security or compliance requirements.
All plans come with an array of impressive features, such as advanced search and filtering, collaboration tools, a variety of views, and a wide range of templates to help you get started. The Enterprise plan also comes with additional features such as role-based access permissions, audit logs, Single Sign On, and dedicated support.
See Baserow’s pricing in detail or check out the overviews below:
Plan | Features | Price |
---|---|---|
Free | Unlimited databases 3,000 rows 2GB per workspace Collaborators, Grid, Form and Gallery views |
Free |
Premium | Unlimited databases 10,000 rows 5GB per workspace Advanced collaboration, additional Kanban, Survey and Calendar views |
$5 per user/month |
Advanced | Unlimited databases 250,000 rows 20GB per workspace All Premium features, plus role-based permissions and priority support |
$20 per user/month |
Plan | Features | Price |
---|---|---|
Free | Unlimited databases Unlimited rows Unlimited storage Collaborators, Grid, Form and Gallery views |
Always free |
Premium | Unlimited databases Unlimited rows Unlimited storage Advanced collaboration, additional Kanban, Survey and Calendar views |
$5 per user/month |
Enterprise | Unlimited databases Unlimited rows Unlimited storage All Premium features, plus role-based permissions, instance-wide admin panel, audit log, and priority support |
On request, ranging from 15 USD to 35 USD/user/month based on the number of users. |
Baserow’s open-source version provides better value for money than Airtable’s pricing in many ways:
Fed up with Airtable’s high prices and closed-source platform? You’re not alone. Many Airtable users are switching to Baserow for our advanced features, capabilities, and its open source core.
Baserow allows you to retain full control over your data and meet data compliance requirements. You can access and modify the source code, tailor the platform to meet your specific needs and integrate it with other tools. Plus, we have an active community of developers and users who contribute to the platform’s development and provide support.
With Baserow, there are no hidden costs or nasty surprises. Our no-code platform is built for scale, offering speed and stability, even when handling complex or large amounts of data.
While other platforms have their merits, businesses seeking more control, flexibility, and scalability should consider Baserow as a cost-effective, open source alternative.
Today we are releasing Baserow 1.17 with huge performance improvements for high volumes of data, calendar view, ARM images & more…!