Airtable
airtable.com · No-code and internal tools
Spreadsheet-database hybrid for building team workflows and apps.
69 open items · 53 source threads · 1 source type · updated 2026-08
This page rests on 53 Hacker News threads. No other public source type applies to Airtable yet; every item links to the comment it came from.
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Pain points 50
| Item | Area | Severity | Support | Last seen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airtable is slow for client-facing and internal work The user likes Airtable's UX and fit for client-facing and internal tools, but finds it slow. |
Performance | Blocks work | 2 sources | 2023-01 |
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| High prices and limitations require extra tools or hacks The user says Airtable is too expensive given its limitations, which require custom workarounds or additional paid products. They also express little confidence that future changes will improve the situation. |
Pricing & plans | Causes churn | 1 source | 2026-08 |
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| Low-code limits create migration risk for business-critical work The user worries that Airtable may not support future requirements and that moving a live project away could take months, letting competitors get ahead. Affects: Companies using Airtable for operational work |
Data export & migration | Causes churn | 1 source | 2022-08 |
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| Airtable API keys are not scoped The author says an Airtable API key can let anyone who obtains it modify the base, making it risky to use Airtable directly as a website data source. Affects: Developers using Airtable as a website data source |
Permissions & security | Causes churn | 1 source | 2020-05 |
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| Complex Airtable schemas are difficult to map during migration During an Airtable migration, the author found unexpected field behavior, relationship configurations, and inconsistent single-select values while mapping the schema, extending discovery from an expected week to five weeks. |
Data export & migration | Blocks work | 1 source | 2026-04 |
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| Airtable API omits automations and interface details Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
API & developer experience | Blocks work | 1 source | 2026-04 |
| Airtable data capacity becomes difficult to scale Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Performance | Blocks work | 1 source | 2024-03 |
| Moving an Airtable base to a full database takes substantial effort Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Data export & migration | Blocks work | 1 source | 2023-09 |
| India-issued cards are not supported for subscriptions Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Billing | Blocks work | 1 source | 2023-09 |
| HTML content fields are poorly supported Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Customization | Blocks work | 1 source | 2023-07 |
| Missing SSO is a buyer blocker Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Permissions & security | Blocks work | 1 source | 2023-06 |
| API pagination and joining linked-table data are slow Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
API & developer experience | Blocks work | 1 source | 2023-03 |
| Row limits and difficult features constrain Airtable projects Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Pricing & plans | Blocks work | 1 source | 2023-02 |
| Airtable database queries are very slow Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Performance | Blocks work | 1 source | 2023-01 |
| Slow API makes the project slow Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Performance | Blocks work | 1 source | 2023-01 |
| Airtable is a poor fit for company CRM use Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Other | Blocks work | 1 source | 2022-11 |
| Airtable table queries lack expressiveness Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
API & developer experience | Blocks work | 1 source | 2022-10 |
| Bugs in low-code tools slow work down Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Reliability & bugs | Blocks work | 1 source | 2022-08 |
| Airtable’s blank-slate setup requires too much customization Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Setup & onboarding | Blocks work | 1 source | 2022-07 |
| Airtable feels too limited for serious use Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Other | Blocks work | 1 source | 2022-04 |
| Airtable limitations for a self-managed image gallery Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Customization | Blocks work | 1 source | 2021-12 |
| No-code tool stack becomes expensive Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Pricing & plans | Blocks work | 1 source | 2021-11 |
| Free-tier row cap makes Airtable backend hard to use Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Pricing & plans | Blocks work | 1 source | 2021-05 |
| Airtable API lacks basic developer features Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
API & developer experience | Blocks work | 1 source | 2021-03 |
| Paid plans are too expensive for some businesses Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Pricing & plans | Blocks work | 1 source | 2021-03 |
| Airtable struggles with medium-sized tables Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Performance | Blocks work | 1 source | 2021-03 |
| Not a replacement for a general-purpose spreadsheet Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Other | Blocks work | 1 source | 2020-11 |
| Airtable's limitations undermine its value over spreadsheets Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Other | Blocks work | 1 source | 2020-09 |
| Airtable's 50,000-row plan limit Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Pricing & plans | Blocks work | 1 source | 2020-07 |
| Airtable API limits block heavier CMS workloads Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
API & developer experience | Blocks work | 1 source | 2020-07 |
| Airtable row limits and vendor lock-in risk Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Data export & migration | Blocks work | 1 source | 2020-06 |
| Fine-grained record access is hard to implement Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Permissions & security | Blocks work | 1 source | 2020-06 |
| Airtable API cannot directly upload images Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
API & developer experience | Blocks work | 1 source | 2020-06 |
| Airtable scrolling performance is abysmal Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Performance | Blocks work | 1 source | 2020-06 |
| Mobile interface lacks filtering and sorting Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Mobile | Blocks work | 1 source | 2020-04 |
| High per-seat pricing for Airtable Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Pricing & plans | Blocks work | 1 source | 2020-01 |
| Airtable pricing is too expensive for team use Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Pricing & plans | Blocks work | 1 source | 2019-06 |
| Record limits constrain base growth Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Pricing & plans | Blocks work | 1 source | 2019-06 |
| Limited rich-text support Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
UI & usability | Blocks work | 1 source | 2019-01 |
| Airtable falls short for spreadsheet-style number crunching Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Performance | Blocks work | 1 source | 2018-03 |
| Per-user pricing is too expensive for small businesses Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Pricing & plans | Blocks work | 1 source | 2018-03 |
| Airtable lacks referential integrity Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Customization | Blocks work | 1 source | 2018-02 |
| Airtable limitations make the user hesitant to switch Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Other | Blocks work | 1 source | 2017-02 |
| Airtable web clipper requires an extra selection step Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
UI & usability | Annoyance | 1 source | 2023-10 |
| Airtable lists need extra work to look presentable Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
UI & usability | Annoyance | 1 source | 2023-03 |
| No native desktop or mobile clients Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Mobile | Annoyance | 1 source | 2023-01 |
| No support for vanilla SQL Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
API & developer experience | Annoyance | 1 source | 2021-10 |
| Airtable is expensive for personal accounting Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Pricing & plans | Annoyance | 1 source | 2020-10 |
| Frequent sales emails after account registration Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Support | Annoyance | 1 source | 2020-04 |
| Airtable is less approachable than spreadsheets or Trello Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
UI & usability | Annoyance | 1 source | 2018-07 |
Feature requests 9
| Item | Area | Severity | Support | Last seen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Add graph views linked to spreadsheet data The user wants an Airtable-like tool where relational spreadsheet data can also be viewed as a graph, with the graph updating alongside the data. They do not know of a popular tool that offers this combination. |
Customization | Blocks work | 1 source | 2023-03 |
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| On-premises hosting is unavailable Teams seeking an on-premises or privately hosted deployment cannot use Airtable for that requirement, and may need to consider another solution. Affects: Teams that prefer on-premises or privately hosted solutions |
Self-hosting & upgrades | Blocks work | 1 source | 2021-05 |
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| Add webhooks The user notes that Airtable does not have webhooks, which they want for a headless CMS workflow. |
API & developer experience | Blocks work | 1 source | 2020-07 |
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| Native webhooks for row updates The author wants native webhook support to ingest row updates, rather than relying on bespoke integrations. |
Integrations | Blocks work | 1 source | 2020-01 |
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| Create linked records directly from forms The user wanted to use Airtable for a survey but found that creating a new linked record while entering form data was a long-standing missing feature. |
Customization | Blocks work | 1 source | 2018-11 |
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| Add random number functions Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Customization | Blocks work | 1 source | 2018-11 |
| Create an open format for Airtable data Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Data export & migration | Blocks work | 1 source | 2018-03 |
| Lower the price of the Pro plan Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Pricing & plans | Annoyance | 1 source | 2018-03 |
| Add a UI form builder for CRUD apps Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Customization | Annoyance | 1 source | 2017-09 |
Workarounds 2
| Item | Area | Severity | Support | Last seen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily manual trigger for CRM and accounting imports A small sales company's bookkeeping and office administrator replaced manual data imports with a Postman collection, but still has to click a button every day to run it. Affects: Bookkeeping and office administrator at a small sales company |
Integrations | Annoyance | 1 source | 2021-03 |
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| Python script avoids repetitive multi-table job entry Entering information for each job into multiple Airtable tables became tedious. The author uses a Python command-line script to collect the details and create entries in the relevant tables through the API. Affects: Small home-cleaning service |
API & developer experience | Annoyance | 1 source | 2019-02 |
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Switching reasons 8
| Item | Area | Severity | Support | Last seen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abandoned Airtable for internal tools as the company grew The company partially moved from spreadsheets to Airtable, then abandoned Airtable in favor of internal Node/Python tools as its needs grew. The post says the new tools are more robust and capable, but less flexible. Affects: Growing company |
Customization | Causes churn | 1 source | 2024-03 |
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| Leaving Airtable after finding it inadequate for app building The author says Airtable lacked what they needed to build apps and says goodbye, comparing it unfavorably with Microsoft Power Platform. |
Customization | Causes churn | 1 source | 2023-09 |
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| Moved off Airtable for stronger database security After using Airtable with Bubble, the team moved to Bubble’s database and then migrated to Xano, which they considered to have much better security. |
Permissions & security | Causes churn | 1 source | 2022-11 |
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| Airtable's monthly cost prompts consideration of alternatives The user likes Airtable but objects to its recurring invoice and is waiting for a self-hosted alternative to mature before considering a switch. |
Pricing & plans | Causes churn | 1 source | 2021-03 |
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| Airtable formulas cannot total a column like a spreadsheet The user says Airtable formulas are scoped to individual rows, preventing them from totaling a column, and switched to Google Sheets as a result. |
Reporting & analytics | Causes churn | 1 source | 2019-10 |
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| Switched from Airtable to Notion for speed and offline support Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Performance | Causes churn | 1 source | 2018-11 |
| Project nearing Airtable's limits prompts a possible migration Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
Self-hosting & upgrades | Blocks work | 1 source | 2023-03 |
| Considering Notion for richer knowledge formatting Locked: summary and evidence are part of Sprint Pass and Pro |
UI & usability | Blocks work | 1 source | 2018-11 |