Airtable combines the simplicity of spreadsheets with the functionality of a database, making it one of the most popular business application platforms. Still, there are many other business application solutions available, each tailored to your unique needs.
If you are looking for a tool that can either replace Airtable or provide additional functions to improve your business workflows and data management from start to finish, you are in the right place. We have gathered 14 different alternatives to Airtable to help you pave the way for stronger business growth, more efficient workflows, and better collaboration. Shall we begin?
What is Airtable?
From Airtable
Airtable is often recognized for its unique blend of a spreadsheet interface with database functionalities, making it a user-friendly platform for managing and organizing data.
What is airtable used for?
Airtable functions as a relational database, allowing records from one table to be linked to another, thus creating relationships between different components and objects. It also serves as a cloud-based project management software that enables teams to store, organize, and collaborate on structured data.
The platform excels at consolidating and storing data in different formats like spreadsheets, Kanban boards, or boards, which aids business teams in organizing and structuring their data workload. Moreover, Airtable templates are extensively utilized by both individual users and the business community.
From Airtable
As a versatile platform, Airtable is designed for a variety of business domains, including but not limited to project management, content pipelines, product launches, marketing calendars, event planning, and more. While Airtable offers a range of functionalities, it may have limitations in certain aspects that are crucial for business operations:
Mobile Usability: Airtable offers a mobile app that allows users to navigate spreadsheet-like databases on a smaller screen. Although it provides Airtable forms, the formats may not always adapt well to mobile devices.
Plan Value: Businesses can have unlimited databases with up to 1,000 records per database and up to 5 editors on the free plan. For larger scale needs, subscription is required starting from $20 per seat per month.
Implementation Efforts: Airtable becomes more powerful when it is interconnected and integrated with your other systems. This can be both advantageous and challenging, as it takes time and effort to establish connections with your chat, documents, and other tools.
In the following sections, we will dive into alternative solutions that address some of these limitations and might prove to be more aligned with your business requirements. Stay tuned as we explore these options and help you make an informed decision on choosing the right tool for managing your business data effectively.
What to consider when choosing an Airtable alternative
When considering alternatives to Airtable, it is important to evaluate the following criteria in order to find a suitable option that not only provides equivalent functions, but is also easy to learn, onboard, and leverage according to your business's unique needs.
Customization: Choose a platform that allows you to customize workflows and views according to your specific needs, similar to the customization options available in Lark Base.
Efficient Collaboration: Opt for tools that support real-time collaboration to ensure everyone is working together effectively.
Automation: Platforms that offer automation features to streamline manual and repetitive tasks can greatly enhance productivity.
Access management: Segmented access to the same data or table for different teams can help businesses maintain a single source of truth while facilitating collaboration.
Integration Capabilities: Look for tools that seamlessly integrate with your existing tech stack, similar to Lark's integration features, especially with AI.
1. Lark for unified business management and decision-making
Ideal for teams and companies seeking a centralized workspace to enhance productivity and collaboration, Lark offers a unified platform for accessing all work-related resources. This includes Lark Base, a user-friendly and intuitive business application builder.
Lark Base is designed to assist with managing, analyzing, sharing, and collaboratively acting on business data. It serves as a virtual command center, streamlining workflows and integrating data from multiple sources. Additionally, it allows you to securely create your own business systems without the need for coding.
Lark Base's customizable nature enables businesses to tailor it to their specific requirements. Whether it's for store inspections, inventory tracking, issue management, or customer support, Lark Base can be adapted to meet these needs. Additionally, Lark Base offers built-in dashboard functionalities that make it easy to visualize business data and extract actionable insights.
Dynamic views for a unified source of truth: Choose from different views like calendar, mobile form, grid, or Kanban to focus on what matters most. These views enable you and your colleagues to examine the same data from angles that work best for you.
Automate, not replicate: Reduce repetitive tasks with automation. Lark Base's automated workflows can send reminders and links to your phone for tasks like daily inspections and production reports.
Control ≠ Silo: Maintain control over who can access and edit specific parts of your work, while still keeping everyone in the same base by using advanced permissions. This prevents information overload while centralizing your business data and insights in one place.
Real-time, actionable insights into your chat: Stay informed with real-time dashboards that update as changes occur. Visualize key metrics such as sales performance and inventory consumption. Receive regular updates and reminders automatically, delivered to your chat feed in Lark for easy digestion and action.
Scale your work with Lark Base x OpenAI: AI Autofill in Lark Base serves as an AI prompt generator and work accelerator. It enables seamless workflow by generating content using data fields on a large scale. Teams can create prompt templates with variables representing data fields, enabling efficient content generation. Whether it's crafting customer service responses, creating social media copies, or providing suggested issue resolutions, AI autofill in Lark Base helps expedite work processes.
Why Lark?
Truly all-in-one: Lark offers a comprehensive suite of tools that combines personal and group chat, video conferencing, online documents, project management, business workflows, approvals, business email, calendars, attendance, and more. By consolidating these features into a single platform, Lark eliminates the need to switch between different apps, saving time and optimizing productivity. Additionally, Lark seamlessly integrates with existing business tools, enhancing their capabilities.
Mobile-first: Lark is designed with a mobile-first approach, ensuring a consistent user experience across desktop and mobile devices. With just a few taps on their phones, users can easily edit and comment on documents, join meetings, follow presentations, and complete tasks such as inspections and issue submissions. This mobile accessibility empowers frontline teams and busy business travelers to be productive without relying on laptops.
Customizable to every business: Lark provides highly customizable solutions that streamline workflows through automation and centralize business data. For example, Lark Base automates work processes like purchase order management, creator management, and inspection tracking. Additionally, Lark Approval enables businesses to create their own approval flows, simplifying the process with automatic reminders and easy approval on mobile devices. This level of customization ensures that Lark can adapt to the unique needs of any organization.
Power global collaboration: Lark different time zones, languages, and cultures. To overcome these barriers, Lark incorporates various solutions such as real-time translation in chats, documents, and meetings. This ensures that teams can understand each other without the need to learn a new language. Additionally, Lark provides time zone checkers and powerful Minutes solutions to eliminate the need for inconvenient meetings and allow colleagues to catch up during their respective working hours.
Lark Pricing
Lark offers a free plan for up to 50 users, which includes features such as business email, chat, video conferencing, project and task management, and more. Pro and Enterprise users have access to additional features such as extra storage, watermark capabilities, and increased automation runs, making collaboration even more efficient for larger teams.
2. Trello for simple project management through cards
Trello is a visual project management tool that simplifies complex projects and processes through its intuitive board, list, and card system. It's a good choice for project teams of all kinds, ranging from product, marketing, operations, to engineering.
Similar to Airtable's broad appeal, Trello is also fitting for teams and companies of all sizes. Its card approach to organizing projects makes it an great Airtable alternative for managing various tasks, whether in software development, marketing, or any sector that requires structured task management.
As an Airtable alternative, Trello offers similar features that users can find in Airtable:
Customizable Boards: Create and customize boards to manage projects and tasks.
Various Views: Transition from the traditional board view to new views like timeline, table, or dashboard to visualize data better.
Template Gallery: Similar to Airtable templates, Trello also offers a variety of templates for individuals or teams to manage different types of projects.
Integration: We offer a comprehensive range of connectors that enable teams to seamlessly integrate Trello with other business tools, enhancing productivity and efficiency.
Pricing: Trello offers a free plan for individuals and small teams to begin their project management journey. The standard plan starts at $5 per user per month and includes extra features such as unlimited boards and additional automation. For $10 per month, the Premium plan offers additional views (timelines, calendars, etc.), unlimited automation, and advanced permissions.
3. Wrike for versatile workflows
Wrike presents itself as a versatile platform aiming to streamline workflows across all departments of an organization. It is positioned as a single solution for managing projects, organizing work, and enhancing collaboration and efficiency, adaptable to various working styles through its customizable dashboards and tailored team-specific workflows.
Instead of using a relational database, Wrike offers a compelling alternative to Airtable with its project management and workflow building capabilities. Companies in need of a robust project management software that can cater to different departments may find Wrike to be a beneficial choice.d
Some of the best features from Wrike as an Airtable alternative include:
Custom Workflows: Tailor workflows to fit each team’s unique business process needs.
Interactive Gantt Charts: Visualize project timelines and dependencies.
Automations: Streamline processes with automation, reducing manual input.
Analytics View: Provides insights through dashboards to help in better decision-making.
Wrike offers a free plan, and its paid tiers start at $9.80 per user per month for up to 25 users. There are different plans available to meet various needs and team sizes, including a free plan for up to five users.
4. ClickUp for team work management
Similar to how Lark Base works, ClickUp is a work management platform that offers a suite of tools to manage people, projects, and everything in-between. With its customizable views, ClickUp serves as an alternative to Airtable, as it can manage any type of project without the need for code or add-ons. This makes it a convenient one-stop-shop for project management.
ClickUp's flexibility in managing various project types makes it a suitable choice for a wide range of teams. Additionally, ClickUp provides a wide range of ready-made templates for teams to use, similar to Airtable. Here are some equivalent features that ClickUp offers:
Customizable Views: Like Lark Base, ClickUp offers a variety of powerful views, including grid, Kanban, Gantt, Form, and more. These views allow you to consolidate all work information in one place.
ClickApps: Enhance collaboration, work management, and data governance with 35+ ClickApps. These apps add different functionalities to make the ClickUp workspaces more powerful. They range from screen recording, custom fields, automation, to time tracking.
ClickUp AI: ClickUp recently released its AI assistant to help users improve their writing and summarize content in its documents. This is particularly useful for teams that need to communicate asynchronously through better documentation.
ClickUp provides a free plan with 100MB storage, unlimited tasks, and Kanban boards that are best for personal use. For paid plans, ClickUp offers a variety of pricing plans starting at $7 per user per month to cater to larger team sizes and requirements.
5. Smartsheet for enterprise work management
Smartsheet is a sheet-based platform known for its project and work management capabilities. It's a suitable Airtable alternative, especially for those looking to manage projects at large scale and with layered granularity. The platform provides various views and workflows to tailor to your needs, making it a strong contender for managing company-wide initiatives.
Teams and companies in need of a robust project management tool would find Smartsheet beneficial. Its variety of functions such as activity logs, automation, and Critical Path, allowing for a versatile management of tasks and projects.
Here are some notable features of Smartsheet that can be used as replacements for Airtable:
Various Views: Wwitch between Grid, Card, Gantt, or Calendar views to visualize work in different ways for easier progress and task tracking.
Collaboration: Enhance team collaboration with shared views, real-time updates, review process visualization, and comment threads.
Critical Path: Gantt chart with dependencies and predecessor columns to visualize crucial elements and milestones for projects.
Smartsheet offers a free plan for individual users, allowing them to try out up to 2 sheets, various views, and automations. Teams have the option to upgrade to a paid plan starting at $7 per user per month in order to access additional features. These features include unlimited sheets, multiple editors, dashboards, and more integrations with tools like Microsoft 365, Teams, and Slack. This makes Smartsheet a viable Airtable alternative for teams and companies.
6. Google Sheets for straightforward data management and analysis
Google Sheets provides a straightforward yet powerful alternative to Airtable, especially for users experienced in spreadsheet management who want to improve collaboration. As a part of Google's workspace suite, it seamlessly integrates with other Google services.
Companies and teams looking for a user-friendly tool for data maintenance and analysis, especially those already skilled in using spreadsheets, will find value in Google Sheets as an alternative to Airtable. Its combination of simplicity and real-time collaboration capabilities makes it suitable for teams of any size and various projects. However, it does not offer the relational database functionality that Airtable provides.
Noteworthy features of Google Sheets that can replace Airtable include:
Real-Time Collaboration: Share spreadsheets and collaborate with others in real-time, ensuring a single source of truth for data usage and analysis.
Offline Work: Access and edit your spreadsheets even without an internet connection by enabling offline access.
Built-in Formulas and Charts: Utilize various formulas and charts to analyze and visualize data, similar to how you would use Microsoft Excel.
Connected with Google Workspace: If your company and team already use Google Workspace as your primary stack, using Google Sheets can save you the hassle of integrating everything together.
Google Sheets provides a free tier for individual users. Paid plans start at $6 per month per user with a Google Workspace plan, making it a cost-effective alternative to Airtable for many users.
7. Asana for agile project management
Asana, a well-regarded platform for work management and team collaboration, serves as another viable alternative to Airtable when teams are using Airtable for project and task management purposes. It's especially beneficial for cross-team collaboration and reducing duplicate work.
Companies aiming for a structured yet flexible work management solution would find Asana fitting. It provides a range of features catering to growing teams requiring advanced project management tools.
Here's a glimpse at some features on Asana to replace Airtable:
Resource Management: To keep the project on track, it is important to have built-in functions for time tracking, workload estimation, and workload visualization. These functions provide visibility into work progress and allow for timely adjustments.
Project Management: Manage projects with great visibility and precision using diverse views, task lists, and time tracking in one place. Integration with over 270 work apps is available.
Result Demonstration: Goals, progress, and dashboards are available to link teamwork back to company goals and focus efforts on high-priority items.
Asana’s pricing starts at $10.99 per user per month for the Premium plan, with higher tiers available for more advanced features and larger teams and enterprises.
8. ProofHub for project planning and implementation
From ProofHub
ProofHub is a centralized platform that helps teams effectively organize, collaborate, and complete projects on time. It offers project management tools, notes, reports, and chat. Similar to Lark, ProofHub also provides a centralized workspace that combines all these features.
ProofHub is particularly useful for teams working on multiple projects, as it provides a centralized platform for better organization. It is a viable alternative to Airtable when teams want to get better project planning and implementation.
Here are some key features of ProofHub that make it one of the viable alternatives to Airtable:
Task Management: Assign, schedule, and track tasks all in one place.
Discussion Boards: Centralized discussions to keep everyone on the same page.
Gantt Charts: Visual timeline for project planning and tracking.
Custom Reports: Analyze project performance with tailored reports.
Time Tracking: Track time spent on tasks for better productivity analysis.
Although ProofHub does not offer a free version, the product follows a two-tier pricing model, both with unlimited seats. The Essential plan includes up to 40 projects and 15GB storage, while the Ultimate Control plan provides 100GB storage and additional customization features for teams to segment projects, roles, and information.
The realm of project and task management tools extends beyond the aforementioned applications. Here are some additional platforms you may want to explore:
Jira: A popular choice for software development projects, providing agile workflow functionalities.
Zoho Sheet: An online spreadsheet application offering real-time collaboration and powerful computation capabilities.
Freedcamp: A project management tool that caters to an array of industries with a robust free version.
Notion: Known for its unique block-based structure, enabling a mix of database, notes, and task management.
Basecamp: A veteran in the project management space, providing a simple yet effective platform for team collaboration.
Excel: Microsoft's spreadsheet tool that also serves as a basic project management and data analysis tool.
When managing and utilizing your business information and data for decision-making of any kinds, choosing a tool that caters to your project management needs is vital. Whether you need a simple task management tool or a comprehensive project management platform, the market offers a plethora of options.
Feel free to explore Lark, an all-in-one productivity suite, to better manage your business data and improve team collaboration. With its Lark Base module, you get a centralized workspace equipped with powerful data management features. For more information on how Lark can revolutionize your workflow, contact the Lark team today and make the most out of Lark Base.
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