Airtable Reviews

Pros

It is one of the most versatile tools you can have.It can be a huge database for you that you can build automations on top.Or even you can personalize it to be an Experimentation Framework where you catalog all of your ideias and tasks for the week.

Cons

It can be a little tricky to onboard people to it. People are very used with Sheets and this is not as intuititive as G.Sheets or Excel can be

Pros

I appreciate the adaptability. With the help of drop-down menus, department-specific colors, and the ability to sort data by any number of criteria, I can easily organize my data into useful chunks. Though I'm only just getting started with Airtable, I'm enjoying my time with it and am looking forward to learning all there is to know about it.

Cons

It can be cumbersome to keep track of which users have access to certain databases and tables, therefore you may prefer to use a different platform when communicating with stakeholders.

Pros

It's feature packed and is brilliant to be used for project management and as a database. The integration it offers with other product made it seamless to be used.

Cons

It's has a very steep learning curve and the UI is complicated at least for beginners a new joiners. The user experience can be improved so it's easier to navigate

Alternatives Considered

Trello

Pros

We love Airtable's outstanding automation and linking features. Automating repetitive tasks and connecting our data to other platforms has been a breeze, saving us a lot of manual work. The interface is so user-friendly that it hardly feels like we're dealing with a database. We can easily create custom views for different projects, and it's great to be able to adjust the interface to meet our specific needs. I personally really like the calendar and kanban views, and the easy to build dashboards and highly flexible interfaces. These have allowed us to modernize old processes.

Cons

Initially, there was a bit of a learning curve with Airtable. But once we got the hang of it, the possibilities seemed endless and we want to integrate it even further into our work. The only real con we’ve encountered has to do with the need to add collaborators to a base, and accordingly the cost associated with this.

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Reasons for Choosing Airtable

Asana was great for project tracking, but Airtable does so much more. We prefer a smaller number of tools.

Switched From

Asana

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

We chose Airtable due to its versatility. The customization of views, linking between records, and automation capabilities make it stand out. The user interface is also more visually pleasing and intuitive than a typical spreadsheet or CRM.

Pros

Using Airtable to organize our team's activities and material has been fantastic. It works wonderfully, and it's a breeze to pass along to my coworkers. It's a great tool for organizing our thoughts and making plans.

Cons

The only part of the interface I'm not crazy about is the part where you add things like Partners and Places. There are, in my opinion, a couple too many tabs.

Pros

Opportunity data may be stored and managed effectively with Airtable. It is easy to use, inexpensive, and constantly evolving. When it comes to managing and receiving business possibilities for our marketplace, Airtable is a godsend. I really like how it relates to softrand. WHAM! Now I have a fully operational subscription app.

Cons

At first, Airtable may seem complicated. There are many features and customization possibilities, making it first difficult to grasp if you are not already proficient with relational databases.

Pros

Airtable's versatility is unparalleled! It's a very dynamic platform, with an intuitive interface that makes it easy for us to customize databases just as we want. I like also the robust set of features, including linked records and collaborative commenting, and the integration capabilities with other tools that contribute to a seamless collaborative experience.

Cons

Some might find the learning curve steep initially, but the wealth of online resources helps overcome this challenge. Sometimes Airtable is too rich and you can easily lose yourself in multiple automation and databases.

Alternatives Considered

ClickUp

Pros

After having used tools like Clickup and asana, I must say that Airtable is the most suitable tool when it comes to project management for a growth marketing team. The ability to add formulas so we can measure the expected impact of each initiative is truly a game changer.

Cons

My first few times using it, it took a while to get used to it because it seemed very complex, but after 1-2 weeks of consistent use, it became much easier and I could start to see the great possibilities Airtable allows.

Pros

Airtable is easy to use and has all the functionality or excel and a database. We use it for many different things. Onboarding staff right through to actual end user software we provide.

Cons

It's not really designed for mass scale/real time solutions. Overall it's a great tool with limits.

Pros

I liked the ease of use Airtable came with full functionality and was easy to implement and get my employees onboard with using.

Cons

I wish there were more ways to incorporate it into my business activities and production.

Pros

Where to even begin! I love how it's the 21st century excel spreadsheet. I can collaborate and keep track of clients and projects all under one document. I also, love how it live updates and the amount of features that airtable could give my company keeps growing. Because it's such a broad type of software I can customize it to exactly my needs and exactly my preferences.

Cons

There are some limitations with the advanced features, but that is understandable because the free version (which I use) is already so powerful that I can't believe they are offering it for free.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Choosing Airtable

I needed something that didn't require someone to have a Microsoft account and that could be on my phone or on my computer or where I was.

Switched From

Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

I wanted something that had pre-made templates and something that could be shared to anyone on any device.

Pros

Airtable connects our team to each other during the project development process and makes it possible to work in syncronization. Project manager can define the roles and the permission of each particular team member in a very flexible way.

Cons

Customer support is late to respond to the cases that we have created in support center and pricing plans are not flexible, 4 static pricing plans are not sufficient for this kind of a feature rich platform. User should be able to select the limits in a more flexible way.

Alternatives Considered

Bynder

Reasons for Choosing Airtable

Airtable's features met our company specific project management needs better then Bynder.

Switched From

Bynder

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

Airtable was a better match to our specific needs in terms of project management.

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

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

The flexibility to add data from multiple devices and also multiple persons at the the same time.We used AirTable mainly for our Inventory tracking which is very dynamic as most of our assets change hands frequently so we can easily update who is assigned what device and for our recurring IT expenses we are able to easily track every recurring expense and see at any time the total expense for the month.

Cons

We have been using Airtable for over two years and to date we do not have any feature missing. Our experience has been very favorable.

Pros

Before Airtable, pre formatted databases were costly platforms to subscribe to, and extremely difficult to create from scratch (for the non coder).

Airtable is just dead easy to use. It looks like a spreadsheet but behaves like a database. You can import or export data as a CSV file. You can share a link or embed a view into you website using iframe code.

It is also lightning fast. You can link any number of different 'sheets' together. You can selecting different types of 'fields' ie numerical, date, multiple select, calculations, upload document etc.

You can also display your data in a range of 'views' from maps to calendars to gallery views of pie and bar charts.

Cons

When using the embed code option, it doesn't show that well on a mobile device. Apart from that, it's really the perfect software for people with a large amount of data and no code skills.

Pros

This software is incredibly powerful, and once you get the hang of it, pretty simple to use. We are so grateful for the nonprofit discount, which makes it affordable for our organization. We're using it to manage grant applications and awards in tandem with other software such as Typeform, Gmail, Google Drive, and Slack. It has many powerful built in automation capabilities, and works very well with Zapier for even more power.

Cons

Airtable can take some effort and training to learn and master, in order to use it to it's maximum capacity.

Alternatives Considered

monday.com, ClickUp and Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Choosing Airtable

Airtable is so much more powerful. It can integrate with hundreds of other apps.

Switched From

Microsoft SharePoint

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

Airtable met our needs with the variety of extensions, automations, public facing forms, interfaces and dashboards, and integrations with software we needed to make the system function.

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 found it very easy to get started building useful bases. There are a lot of features and the possibilities are almost limitless, but the basics are fairly easy to understand, and very flexible, so once you get used to the way the tools work you can modify things and build out your bases quickly.

A key feature is the library of example bases. You can install a clone of any of them into your own account and use it as a starting point for your own project, or just explore how it's built to learn how everything works.

I really appreciate how easy it is to move existing data into Airtable bases, and to export them. Again, very flexible.

I find the app quite intuitive, and the help docs are excellent when questions come up. It's a huge time saver when compared to what would be required to build a database and web app interface from scratch.

Cons

I haven't find much to dislike. Early on I did hit the limits for the number of records available in a free account, but since it's free it's not really a complaint, just a limitation to be aware of.

I have found it a bit challenging to set up some more complex field relationships, for example calculations based on summaries of grouped records, but the newer add on functionalities allowing scripted manipulation of data in fields and conditional operations make it possible to do just about anything you can think of, so if you're ready for a paid account you can find a way to do most anything.

Pros

Ease of use, basically a database without the complexity of being one. No more managing of tabulated data via spreadsheet or simple table in word processing software. I also like the fact that I can do data entry in expanded and table views (I have a base called “Ideas”, where each column correspond to an area of interest in idea generation, e.g. Problem, Market, Competition, Elevator Pitch etc. - which the preferred data entry method is in the Expanded Jew; where as for base such as my “Bank Transactions Tracker”, the table field is better.

I also like how they aren’t just focusing on being American (yay to company that bother to cater to ALL date format under the sky) although for some other colum type they haven’t got down to it yet (telephone number etc.).

Personally I am a big fan of the Pro feature Blocks, which I used to create performace dashboards for my freelance subscription business. The Blocks feature is the only reason I opt to pay, although I am paying mostly out of my credits accumulated during the earlier days of Airtable.

Also like the community that’s building on top of it, forum is very active and lots of power users to learn from.

Combine with with other IaaS tool such as Zapier and you get a really powerful tool.

Cons

Insufficient control (can be easy to make mistake such as accidental typing etc.), lack of data validation (upon data entry), and interface could use more customization (e.g. lots of empty/white spaces in Card views, can’t have multiple lines in field header etc.).

Pros

I like this software so much that I pay for it monthly, and I don't consider 25 a month "cheap" for me. But it has been so useful that I can't imagine not having access to all the features.

It's complicated to say what I like most because that entails an explanation of what it does. It basically combines spreadsheets with databases and then allows you to view your data in a multitude of customizable ways. And share just the parts you want to share, or all of it. You can also add collaborators or have clients input information directly through forms. You can take all of this and embed it on your website or on facebook.

The various views can be a gallery of photos, or a more standard spreadsheet, or you can output it to lists like an address list, or set it up to print labels of just the records you want to include.

You can use it for project management and production queues, keeping track of vendors or clients, sorting and updating inventories. It's really brilliant to the point that I've moved away from other spreadsheet programs, task management systems and photo gallery software in favor of using Airtable.

Cons

It's not perfect! There are a few things I haven't figured out how to do or it's fairly clunky still. But much of that is my own lack of skill in certain areas. I'd love to utilize API but I'm still too much of a novice to really figure it out. Once I do, though, I feel like it will take my website to another level.

One of the features is the ability to take a group of records and output it into a format you create. It would be great if there were some templates available for this sort of thing, but I'm not even sure how that could be implemented. It could just be my own laziness!

Pros

When a co-worker recommended Airtable, I was predictably skeptical. Who needs yet another spreadsheet software I said, with an internal (ok, maybe external) eye roll. But this is no mere spreadsheet platform. It is the only one you will ever need. Ever. Again. The functionality that make it worth it to switch from Excel or Google Sheets might seem insignificant when you look at them on a features list. Colored labels, grouping, filtering, view options, etc. But you have no idea what a big difference they make! Airtable makes it possible to put in all the data you have, but the key to its success is it lets you filter it down to only the essential information you need to see to make the decisions in front of you. It's the database that actually helps with decision-making. And the more I use it, the more uses I find for it!

Cons

There are very few cons to Airtable. It's simple to use, and the potential is limitless. Once you start putting bases together, you just don't want to stop! One thing that is slightly non-intuitive is the relationship (or lack thereof) between different "tabs" of data. Read up on those before you go that route. You can also start getting out of hand pretty quickly with creating lots of different views, but nothing a little intentionality can't address. We trained our entire team on using Airtable for project management, and it's been the best decision we ever made.

Pros

Most pleople start Google Sheets or Excel when they need to "control" something (a projetct, to-do list, CRM, content calender, inventory, etc). Airtable is a perfect tool to replace this: it has the "spreadsheet" feel, making it so easy to start, but it can go much further than a spreadsheet, both in terms of the amount of dimensions you are able to control and reports you can easily generate. You can scale it to a full ERP and CRM system, step by step, customized exacly the way you want.

Cons

The inability to link data from multiple bases . So you either have to build a giant base or you have to duplicate data in different bases. There has been some positive developments on this front, though.

Alternatives Considered

ClickUp

Reasons for Choosing Airtable

Much more scalable

Switched From

Asana and Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

Easier to use

Pros

We love Airtable here at Kindred, and use it consistently, every single day. It's our hub for data, collaboration, task management, some scheduling, and just general across the board connectivity. It's consistently being updated and upgraded with new and improved features that we are always looking to implement. Airtable can do it all. It's great for our team because of the option for different views of the same information. Some team members are most productive with a classic "excel" view, while others prefer more pictures/visually appealing views to help them find the most success. Airtable allows all of that flexibility for our whole team, and as I've said before, we couldn't live without it.

Cons

In terms of cons, there are a few things that I think could make Airtable better. For example, while there are lots of online forums and resources for any question you could imagine regarding how to make Airtable work even better for your team, we are unable to hop on a call with any customer service representatives. Call me old school, but this is something that is truly a big downside for me, when I'm not able to jump on a phone call and ask a few quick questions. They do get back to you over email, however, it typically takes 2-3 times as long to resolve an issue that way. It would also be nice to just have the chance to hop on a Zoom call with an Airtable representative to talk about ways to make our Base work better, and I'm not aware of any way that is possible!

The other thing is, there is no way to connect emails/texts/phone calls to the base. For us, that would be a game changer, if we were able to merge our email server with Airtable, and would help us be even more synchronized and organized. Not a must - but it's definitely on our dream list!