Airtable Reviews

Pros

Just the variaties of ways to show data - table, kanban, gallery, calendar, timeline, form! Its incredibly versatile and means you can craft it to many different types of people from CEO, to Marketing, to Finance.

Cons

The only downside I can see is that the per-seat amount can get high for multiple team members, I wish this could be lower or to only include core team members in that amount while having 'visitors' that have less access in the document.

Alternatives Considered

Jotform

Reasons for Choosing Airtable

Excel really feels like software from another century, undoubtedly it is powerful, but it is also exteremely limited in its capabilities.

Switched From

Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

Jorform was seen more from the forms functionality, but Airtable had more powerful options for table views.

Pros

When I require a bird's-eye view of all my data, Airtable is invaluable. I really appreciate being able to link and connect various pieces of information. When compared to other platforms, Airtable provides unparalleled data portability.

Cons

I wish the ios app was more stable and user-friendly. In my opinion, the iOS app has too many restrictions. For instance, it would be helpful if data summaries appeared next to each grouping, just way they do on the desktop. iOS does not support group totals at this time.

Pros

When I first started to use Airtable, I came away deeply frustrated with it's usability. It's sometimes slow, straightly obtuse to use and has many "pending features" that would be extremely helpful for some of the simplest of tasks.

However, there came a time when I had to organise a league table for a tournament over the internet, and all of sudden, Airtable clicked.

What Airtable is good at is creating a database of entries for a specific use, so for example, making an internet registration form where a user can enter data and "register" their interest in a particular thing is so quick and easy to do.

I created an application form which auto stored the data into a highly organised table that I could then use however I wanted (I created a league table from the registered users with ease and shared the results of the league as the scoring progressed) - all via the internet, I don't know of a way that I could have achieved this without AirTable, Google Docs would have been a possible solution, but Airtable allows you to add attachments easily (so images, etc) as well as allowing you to manipulate (And hide) data in any way you can think of using Rollups and Lookups - two of it's most powerful features.

Once you get used to it, Airtable becomes useful, and I can see myself using it again and again when I want to organise a very specific and distributed task on the internet.

Cons

Don't think this is Excel in a different disguise, it's not, it's not as adaptable and not as powerful as Excel. You couldn't use it to track a project or manage a holiday system or anything like that, but creating a full customer list for a newsletter? Yep, easy, that's the kind of thing it DOES do really well.

It could use a few more features on the free tier of the software (the paid tier unlocks "blocks" - which is a strange name for plugins, which allow you to view the data in different visual ways but ultimately it's not as well integrated as it should be and therefore has a limited use)

Another thing is that Airtables mobile interface is woeful compared to it's desktop version, and for some reason you can't access the desktop website via mobile. I have no idea what compelled them to make this decision but it's something they need to address in the future. The mobile layout is next to useless.

Pros

I admire Airtable's ease of displaying content for social media customers. Customers have simple access to read, annotate, and indicate approval of material. There is also the option to categorize content based on marketing effort.

Cons

The lag time when moving between tabs in Airtable is something I don't particularly enjoy using. In my opinion, the problem lies inside the software itself and not with the network itself.

Pros

Airtable's performance and ease of getting started makes it a must-have tool. I really like the approach to rich media (files, images, etc.). They can easily be used alongside any other text or number data. The biggest differentiator is building workflows around the data in your tables. The API and automations are extremely powerful tools. We use them sparingly for augmenting our CRM (hubspot) but there's a ton of future potential for our team. I have not made use of the extensions feature.

Cons

Airtable's always going to be compared to Excel or Google Sheets. This on its own is not a con, but it's not easy to ALWAYS use Airtable over those other tools. There's a certain familiarity with a basic spreadsheet that Airtable can never completely offer, especially when collaborating with people outside of our company.

Pros

I like how collaborative the program is. Very customizable and easy to onboard new clients and users with ease of use.

Cons

When templates use pro features that are then unavailable after some time.

Pros

Airtable is a breath of fresh air when it comes to project management tools. I love the Kaban board feature and being able to easily visualize my workflow and share it with my manager and other teammates.

Cons

I wish there was a chrome extension for those times when I need to add tasks but don't have time to open up the tool. I would also appreciate an outlook or gmail plugin so that I can send tasks directly to airtable. Overall, there aren't many flaws with the product but some minor improvements could be a game changer.

Alternatives Considered

monday.com

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

Price, compliance review process was easier

Pros

The best one for get a good management experience

Cons

Amazing moments for getting your hight experience for management work

Pros

What I like the most is its incredible flexibility, now I can organize my data in the way that suits me best, either in the form of a traditional spreadsheet or using its other views, such as the calendar or even the form to quickly capture data.

Cons

I think the initial learning curve can be a bit high although this platform offers a lot of tutorials and training resources, it may take some time to get familiar with all the features and get the most out of the platform.

Pros

Airtable is endlessly flexible. Being able to make custom fields, define different views, and sort/filter on anything means that Airtable can manage anything from project tasks to granular content management.

Cons

I don't really dislike anything about Airtable. If I had to choose something, I would say that there are a lot of features that go unused and that can be a bit confusing.

Pros

I like how easy it is to switch between a tabular view and a kanban view for the same data. We always needed an easy visual tool (kanban) for our workflow but also needed a tabular view for an overall look of our work. Airtable seamlessly combines these two along with other features.

Cons

The dashboarding feature is quite new and is still a bit limited. The row limitation is a little too low.

Alternatives Considered

Jira and Trello

Reasons for Choosing Airtable

We needed a forms functionality so we can take in requests from people outside our team.

Switched From

Trello

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

Easy to share and collaborate with Google SSO, has more features compared to Trello.

Pros

We use Airtable as almost anything. If you are familiar with Airtable, you know that it can be anything. Just to name a few:

Marketing task management
Document and resource listing
Forms for recruiting or surveys
Content planning
CRM
Documenting any sort of research
Visualising simple data
Expense tracking

Cons

Airtable's some of the premium features are not very clear. So sometimes you have to stuck in some free features without knowing that you are already over capacity. However, using this product with free option for about 2-3 years in 2 different company so far. It's great! I also use Airtable for personal stuff like school applications, job hunting, and document/resource listing.

Alternatives Considered

monday.com

Reasons for Choosing Airtable

Excel is useless for task or project management.

Switched From

Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

Airtable is great with free option.

Pros

First: It's a database that is actually aesthetically attractive. AND it's easier to use and manipulate than Excel. AND you can custom build what you need, rather than finagling a pre-built CRM for your specific needs. Also all of the different visual ways of looking at the data/records are key.

Cons

There are some features that are still lacking. Like the ability to read what's in a cell and do something with that information. It's also quite expensive, especially for a non-profit like us.

Alternatives Considered

Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT

Reasons for Choosing Airtable

So much easier to manipulate and search for constituents and records. The sortability, filterability, beautiful views, etc.

Switched From

Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

Raiser's Edge didn't really match our needs for very detailed and specific data collection. It also wouldn't have been as easy to onboard all of our staff, as queries and reports are a bit more difficult and less intuitive to run than simply sorting on Airtable or filtering.

Pros

Airtable is fantastic for project management, especially if you need to share your work with others. I recently used Airtable for a week-long event at my workplace with many moving parts - several events per day, many catering contracts, many chaffeurs and cars to keep track of, etc. I love that Airtable gives you the option to categorize entries and sort by category. Using Airtable helped me keep track of all my tasks involved in coordinating the events.

I also like how easily you can share it with others and work on it with others. The interface is clean and works well for me both on my desktop and tablet.

The last thing I like most about this software is the ability to have an attachment field. When coordinating travel for myself and others, I appreciate being able to attach our flight itineraries, travel approvals, and any other important documents directly to the table. It's a great way to keep it all in one place.

Cons

Airtable does have a bit of a learning curve that took me a while to navigate. I did not find their introductory templates or videos as helpful as I would have liked, so it took me longer than anticipated to get used to the software and really start using it on a daily basis.

Lastly, I really wish Airtable was FERPA compliant. I work in higher education and so I cannot manage ALL my projects and tasks in Airtable, just the ones that don't involve student data. This splitting of softwares depending on which project I'm working on is kind of a pain and interrupts my work flow.

Pros

I really appreciate how intuitive and easy-to-use Airtable is, It has a simple, user-friendly interface that makes it easy to quickly create and manage databases, collaborate with team members, and build powerful automations, It also offers a variety of integrations with popular cloud storage solutions and third-party apps, making it a great tool for teams looking for an efficient way to manage their data and workflows.

Cons

The one thing I like least about Airtable is that some of the more advanced features can be a bit confusing to use, particularly for users who are new to the platform, However, Airtable does offer great documentation and tutorials to help users get up and running quickly.

Alternatives Considered

Knack and Zoho Creator

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

We chose Airtable over the other products because it offered the best combination of features and price, It has a simple, intuitive interface that allows us to quickly create and manage databases, build powerful automations, collaborate with team members, and much more, It also has great integrations with popular cloud storage solutions and third-party apps, as well as a variety of tools for managing data, Also the pricing was very reasonable, making it an affordable solution for teams of all sizes.

Pros

Airtable combines really advanced features with and easy to use interface, allowing some members of the team to set up a base, and allow others to maintain/update it. This has allowed us to store complex data, but make it accessible in different views, depending on the business need.

Cons

Airtable could be improved with some better formula functions. For example, if you wanted to calculate formulas based on some type of filter, such as an aggregate function, it is very difficult or impossible to do. We usually have to extract the data through their API and then process it for more complex needs.

Alternatives Considered

ProofHub

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

Airtable seemed like the entrance to learning was a lot easier, and it was generic enough where we could make it exactly what we wanted it to be. Also, our devs team was very familiar with the Airtable API, which is well documented and makes it easy to integrate with our third party products.

Pros

While there are a lot of things that are great about airtable, these are the ones I love the most:

1. Flexibility to do everything from project management, sprint management, and GTMs.
2. Ease of use: This is like using excel sheets so creating a new task project is basically hit enter and start typing. Obviously, the features are 10 times better on airtable.
3. The different kind of views that I can have is also brilliant, the calendar view, kanban view and my favorite.

Cons

I think the only place this tool lacks is in just pure documentation. While you can write long form content here, it doesn't feel natural or intuitive. I really wish they improve the long form text field with rich content formatting and more.

One more thing which is a pain is the mobile app. Feels like an MVP but the viable is so low. I can't even add comments via the app. Quite sad.

Alternatives Considered

Asana and Notion

Switched From

Jira

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

Flexibility and better cross team collaboration. (Also Asana's free version is a joke.)

Pros

Airtable is very powerful. It makes database logic accessible to non-developer profiles.
Being able to view your data in so many different ways is great.
Usecases are endless.

Cons

I was disappointed by the inability to create easy-to-use apps for the final user. You can either share the entire database with them - which can be overwhelming - or cherry-pick views you want to share with them - which is impractical, especially because those views aren't editable.

This makes Airtable great to build internal tools for tech-savvy teams, but in order to make it usable by other people you'll have to use a third-party app builder (Airtable will then be used as the database / back-office of your app).

In addition to that, I sometimes get frustrated with some formulas, especially "datetime" formulas and recursive logic. These can become overly complicated in Airtable.

Pros

Airtable's flexibility to be configured and used for almost anything in the universe that you'd like to track is the best thing about this app.

Cons

Almost unheard of these days, but I'd like to see real-time support via chat or phone. Email just doesn't work for me.

Alternatives Considered

Claris FileMaker, Quickbase, MongoDB, Caspio, SQLite, Zoho Creator, Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Choosing Airtable

Cost and feature set

Switched From

Claris FileMaker

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

Cost and ease of use.

Pros

The interface and ease of use are unbeatable, so much so that the competition does what it can to copy it.On the other hand, the speed and ease of maintenance makes it incredible for handling a large amount of data: filtering, automation, etc.

Cons

The price is incredible high for managing a small business but the free tier is enough for most of the tasks.

Alternatives Considered

Stackby

Reasons for Choosing Airtable

To get the best

Switched From

Stackby

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

This is the best even in mobile.

Pros

Last year I was on the search for a solution to replace XLS and found Airtable. Previously we were using microsoft xls, as we found even GoogleDocs didn't work for our purpose.

We produce hundreds and up to thousands of products for one event and previously used xls to keep track of production and for by line item invoicing purposes. The ability to have all the data in one spreadsheet but then filter things out in a specific view that allows you to see only what you want is useful and makes it so you don't have to have multiple spreadsheets with the same data. For example we have an invoicing view, that's filtered easily to show costs. Then a post event inventory view where clients can see what they can use for next event. We also have a QC view where our team members can easily QC the product without all the unnecessary data in their view/way. We also use filters to easily show us what still needs to be approved and what is left to be produced for the event. It's a been a great way for us to manage large scale projects and our clients love it. Also, the fact that it has a phone app is helpful to us since we work events, we are constantly on the road traveling and not always at a computer.
The ability to download the spreadsheets is simple also, so when I need to create an XLS file to accompany our invoice, this is simple and easy for me to do.

Cons

The #1 priority for improvement that every Airtable user complains about is the lack of restrictive access. Access is "all or nothing" so if I give my clients "Read" access, they're only limited to one view and can't edit or note anything. If we give them "Edit" access they are able to edit anything in our entire database, including our pricing, so that doesn't work. We want, for example, a customer to be able to go and note/change info for one column and not be able to add/remove anything. For example they could go in and put "approved" for a line item that they approve for production, but can't change any cells not in that column.

I'm not confident in their tech support at this time . Recently we had some data loss issues that created mass concern. We added data to specific cells in an existing spreadsheet, and the next day the data was gone. Airtable keeps record of any change in a cell and there was no record of us ever entering the data, like it never happened. We provided specific examples and their explanation of "packet loss" on our end makes zero sense. Based on data that we entered that day, we added a photo, then added a date, photo, then date... all the photos stuck, the dates did not, so it would mean that every other second a packet data loss happened? They still haven't given a suitable answer to this, and if you can't rely on the data you enter being there, that's made us think twice about moving to the paid version, which we were about to.

Pros

It features a brilliant client interface with unmistakable regions for work exercises, charts, and messages, it's fundamentally like drawing work arranging exercises on a whiteboard, but we will do it online and get real-time overhauls. Airtable has great versatility, it can be compelling for bunches of course, but it can too work fair for myself to remain organized on objectives and due dates. I cherish how adaptable and multifunctional Airtable can be; In expansion, the effortlessness with which the tables are made is mind blowing, as is sifting and gathering information; In my organization we utilize it to track and take after up on tasks, ventures, cooperation of work groups, capacity and reinforcement of worker information and more; It could be a exceptionally flexible device.

Cons

Airtable is a fantastic tool, both graphically and practically; unfortunately, the automation is still a little clumsy. On the other hand, I prefer to utilize software with a set price because the cost might rise over time when we pay monthly; if there was a version that we could install on our own servers, that would be ideal.

Pros

Airtable has made our Marketing planning efforts smarter. We love how easy it is to collaborate using this software. Each member of our team is able to easily add, update and expand on events and content they are working and everyone has a view of the team's goals as a whole. We also love now expanding and linking records gives us the ability to dive deeper into any one event / piece of content and learn more about the status. Finally, we love how easy it is to report on our activities from a bird's eye view or on a deeper level by exporting any of our tables and sharing with our executive team.

Cons

The only con of this software is that we had a bit of learning curve when we got started. We had a few customizations on our old Excel model that we lacked, but we've since been able to get all our functionality back and more. We also struggled a bit with linking records and getting our tables to sort in a way that made the most since for us. Again, we've since solved all these issues and don't miss our old Excel model at all!

Pros

As an early adopter of Airtable, I've seen the program grow from a more functional and intuitive version of Excel to a full fledged application that can do anything from spreadsheet management to producing a CRM or project workflow. Initially, I used the application for QA and bug tracking, but now I use it for inventory for art I collect (I can even include photos for visual reference), lead tracking and generation, and a few other practical things. The more I use Airtable, the more I'm impressed with how much potential the application has to positively impact any business, organization, or individual.

Cons

For first time users, it can be a bit intimidating, especially if checking out the application, casually. One great resource that Airtable introduced is Airtable Universe, which highlights and demonstrates working and real examples of how companies and industries are using Airtable to track deadlines, scheduling, and a slew of other use cases. I would recommend that as the starting point for any novice of the application or anyone interested in giving it a try.

Pros

The fact that you can build the tool you need and that in that process the conversation your team will have is very valuable. Airtable is not an out-of-the-box just but more like Lego bricks and the (almost) only your own imaging that set the boundaries. So you need to ask the right questions about what is it you want to do and know? Which information do you need and what do you want to be able to do with it. When you ask that questions in a team you will have a great conversation about goals, ways of working, differences in need etc.

Airtable provides you with a variety of tools to make this happen but you need to take the time to build your tool. If you don't and "just" use it as a spreadsheet you won't use the real potential of it.

We have used Airtable to keep track of a complex website, booking a video equipment, project, ideas, teachers projects and more. One of the most powerful things about Airtable is that you can create different views and then create different processes.
An example is that we have a table with activities for teaching that we publish on our website. We needed a process for reviewing text for errors, a process for reviewing which activities we should share and not share, a process for which activities we had cases for etc. Doing that in Trello would mean multiple boards. in Airtable we could just create a new view with the same records.

Cons

I will say that hardest part about Airtable is understanding the logic behind it and that it is something else than a spreadsheet. I took me some time, and it has been hard explaining it to my colleagues.