Best Alternatives to Replace Airtable in 2025

Airtable has evolved from a ​“super-charged spread­sheet” into a full cloud data­base, yet its expand­ing fea­ture set has dri­ven prices up. Many com­pa­nies now face an over­loaded inter­face, role-based lim­its, and cost­ly automa­tion caps. In this arti­cle we out­line the main rea­sons users look for Airtable replace­ments, list the key selec­tion cri­te­ria, and give a detailed com­par­i­son of ten lead­ing alter­na­tives, with spe­cial atten­tion to Work­sec­tion as a ver­sa­tile choice for team col­lab­o­ra­tion and project management.

Airtable mar­kets itself as a hybrid of data­base and spread­sheet, but not every team can live with its con­straints. High sub­scrip­tion fees become strik­ing as the com­pa­ny scales: the Team plan starts at $24 per user per month, yield­ing for twen­ty peo­ple. Automa­tion runs into trans­ac­tion lim­its; large data sets slow down; role flex­i­bil­i­ty is lim­it­ed. In response, man­agers ask ​“where to go after Airtable” to keep visu­al­iza­tion but cut costs and sim­pli­fy onboard­ing. Below we describe the cri­te­ria for choos­ing a plat­form and the tools that solve these pain points.

When you ana­lyze ​“pro­grams sim­i­lar to Airtable,” price alone is not enough. Con­sid­er the fol­low­ing factors:

Work­sec­tion cen­ters on project man­age­ment and team com­mu­ni­ca­tion while pre­serv­ing a clean inter­face. Every plan includes all core fea­tures, so there is no ​“pay­wall” gat­ing essen­tials. Tasks can be viewed as a list, on a Kan­ban board, or on a Gantt time­line; each holds files, check­lists, dead­lines, and a time track­er. A shared cal­en­dar syncs due dates, and gran­u­lar per­mis­sions let you invite clients who see only their own projects. The finan­cial upside is clear: the Busi­ness plan costs $99 per month for up to 50 users, giv­ing an annu­al price five times cheap­er than Airtable Team for the same head­count. Work­sec­tion also offers full local­iza­tion and Russ­ian-speak­ing sup­port, a plus for CIS com­pa­nies. Thanks to its built-in time track­er, report­ing tools, and flex­i­ble task sta­tus­es, the plat­form deliv­ers a trans­par­ent flow from idea to client invoice.

Notion is often called an ​“Airtable alter­na­tive,” yet in essence it is an all-pur­pose doc­u­ment edi­tor with light­weight data­base fea­tures. It excels for small teams need­ing wiki pages and sim­ple Kan­ban boards. Flex­i­ble blocks let you build a CRM or con­tent cal­en­dar with­out code, but once record counts grow, Notion data­bas­es can lag. The free tier caps ver­sion his­to­ry and file size, and the Plus plan costs $10 per user per month. Advanced automa­tions typ­i­cal­ly require an exter­nal tool such as Make or Zapier.

Click­Up com­bines tasks, docs, and goals in one work­space, offer­ing lists, Kan­ban, Gantt, and a doc edi­tor. It ships with automa­tions, a time track­er, and detailed ana­lyt­ics. The Busi­ness plan at $29 per user per month unlocks near­ly every­thing, yet the rich set­tings make the tool heavy: new hires must learn the Space → Fold­er → List hier­ar­chy. For small projects, Click­Up can feel like an ​“over­loaded Airtable replacement.”

Asana is renowned for clear project visu­al­iza­tion: lists, Kan­ban, time­lines, and port­fo­lios. It lacks Airtable-style data­bas­es, but shines with advanced depen­den­cies and an OKR-style Goals mod­ule. The free tier tops out at fif­teen users, and the Pre­mi­um plan starts at €10.99 per user month­ly. Teams focused more on task coor­di­na­tion than tab­u­lar data may find Asana a log­i­cal ​“switch from Airtable.”

Trel­lo remains one of the most pop­u­lar Kan­ban boards. The core ver­sion is free, and Pow­er-Ups add fields, Gantt charts, and automa­tions. Each add-on, how­ev­er, rais­es the bill: But­ler scripts and the Table View require sep­a­rate sub­scrip­tions. Even­tu­al­ly ​“Trel­lo + extras” approach­es Airtable’s price while offer­ing few­er native data­base features.

Smartsheet is ​“Excel on steroids,” com­plete with automa­tions and report­ing. The spread­sheet inter­face feels famil­iar, but the learn­ing curve is steep­er: you must grasp ​“sheets” and ​“work­spaces.” The Pro plan costs $7 per user, and Enter­prise pric­ing is by quote. If your team loves grids, Smartsheet is pow­er­ful, yet its project visu­al­iza­tion is nar­row­er than Worksection’s or ClickUp’s.

Mon​day​.com deliv­ers vivid process visu­al­iza­tion and 50+ views: Kan­ban, grid, cal­en­dar, charts, and more. Automa­tions and inte­gra­tions are robust, but pric­ing climbs quick­ly: the Stan­dard tier starts at €11 per user, and enter­prise func­tions reside on Pro. For large orga­ni­za­tions Mon​day​.com can out­price Airtable, espe­cial­ly since each ​“board” stores data separately.

Coda aligns clos­est to Airtable philo­soph­i­cal­ly: every doc­u­ment can become an app. Users weave pages, tables, and but­tons to craft a work­ing sys­tem. End­less cus­tomiza­tion is the strength, includ­ing Pack inte­gra­tions; the weak­ness is com­plex­i­ty — new­com­ers strug­gle to link tables and for­mu­las. Pric­ing hinges on ​“Doc Mak­ers”: the Pro plan runs $10 per mak­er month­ly, eco­nom­i­cal for small teams but approach­ing Airtable as mak­er count grows.

Google retired its stand­alone Tables prod­uct and fold­ed it into App­Sheet. You now get a free table-data­base built on Google Sheets plus a visu­al app builder. It is a sol­id ​“free Airtable alter­na­tive” for pro­to­types, but row lim­its and mod­est role sup­port apply. Enter­prise App­Sheet pric­ing starts at $5 per active user when data vol­umes rise.

Baserow is a young open-source project posi­tioned as a free Airtable replace­ment. You can self-host, get an API, and enjoy a spread­sheet-like inter­face. The SaaS Pre­mi­um tier is €5 per user. Visu­al views are few­er than Worksection’s or Notion’s, yet you gain full host­ing free­dom and source-code access.