I'm leaving Airtable (gulp). Here's how I picked what's next.
Airtable was recently acquired by Bending Spoons. All signs point to this being VERY BAD for Airtable users, and the clock is now ticking to find a new tool.
If you haven't heard about this, Lex Roman wrote a fantastic story HERE on Revenue Rulebreaker.
(Be sure to subscribe to Revenue Rulebreaker HERE for more important news on small biz!)
Airtable is a BIG part of my business. I lean on it heavily for my internal admin, I build it for almost every client I work with, and my popular Relationship Database template is built in Airtable.
I have been shouting "EVERY SMALL BUSINESS SHOULD HAVE AIRTABLE" for years on podcasts, in masterminds, on coffee chats, etc.
So this news is a big bummer for me. What tool could possibly replace Airtable?!!?!?!?!? Airtable is powerful and the idea of finding an equivalent feels really overwhelming.
But fear not, dear reader. I only spent a few days feeling sorry for myself before buckling down and beginning my exploration for an alternative tool.
I'm taking you along for the ride! I documented:
my entire process for researching new tools.
what I landed on and why.
my thoughts on when to migrate over.
🚨SPOILER ALERT🚨 If you don't feel like reading this whooooollle thing and just want my recommendation, I'll give it to you now.
🥁DRUMROLL🥁
It's SmartSuite!
But I still recommend reading the rest of this post. Get inside my brain!
Step 1: I asked my network
Whenever I'm looking for a new tool, I go to where my trusted brains live: my communities in Circle and Slack! I am in quite a few, so I have a range of brains to pick.
I asked - what are people using instead of Airtable? Does anyone have any recommendations for an alternative?
I got a biiiiig pile of suggestions. Most of them got cut fast, because they only solved one piece of what Airtable does (IE: a form builder or a kanban board).
Airtable does relational tables, multiple views, automations, and dashboards. Whatever replaces it needs to cover that same range, not just one slice of it.
I finally narrowed a long list down to three I was curious about: Baserow, Zite, and SmartSuite.
Step 2: I sought out the experts on Youtube, Reddit, and specific comparison sites.
Researching and learning a wide range of tools is a big part of my job.
But some people's ONLY job is researching, learning, and telling us about new tools. And they have Youtube Channels!
I did a loooooot of searching and watching and reading on these three specific tools using search phrases like:
"SmartSuite overview"
"SmartSuite for beginners"
"SmartSuite vs Airtable"
"SmartSuite vs Baserow"
"Zite vs Baserow"
etc etc etc etc.
This gave me a sense of what the tools are like before committing to a trial account, and also told me what the experts already like or dislike about them.
I consumed videos and documentation from the companies themselves or independent content creators. I made sure the content I was reviewing was written the past year since tools change so quickly and I wanted the most updated info. I reviewed the sources to get a sense for who was biased or incentivized to promote a certain tool VS who was giving an honest opinion based on their deep knowledge of tools like these in general.
(NOTE: I used my AI companion to help me capture and organize my research. I did NOT have it help me do my research or thinking.)
Zite was cut quickly during this stage.
Its relies heavily on AI to build an "app" for you instead of assembling it yourself. I am currently pretty anti-vibe coding using AI.
My clients don't work with me forever (6 months max) - I need them running their own systems after I leave, and an AI-generated black box works against that. If I can't fully explain how something was built, I can't hand it off responsibly.
Also... I'm still learning about AI and hold it delicately at an arms length right now - but that's a different email.
So at this point, Baserow and SmartSuite both looked like real contenders on paper. So I stopped reading about them and started building.
Step 3: I built a few test databases
I'm in the process of building a Content Database / Calendar for a Social Media agency right now, so this was the perfect use case!
I know how to build something like this in Airtable - could I recreate my vision on SmartSuite or Baserow?
I started with Baserow
I was excited about Baserow because their pricing is pretty affordable. They have a free tier, and their lowest tier is $10/per user/per month. Much better than Airtable's whopping $20/per user/per month!
First impression upon opening the tool: the layout was different enough from Airtable that I did a lil "eeeehhhh" when I saw it.
BUT, this is not a deterring factor! For all I know, Baserow's layout is better than Airtable, it just might not be what i'm used to.
However, the friction kind of just grew from there.
It took me a minute to figure out some pretty basic features, like how to select multiple rows at once, and took me a little to long to find the answers via Googling.
Other basic features I expected (such as dragging a record around in Calendar view to change the date field) were either missing or harder to reach than they should've been.
I LOVED the pricing, but after a while it became clear that too many basic small elements are missing and turned me right off. I'm not interested in a pile of workarounds - I'd rather pay for something that just works.
Which brings me to Smart Suite.
At this point in the research, I was putting all of my hope in SmartSuite, even though the pricing is not ideal. There is NO free tier (just a free trial) and I hate that D:
However, their lowest tier is $15/per user/per month. This is cheaper than Airtable IF you pay for Airtable.
Visually, it mirrors Airtable so closely I rarely felt lost.
Once I started setting things up, I hit a couple of small differences from Airtable - but nothing that was worth documenting.
The biggest help was their lil chatbot. Anytime I got stuck or couldn't find something, I just asked the chatbot and it gave me the answer clearly and quickly. Easy!
Their field selection was actually better than Airtable. They had virtually the exact same options for automations, and their dashboards looked good too.
An hour into playing around and setting up a database I could confidently say - SmartSuite is an acceptable replacement for Airtable! I was freaking jazzed.
BUT - that was starting something from scratch.
What would it take to transfer an existing system from Airtable to SmartSuite?
I ran this test on my Relationship Database. SmartSuite has a feature that allows you to import directly from Airtable (rather than downloading and uploading an CSV). Sick!
Formulas didn't carry over, which I expected. The biggest issue was that something broke the grouping feature inside of my list view.
I asked my chatbot friend again, but it was not helpful. This gave me a chance to escalate to actual support.
As someone who spends A WHOLE LOTTA time talking to customer support for different tools, this is a big deal for me.
It took a day for support to get back to me. By then, I had figured out how to "reset" the glitch and fix it myself. Not the longest wait time, but I was a little frustrated by this weird glitch.
HOWEVER! Airtable's customer support is pretty bad TBH. They have a lil chatbot, but its kind of buried and not readily available when you're inside of a database. And the few times I've needed to contact customer support, it didn't feel very... supportive.
So... SmartSuite still wins!
Recreating the database otherwise was pretty seamless. I just needed to recreate the automations and, bobs ur uncle!
SUCCESS! SmartSuite officially gets my stamp of approval! 💋
TL;DR👇
Similarity to Airtable.
The layout is so similar, switching from Airtable to SmartSuite will be easier to learn than switching from Dubsado 2.0 to Dubsado 3.0 (IYKYK).
Ease of use.
SmartSuite felt just as easy and intuitive as setting up Airtable. I have seen others on the internet argue that it's easier.
Ability to Migrate.
SmartSuite has a feature that allows you to import directly from Airtable. You will just need to recreate any formula fields and automations.
Customer Support
The SmartSuite chatbot was REALLY helpful when navigating the tool for the first time. Their customer service took a day to get back to me when I had a question. So, slightly better than Airtable (so far).
Pricing.
This is the biggest issue. SmartSuite beats Airtable IF you are already paying for Airtable.
So what's next? Do we all need to switch to SmartSuite today?
Whoa there, hold your horses!
Until they take away or heavily limit the free tier, I recommend holding onto Airtable since SmartSuite does not have a free tier (ugh!).
If Bending Spoons does what it usually does, we can expect big (negative) changes within the next year. But we don't really know what exactly those changes will be or when they will happen. We are just guessing based on Bending Spoon's previous patterns.
For new clients, I will recommend we build on SmartSuite over Airtable if its worth it for them to pay for another tool. I've tested it enough to trust it as a solid tool they will be happy with no matter what, and starting them there means they're not going to have to make a big switch next year.
But for those of us who are already deeply invested in Airtable - we still have time to see what big changes Airtable will make before making any big moves. I don't think moving a working system off a tool that's still functioning, onto a paid-only tool, is worth doing preemptively.
I'm watching for two things:
Airtable's quality dropping off hard (a result of the layoff pattern Bending Spoons has run on many other acquisitions),
or Airtable's price climbing high enough to close the gap with SmartSuite.
Once I see either of these starting, I'm OUT 👋
Do you want me to document my migration from Airtable to SmartSuite? let me know!
If you want this kind of expertise building ALL of tools in your business, apply to work with me. I have ONE more spot left this year!
