TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Airtable

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AAirtable is a web-based application builder that combines spreadsheet usability with relational database architecture. The platform enables users to construct custom operational applications, configure automated workflows, and design tailored interfaces without traditional software development.

    $24

    per month per seat

    Microsoft Access

    Score7.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Access is a database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.

    $139.99

    per PC

    Pricing
    AirtableMicrosoft Access
    Editions & Modules
    Team
    $24
    per month per user
    Business
    $54
    per month per user
    Enterprise
    Custom Pricing
    Microsoft Access
    $139.99
    per PC
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    AirtableMicrosoft Access
    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
    AirtableMicrosoft Access
    Considered Both Products
    Airtable
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    96%
    Would buy again
    48 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    29 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    95%
    Delivers good value for the price
    40 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    29 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    49 Answers
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    28 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    39 Answers
    86%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    19 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    40 Answers
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    21 Answers
    Features
    AirtableMicrosoft Access
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of Airtable and Microsoft Access
    Feature
    Airtable
    7.8
    235 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Microsoft Access
    -
    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 Collaboration7.9218 Ratings00 Ratings
    Support for Agile Methodology8.3108 Ratings00 Ratings
    Support for Waterfall Methodology8.580 Ratings00 Ratings
    Document Management7.5170 Ratings00 Ratings
    Email integration7.2115 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Access5.9191 Ratings00 Ratings
    Timesheet Tracking7.893 Ratings00 Ratings
    Change request and Case Management8.2102 Ratings00 Ratings
    Budget and Expense Management7.1127 Ratings00 Ratings
    Relational Databases
    Comparison of Relational Databases features of Airtable and Microsoft Access
    Feature
    Airtable
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Access
    7.7
    3 Ratings
    5% below category average
    ACID compliance00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
    Database monitoring00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
    Database locking00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
    Encryption00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
    Disaster recovery00 Ratings7.73 Ratings
    Flexible deployment00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
    Multiple datatypes00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    AirtableMicrosoft Access
    Small Businesses
    Any.do
    Score8 out of 10
    Amazon RDS
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    KanbanFlow
    Score7.3 out of 10
    SingleStore
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Microsoft To Do
    Score7.9 out of 10
    SAP IQ
    Score5.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    AirtableMicrosoft Access
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (239 ratings)
    7.4
    (102 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.5
    (5 ratings)
    10.0
    (15 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (36 ratings)
    7.6
    (8 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (30 ratings)
    6.4
    (5 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    AirtableMicrosoft Access
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    As a Material Purchasing/Planning/inventory tracking application, Microsoft Access serves its purpose well. It's presentation is clean, data entry is simple and the ability to customize search fields is welcome. It does, however, come with some caveats; namely, when setting search filters and the need arises to back up a step or two, with Microsoft Access you have to reset, or "clear all", adding extra steps/time to a query.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Very easy to create entity-relationship diagrams for various tables and designing mock layouts.
    • Really easy to navigate as it hold[s] the classic Microsoft UI. Another good thing is that it comes with the complete MS Office Suite.
    • It is really fast when joining multiple tables no matter what type of join.
    • Works on pretty much same SQL scripts so no need to learn a new language!
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft Access has not really changed at all for several years. It might be nice to see some upgrades and changes.
    • The help info is often not helpful. Need more tutorials for Microsoft Access to show how to do specific things.
    • Be careful naming objects such as tables, forms, etc. Names that are too long can get cut off in dialog boxes to choose a table, form, report, etc. So, I wish they would have resizable dialog boxes to allow you to see objects with long names.
    • I wish it could show me objects that are not in use in the database for current queries, tables, reports, forms, and macros. That way unused objects can be deleted without worrying about losing a report or query because you deleted the underlying object.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    I and the rest of my team will renew our Microsoft Access in the future because we use and maintain many different applications and databases created using Microsoft Access so we will need to maintain them in the future. Additionally, it is a standard at our place of work so it is at $0 cost to us to use. Another reason for renewing Microsoft Access is that we just don' t have the resources needed to extend into a network of users so we need to remain a single-desktop application at this time.
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Access is easy to use. It is compatible with spreadsheets. It is a very good data management tool. There is scope to save a large amount of data in one place. For using this database, one does not need much training, can be shared among multiple users. This database has to sort and filtering features which seem to be very useful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    I don't think the program has ever failed me. It is one of those programs where there is always a solution if you know where to look.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    While I have never contacted Microsoft directly for product support, for some reason there's a real prejudice against MS Access among most IT support professionals. They are usually discouraging when it comes to using MS Access. Most of this is due to their lack of understanding of MS Access and how it can improve one's productivity. If Microsoft invested more resources towards enhancing and promoting the use of MS Access then maybe things would be different.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    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.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    there is no key idea, since it is easy to implement Microsoft Access
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Excel is a fantastic - robust application that can do so much so easily. Its easy to train and understand. However - excel does not provide a reporting function and that is typically where we will suggest a move to [Microsoft] Access. [Microsoft] Access requires a little more knowledge of data manipulation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Not having to recreate queries or reports every time you want to use them.
    • Once an item is created and saved as part of the database, you save manpower by not having to recreate them.
    • ROI from a usability standpoint is great. Solid product with great functionality that requires low maintenance usually.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Airtable Screenshots

    Product screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshot