Airtable vs Quadratic

Airtable is a cloud platform, founded in San Francisco in 2012 by Howie Liu and two co-founders, that blends the familiar interface of a spreadsheet with the structure of a relational database. Tables link to each other, fields have types such as attachments, single selects, lookups, rollups and formulas, and the same records can be viewed as a grid, kanban, calendar, gallery, form, Gantt chart or timeline.

On top of the data, Interface Designer builds dashboards and lightweight apps for people who should not edit raw tables, automations run actions on triggers and schedules, and syncs bring in data from other bases or tools. AI fields categorize records, summarize text and generate content inside the base. The free plan allows unlimited bases with 1,000 records each and five editors; Team raises limits to 50,000 records per base and adds Gantt and timeline views; Business adds 125,000 records, premium syncs, an admin panel and SAML SSO; and Enterprise Scale is custom-priced with HyperDB and enterprise APIs.

Airtable powers content calendars, product catalogs, lightweight CRMs, inventories, applicant trackers and production schedules at thousands of companies, and it shines when non-developers need a structured database they can build themselves. In recent years it moved upmarket and raised prices, which pushed small teams toward open-source or cheaper options such as Baserow, NocoDB and Grist, or to Notion databases for document-heavy work. Per-seat pricing, record limits per base and automation run limits are the main constraints to check before adopting.

Quadratic is a browser-based spreadsheet from a US startup in Boulder, Colorado, backed by a $5.6M seed round led by GV in 2024. It looks like a familiar grid, but any cell can hold Python, SQL or JavaScript alongside normal formulas, which makes it a bridge between Excel and a data notebook. The app runs on WebAssembly and WebGL, so large sheets stay responsive in the browser.

You can connect databases such as Postgres, MySQL, Snowflake, BigQuery, Supabase and Neon, import CSV, Excel, Parquet and PDF files, and pull from QuickBooks, Mixpanel or Plaid. The built-in AI writes formulas, code and charts from plain-language requests, explains existing cells, and runs agents for auditing, fixing errors and enriching data; an MCP server lets Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor read and write sheets. The free plan has limited AI and connections, Pro and Business are priced per user with monthly AI credits, and Enterprise adds SSO and self-hosting.

Quadratic fits analysts and technical teams who outgrow spreadsheets but do not want a full notebook or BI stack. Equals is the closer pick for finance teams wanting a classic spreadsheet with live data, Grist suits structured relational data, and Airtable is better as an operational database for non-technical teams.

The vendor says sheets handle up to 100 million rows. Because AI usage comes from a monthly credit allowance, heavy users should check whether Business with on-demand credits is cheaper than several Pro seats.