Airtable

Pros

Just the variaties of ways to show data - table, kanban, gallery, calendar, timeline, form! Its incredibly versatile and means you can craft it to many different types of people from CEO, to Marketing, to Finance.

Cons

The only downside I can see is that the per-seat amount can get high for multiple team members, I wish this could be lower or to only include core team members in that amount while having 'visitors' that have less access in the document.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Airtable

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Airtable

Pros

When I require a bird's-eye view of all my data, Airtable is invaluable. I really appreciate being able to link and connect various pieces of information. When compared to other platforms, Airtable provides unparalleled data portability.

Cons

I wish the ios app was more stable and user-friendly. In my opinion, the iOS app has too many restrictions. For instance, it would be helpful if data summaries appeared next to each grouping, just way they do on the desktop. iOS does not support group totals at this time.

Pros

When I first started to use Airtable, I came away deeply frustrated with it's usability. It's sometimes slow, straightly obtuse to use and has many "pending features" that would be extremely helpful for some of the simplest of tasks.

However, there came a time when I had to organise a league table for a tournament over the internet, and all of sudden, Airtable clicked.

What Airtable is good at is creating a database of entries for a specific use, so for example, making an internet registration form where a user can enter data and "register" their interest in a particular thing is so quick and easy to do.

I created an application form which auto stored the data into a highly organised table that I could then use however I wanted (I created a league table from the registered users with ease and shared the results of the league as the scoring progressed) - all via the internet, I don't know of a way that I could have achieved this without AirTable, Google Docs would have been a possible solution, but Airtable allows you to add attachments easily (so images, etc) as well as allowing you to manipulate (And hide) data in any way you can think of using Rollups and Lookups - two of it's most powerful features.

Once you get used to it, Airtable becomes useful, and I can see myself using it again and again when I want to organise a very specific and distributed task on the internet.

Cons

Don't think this is Excel in a different disguise, it's not, it's not as adaptable and not as powerful as Excel. You couldn't use it to track a project or manage a holiday system or anything like that, but creating a full customer list for a newsletter? Yep, easy, that's the kind of thing it DOES do really well.

It could use a few more features on the free tier of the software (the paid tier unlocks "blocks" - which is a strange name for plugins, which allow you to view the data in different visual ways but ultimately it's not as well integrated as it should be and therefore has a limited use)

Another thing is that Airtables mobile interface is woeful compared to it's desktop version, and for some reason you can't access the desktop website via mobile. I have no idea what compelled them to make this decision but it's something they need to address in the future. The mobile layout is next to useless.

Pros

I admire Airtable's ease of displaying content for social media customers. Customers have simple access to read, annotate, and indicate approval of material. There is also the option to categorize content based on marketing effort.

Cons

The lag time when moving between tabs in Airtable is something I don't particularly enjoy using. In my opinion, the problem lies inside the software itself and not with the network itself.

Pros

Airtable's performance and ease of getting started makes it a must-have tool. I really like the approach to rich media (files, images, etc.). They can easily be used alongside any other text or number data. The biggest differentiator is building workflows around the data in your tables. The API and automations are extremely powerful tools. We use them sparingly for augmenting our CRM (hubspot) but there's a ton of future potential for our team. I have not made use of the extensions feature.

Cons

Airtable's always going to be compared to Excel or Google Sheets. This on its own is not a con, but it's not easy to ALWAYS use Airtable over those other tools. There's a certain familiarity with a basic spreadsheet that Airtable can never completely offer, especially when collaborating with people outside of our company.