Airtable
The most recommended of 3 no-code databases
Recommended for letting non-programmers build flexible databases and trackers that feel like spreadsheets with more structure. Common caveat: price hikes, feature gating, and concerns about company stability.
Recommended for letting non-programmers build flexible databases and trackers that feel like spreadsheets with more structure. Common caveat: price hikes, feature gating, and concerns about company stability.
45 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 22
- criticize it
- 23
- approval share
- 49%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 22 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Spreadsheet-style database for non-programmers
“reactive backends similar to Firebase, Airtable and Zapier, which come so close to almost working for normal people”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “I Miss Thinking Hard” “airtable and other "no code" systems fit this bill well”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM” “they feel like docs and sheets on steroids”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Lessons from Building Multiplayer Browsers” Strong fit for shared, collaborative data
“move quickly to a more stable database like Notion or Airtable”
Comment from 22 Jan 2026 in “Why it's still hard to track Y Combinator Companies” “the closest is Airtable where you can collab on data”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Anthropic, Please Make a New Slack” Long-term users recommend it often
“It was a great product and I have recommended it often to small business owners over the years.”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal” “Airtable's a killer product and I've been using and evangelizing it for nearly 10 years”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal” Replaces custom CRUD apps and tracking
“Frankly, Airtable has done more to disrupt CRUD apps than AI ever did.”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 in “AI's Dial-Up Era” “wildly powerful things for tracking inventory and sales data”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “Bending Spoons buying Airtable for $2.2B”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Price hikes and opaque pricing
“Opaque pricing and feature gating create a lot of friction as well.”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “Bending Spoons entered definitive agreement to acquire Airtable for $1.28B” “Airtable has got too expensive for all the weird limitations you end up either writing tons of weird hacks around”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal” “gets crazy price hikes out of nowhere (or shut down) that's a disaster for a small company”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “Microsoft killed FoxPro in 2007. Anyway, here's FoxPro revived” - Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal”
- Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “"Today we're laying off a large part of the Airtable team "”
Breaks at scale, weak concurrency and transactions
“it fell apart past 2 jobs per day - rate limits, webhook failures, state management nightmares”
Comment from 22 Feb 2026 in “A16Z partner says that the theory that we'll vibe code everything is ' wrong'” “duct-taped tools like Airtable that fall apart once you need audits and real tracking”
Comment from 8 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: We built procurement automation for small teams stuck in spreadsheets” “The downside of not doing transactions is potentially dangerous data inconsistencies.”
Comment from 22 Feb 2026 in “What Is a Database Transaction?” - Comment from 22 Feb 2026 in “Fix Your Tools”
- Comment from 11 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: Visual DB – Web front end for your database (update)”
Company struggles and acquisition worries
“Shame that they never really did anything with their billions in funding. Interfaces were underwhelming”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “"Today we're laying off a large part of the Airtable team "” “It's really nice software but the company has struggled.”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal” “Another soon-to-be-abandonware dead company, after being acquired by BS.”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “Bending Spoons entered definitive agreement to acquire Airtable for $1.28B”
Other no-code databases people recommend
The two most recommended other no-code databases, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 3 no-code databases, rankedWhat people said
40 of the 47 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Shame that they never really did anything with their billions in funding. Interfaces were underwhelming”
“next get ready for the 400% price hike and then they will completely fuck the product”
“gets crazy price hikes out of nowhere (or shut down) that's a disaster for a small company”
“I didn't understand why a CRUD app (yes, with lots of integrations and bells and whistles) would need to raise more $1B+.”
“Airtable's a killer product and I've been using and evangelizing it for nearly 10 years”
“It was a great product and I have recommended it often to small business owners over the years.”
“how did so many things go wrong over the last few years?”
“wildly powerful things for tracking inventory and sales data”
“It's really nice software but the company has struggled.”
“they should consider moving to anything else, even vibe coded slop might be ok”
“jacking up the price and milking customers for every penny until their contracts expire”
“Airtable couldn't turn vibe coding in Airtable itself into something worth charging for”
“they were often solo operators for that data because whatever they were wrangling wasn't worth putting into a database”
“Probably very little product value but some b2b contracts to milk?”
“their money went into marketing, not actual capabilities”
“Airtable has got too expensive for all the weird limitations you end up either writing tons of weird hacks around”
“Expect entshittification of Airtable after the acquisition.”
“BS has a process: buy, butcher, enshittify, kill, repeat.”
“Another soon-to-be-abandonware dead company, after being acquired by BS.”
“Opaque pricing and feature gating create a lot of friction as well.”
“A solution would probably be Airtable.”
“they feel like docs and sheets on steroids”
“airtable and other "no code" systems fit this bill well”
“it was transformative for them”
“the closest is Airtable where you can collab on data”
“they all break the moment you need to run it more than twice a day at any real scale”
“The downside of not doing transactions is potentially dangerous data inconsistencies.”
“it fell apart past 2 jobs per day - rate limits, webhook failures, state management nightmares”
“servers with tools that can create/modify cloud infrastructure (Render.com, Airtable, database connectors)”
“reactive backends similar to Firebase, Airtable and Zapier, which come so close to almost working for normal people”
“AirTable seemed more effective for this”
“It's not even close to what LOB apps need in reality.”
“move quickly to a more stable database like Notion or Airtable”
“It works best for me as well”
“duct-taped tools like Airtable that fall apart once you need audits and real tracking”
“other than SaaS webapps like airtable”
“They have API and automations.”
“That is where alternative approaches to databases like Airtable win among such audience.”
“Quick demo showing concurrency issues in Airtable (lost update and write skew)”
“Frankly, Airtable has done more to disrupt CRUD apps than AI ever did.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.