No Code Wiki: Airtable Review
What You Need To Know
Get Real, Honest Maker Commentary
Airtable is your go to tool for no code makers. Airtable enables you to have the basic ability of a database without having to code a database.
It is an excellent way to deliver personalized information to a user without actually creating a complex app with code. Using Airtable is your fastest way to creating an actual app without code. I’ve given it one of my highest ratings and reviews. But you don’t have to take my word for it.
I will vouch for it because I’ve used it as part of my back end fueling a product that was a #1 on Product Hunt. The no code tool generator. Check out below my key pros and cons as well as insight as to how I used Airtable to power an actual no code web application.
Below are some of the best no code actual applications created by some insanely talented Makers who launched using Airtable as part of the side project stack.
Pros and Cons of Airtable
Positives
- The best “database” type tool that will give you familiarity to a spreadsheet
- Allows basic formulas like a spreadsheet. This is key because it allows you to create a customized dynamic product instead of just a static web page. What this means is you can create formulas in the Airtable sheet and when a new row of data is added, say from Zapier, you can automatically give a customized output for the user.
- Easy to plug into Zapier and connect to other applications
Negatives
- Formulas cannot be as complex as a google sheet. Meaning using a v-lookup is not possible with Airtable. There is another type of "lookup" that is confusing to learn based on Airtable's documentation. However, below is a free tutorial titled "Lookup Function Tutorial" from Gareth Pronovost that breaks it down.
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"In Their Words" No Code Maker Commentary and Reviews
Maker: KP Best Place to Find Him: Twitter Project stack for Appeared On can be found here. Project link for Appeared On.
+One of my favorite products. Super intuitive and definitely way better and powerful than Google Sheets due to it’s API.
+ I prefer Airtable but had to learn how to fully leverage it. Sheets was my go-to just as it was very user friendly. But ultimately Airtable wins because of their forms and API friendly-ness.
– Not much, may be quick landing pages for the forms. The forms currently are plain.
Maker: Sharath Best Place to Find Him: Twitter Project stack for #RequestforProduct can be found here. Project link for #RequestforProduct.
+ Definitely better than sheets, airtable is really effective and powerful. Go through the video tutorials. They really helped me find simple functional features.
– The only thing they can improve is when we add anyone as a collaborator they won’t intimate us. I got charged accidentally once.
Maker: Mohammad Best Place to Find Him: Twitter Project stack for Twitter Argumeter can be found here. Project link for Argumeter.
Read Mohammad’s Full Interview
+Airtable is great for 2 things: visualization and automation. It provides the flexibility and speed of working with a spreadsheet with all kinds of views (calendar, kanban, tabular, etc.).
+I haven’t upgraded to the blocks yet but heard really good things about how they can enhance the visualization. You can also embed the views wherever you want.
+In terms of automation, Airtable is a great place to collect data through an API or form (Typeform has a direct integration and Airtable has its own form) and then process that data in Airtable before you output it on a newsletter or some other place. You can use Zapier to detect row changes and trigger workflows with the output data. I love the option to link tables as this fills a major gap spreadsheets have that stops them from being used as true databases.
-Even though Airtable is great for visualization, it is half-cooked there. In all the views, data gets cut off from view. The form is the worst where options if long are cut off which is pointless because you can’t answer the form without looking at the options.
-It is also far from being a true spreadsheet-killer because the powerful computing and data manipulation options that make spreadsheets awesome are completely missing from Airtable. Here also, there was an attempt to do it with Formula and Roll-up fields but it was a half-cooked implementation. It is crazy that Airtable forces the same formula on an entire column.
