Airtable vs. Google Sheets

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Airtable
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Airtable is a project management and collaboration platform designed to enable content pipelines, product management, events planning, user research, and more. It combines spreadsheet,database, calendar, and kanban functionality within one platform.
$24
per month per seat
Google Sheets
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Google Sheets is the spreadsheet app available on Google Workspace, or standalone, with a free plan for personal use and accessible via mobile apps for iOS and Android.N/A
Pricing
AirtableGoogle Sheets
Editions & Modules
Team
$24
per month per user
Business
$54
per month per user
Enterprise
Custom Pricing
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AirtableGoogle Sheets
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AirtableGoogle Sheets
Considered Both Products
Airtable
Chose Airtable
I have tried Trello, monday.com, Meister Task, and even Google Sheets. They are all great and solid applications. Some even have really nice user interfaces. However, none of them have met my primary need of being able to view my current projects and associated deadlines at a …
Chose Airtable
There's a saying that spreadsheets were never meant to be databases, and Airtable provides the missing piece for nontechnical users who need to hear that saying. It's more performant and provides more custom view options, for example, than Excel or Google Sheets.

Retool
Chose Airtable
AirTable does a great job at Project Management. You can easily create tasks and set up reminders, including automated reminder emails, when deadlines draw near. You can group the tasks and can also group tasks in a variety of ways (not started, pending, completed or …
Chose Airtable
Airtable is the best for structuring, automating and interacting with data, but only for internal use. For public-facing needs, other apps are required for their support of custom domains and styling.
Chose Airtable
Airtable is far more sophisticated than Sheets or Excel in terms of its functions. The interface is also much easier on the eyes. People are less familiar with it and there is a bit of a learning curve, but overall, Airtable empowers us to do more and to better understand our …
Chose Airtable
Airtable is more presentable and fluid both in terms of project management and scheduling :)
Chose Airtable
Airtable is:
  • More customizable.
  • Simpler to use than Excel or Sheets—you don't need to write formulas
Google Sheets
Chose Google Sheets
My organization uses Google Sheets instead of Microsoft Excel because we are a Google shop. Sheets permissions are especially easy via existing Google Workspace groups. We're a very collaborative company that values easy browser-based simultaneous document editing and …
Features
AirtableGoogle Sheets
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Airtable
7.8
235 Ratings
1% above category average
Google Sheets
-
Ratings
Task Management8.9199 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Management8.0193 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts8.489 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling7.4165 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation8.0143 Ratings00 Ratings
Team Collaboration8.0218 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology8.3108 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology8.580 Ratings00 Ratings
Document Management7.5170 Ratings00 Ratings
Email integration7.1115 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access5.8191 Ratings00 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking7.693 Ratings00 Ratings
Change request and Case Management8.0102 Ratings00 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management7.2127 Ratings00 Ratings
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User Ratings
AirtableGoogle Sheets
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(239 ratings)
9.2
(41 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(5 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(36 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(30 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
5.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
AirtableGoogle Sheets
Likelihood to Recommend
Airtable
Airtable is an ideal platform for small and growing businesses to keep track of just about EVERYTHING they need to keep things running smoothly. It's a great way to keep tasks organized, and keep everyone on the same page with progress on all things. Our company finds the kanban particularly useful, as products go through a lifecycle from ideation to retirement, it's good to keep a database of what is in production, what's working, and what we've tried before. I can see the platform being challenging with much larger businesses, but for the small to medium businesses I've used the platform with, it is ideal.
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Google
Google Sheets is great for just recording tabular information that needs to be shared with and/or edited by multiple people. Sharing and collaborating is especially convenient because Sheets is designed to be browser-based; while Excel has a browser version, it's limited compared to the desktop app. Google Sheets's editing, suggesting, commenting, and viewing permissions settings are absolutely perfect for my department. Google Sheets does not handle large datasets well. It does not load in a timely manner and often freezes. Apps Scripts fail to process large amounts of data.
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Pros
Airtable
  • I can create tables, create and customize fields
  • Airtable has capabilities commonly found in spreadsheet applications, but also has some of the features found in databases.
  • The ability to filter fields. I set up a filter on the status field, so when a project is marked, complete, on hold, or canceled, that record is hidden from my current projects table view. If it is marked complete, the record is moved to the completed projects table view. In this way I can easily access a record of past projects
  • Being able to duplicate tables and create alternate views
  • Collapse and expand records. When I collapse the rows, I can easily scan current projects, next steps, project status, and due dates. When I expand the row, or field, I can see more detailed information about that field or record very easily. I can also expand or open the entire record. This is is helpful, when I am entering a lot of information to multiple fields in that record.
Read full review
Google
  • It is a cloud-based platform.
  • You can work in the same file simultaneously with your colleagues.
  • It allows you to share files much faster.
  • It allows you to access your Google Sheet files whenever you like and wherever you like if you have stable internet connection.
  • It has great integration with other Google software.
  • Google Sheets is very user-friendly and very intuitive to use.
Read full review
Cons
Airtable
  • When records are deleted, there could be more options for what happens to associated records in other tables.
  • Multi-select fields should be sortable.
  • The per-user pricing model can be cumbersome when you need to share bases with third parties but can't use a publicly accessible URL.
Read full review
Google
  • Pivot tables are different but could be improved upon; sort, totals, filters
  • When entering negative numbers as the first in a formula you need to remember to "+-100+25" instead of "-100+25"
  • The power of the internet of course makes it easy to find solution, but the help function is not easily available
  • Color coding changes on the cell, but there is not an easy way to click on a cell and use the selected color; like excel
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Likelihood to Renew
Airtable
We will 10/10 renew the use of Airtable because it has brought great value to our team. Not only is Airtable affordable, but it's also user-friendly and helps our team be efficient. We no longer need to rely on Excel spreadsheets being passed from person to person via email. Furthermore, we aren't dealing with corrupt Excel spreadsheets and the need to salvage data when a file is accidentally altered.
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Google
It is easy to use, free of charge for basic functionality, and easy to share with people within or outside your team or company
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Usability
Airtable
IMO the usability of this product is its greatest asset. The UI is clean and the menus are intuitive to the point where I'd feel confident having a non-spreadsheety colleague take on building an Airtable for the first time with next to no training. I can't say that about every table-like software product that I've used such as Notion.
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Google
Overall the formula functions could improve but there's workarounds for them. Utilzing different formulas or approaches for building out accounting schedules. While collebrating with multiple team members and different departments being able to go in and see where others are on the sheets is helpful. Google Sheets overall is a great product
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Reliability and Availability
Airtable
I have rarely experience downtime, compared to other tools, and given how much time we spend on the tool. Even if there were to be, their updates on it are very timely, and our support team are able to provide any questions regarding
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Google
Like most Google products, Google Sheets rarely has outages or slowness, and when it does, connection is always momentarily restored. I can't recall a time when I've been unable to access Google Sheets but able to access other sites just fine. That said, errors aren't uncommon when handling large data volume. You know what they say about using spreadsheets as databases, but sometimes it's just the most convenient option, especially for smaller or one-off projects, and not being able to store large amounts of data hampers our ability to move quickly with scrappy prototypes or full solutions. It would be great if we could better integrate our data manipulation (Apps Script) with big data in the sheet.
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Performance
Airtable
I never had any issues with load time, even with the integrations that we use today (google sheets) However, I'm curious if adding additional layers of integrations would slow down performance. We do carry quite a bit of data in Airtable, but, again, no impact on overall performance
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Google
Again, Google Sheets is no exception to Google's general high speed and reliability, but load times can be slow for larger amounts of data. I've used Sheets with Zapier and have used the Python API, and speed has never been an issue.
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Support Rating
Airtable
Airtable has great support. They have a variety of support features to answer any questions. They have great self teaching instructions for templates and product tours. They also have support for teams and project management. They also have a fantastic customer help line. They are able and willing to answer customer questions and never have customers waiting long
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Google
I have never contacted Google Sheets support, but Google Sheets makes it very easy to report an issue or suggest a feature from Sheets itself (Help > Help Sheets improve), and I've had mostly good experiences with support for other Google products.
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In-Person Training
Airtable
This training was done in-house, but the Airtable team provided resources and how to guides to ensure that we covered all components of the system
Read full review
Google
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Airtable
Recorded trainings were provided by the Airtable team. Great as an evergreen resources to new team members and for anyone that wants to refresh their Airtable knowledge
Read full review
Google
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Airtable
Training all users was an important part of the implementation, which did take considerable time and effort. At first glance without training, the content calendar can be overwhelming because of the amount of data. The features within Airtable seem to be endless but our team was able to identify the most important to be successful.
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Google
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Airtable
Airtable was a really good fit for this specific use case as it provided a huge number of collaboration features in an intuitive and pleasant-to-use interface. The free tier worked initially with our work, and the upgrade pathway was fair and made sense for us.
Read full review
Google
The major reason I use Google Sheets over Microsoft Excel and Apple Numbers is for its ability to allow multiple users to access and work on the same spreadsheet at once. This is incredibly more efficient and effective than updating and sending copies upon copies of the same Excel or Numbers spreadsheet back and forth as email attachments.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Airtable
I did not help purchase the product, but Airtable's per user pricing structure is inconvenient when some users only need occasional or read-only use.
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Google
I'm not involved with the purchase, but I assume everything goes smoothly and that the pricing structure is predictable and reasonable. We do not get surprise fees.
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Scalability
Airtable
There are TONS of opportunity to scale, but I think it's a matter if you have the time and resources to do so because the initial setup can be fairly time consuming and prioritized dedication
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Google
Google Sheets works very well with multiple users. It's convenient to see in real-time who is collaborating in a sheet, down to the specific cell that they're viewing/editing. Linking Sheets across departments is convenient with the IMPORTRANGE function.
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Return on Investment
Airtable
  • It gives us a real-time experience of working.
  • Through this platform, I always have the idea bout which of my team member is working on which particular part of the project, I can easily track their progress, and also I can easily correct them where it is required by adding sticky notes, by sending the attachments and URLs.
  • Quality services.
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Google
  • We've used it to prepare quick budgets, presentations for funds that have helped raise money
  • It has helped us quickly analyze raw data, collaboratively.
  • it has helped us work more efficiently by making it easier to work from one sheet and not lose track of versions by passing around attached documents
Read full review
ScreenShots

Airtable Screenshots

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