Baserow vs Grist

Baserow is an open-source no-code database and one of the most complete Airtable alternatives. It is developed by a company based in the Netherlands and offered both as a hosted cloud service with EU data storage and as a self-hosted application you can run with Docker on your own servers. The core of the product is MIT licensed.

Data lives in tables with typed fields, links between tables, lookups, formulas and rollups, and can be viewed as a grid, gallery, form, kanban or calendar. On top of the database Baserow adds an application builder for simple internal tools and portals, automations, an AI field that generates or classifies content from a prompt, row comments, and a REST API with webhooks. The free self-hosted edition has no artificial row limits; paid Premium and Advanced tiers, priced per user, unlock extra views, AI, admin controls, audit logs, SSO and role management.

Baserow suits teams that like the Airtable model but need data ownership, GDPR-friendly hosting or predictable costs at large row counts. It falls short on ecosystem: Airtable has far more integrations, templates and a more mature Interfaces layer, and its community is larger. NocoDB is the closest rival, source-available rather than open source since 2026, and sits on top of an existing SQL database, while Grist is stronger for spreadsheet-style formulas. For many European organizations Baserow is the easiest open-source option to adopt.

Grist is a relational spreadsheet built by Grist Labs, a company based in New York. It looks like a spreadsheet but stores data in typed columns and linked tables like a database, and its formulas are written in Python, which gives power users far more expressive calculations than classic spreadsheet functions while still supporting familiar Excel-style functions.

Documents can be arranged into pages of linked widgets, such as a table that drives a card view, chart or form, so a single file becomes a small custom data app. Access rules can restrict who sees or edits specific tables, rows and even columns, which is rare in spreadsheet tools. Grist also offers forms, a REST API, webhooks, imports from Excel and Google Sheets, and automation through Zapier. The core engine, grist-core, is open source under the Apache 2.0 license and can be self-hosted; the hosted service has a free personal plan and per-user team plans, with paid options for self-managed enterprise deployments.

Grist fits analysts, nonprofits, researchers and public agencies that outgrow spreadsheets but need fine-grained permissions and data sovereignty; French government digital teams are among its well-known adopters. It has a smaller template and integration ecosystem than Airtable, the interface is less familiar to casual users, and Python formulas are an advantage only for those who use them. NocoDB (source-available), Baserow and SeaTable are other self-hostable alternatives, while Airtable remains easier for mainstream business teams.