Airtable vs Stackby

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.

Stackby is a spreadsheet-database tool in the Airtable mould, combining the familiar grid of a spreadsheet with typed columns, linked records and multiple views. What sets it apart is a set of API column types that pull live data from services such as YouTube, Google Analytics, Facebook Ads and other APIs directly into table cells.

Tables can be viewed as grid, kanban, calendar, gallery and form views, and automations send notifications or update records when data changes. A template library targets marketers and agencies: content calendars, social media trackers, SEO keyword lists, CRM pipelines and campaign reports. API columns refresh metrics such as views, subscribers or ad spend on a schedule, and a REST API and Zapier integration connect Stackby to other tools. Plans are priced per seat: a limited free plan, then Economy, Business and Business Plus plans with more rows, API calls and automation runs.

Stackby suits marketers, content creators and small agencies who want a cheap, flexible database that enriches itself with live marketing data. It is less known than Airtable, with a smaller ecosystem of integrations and extensions, less depth in automation and interfaces, and slower performance on large tables. Airtable is the more powerful mainstream choice, SeaTable and NocoDB offer self-hosted alternatives, and Smartsheet suits project-heavy enterprises.