Head to head
Airtable vs Softr (2026)
Airtable takes the overall rating, but this pairing is decided on axes rather than totals: Airtable leads 7 of the ten, Softr leads 2.
Airtable
A database everyone already has, now trying to be an app platform
4.0out of 5
Buy it as a database, use the app features as a bonus, and take the agent surface seriously. Airtable is one of the most reliable data layers in this index at 4.5, and its API and MCP score of 4.8 is now the highest on this site, above Totalum's 4.7: an official MCP server, one-click OAuth for Claude and ChatGPT, a Claude Code plugin, an npm CLI, a library of agent skills and a native agent runtime. That is the strongest first-party agent surface on the roster. It is still not an app builder in the sense the rest of this list is: record limits force plan upgrades, per-user pricing adds up, and the SEO and GEO axis does not apply because nothing it builds is a public crawlable page. Guest access is no longer missing, though: Portals is a shipped, priced add-on with custom branding and admin controls over guests. As the backend under Softr or Glide, it is close to unbeatable.
- Price from
- USD 20 / user / month, billed annually
- Best for
- Teams that need shared operational data first and an interface over it second
- Ratings
- 31
Softr
The fastest way to put a usable front end on a spreadsheet
3.8out of 5
Excellent at one job and honest about it. If your data is already in Airtable and you need a gated portal your clients can log into, Softr gets you there faster than anything else in the index, with permissions that behave. It is also more programmable than we previously published: a REST API and an MCP server are available from the entry paid tier, with the vendor's own caveat that certain endpoints may be limited to higher plans. The commercial shape is the thing to understand before you commit. Softr meters two seat axes at once, builders and app users, on top of record and action caps, so a portal gets more expensive precisely as its audience grows. And there is no code export at all: no source to take away and no migration path off the platform, which is why code ownership sits at 2.1. AI credits are 5 a month on Free and 10 on Basic, which makes the AI co-builder a demo rather than a working method at those tiers. Rent it for a portal. Do not build a product on it.
- Price from
- USD 19 / month, billed monthly
- Best for
- Client portals, membership directories and internal views over data that already lives in Airtable
- Ratings
- 26
What each one looks like
Axis by axis
The leader on each axis is set in bold. The weight column is what that axis contributes to the overall rating, so a win on reliability counts for more than five times a win on code ownership.
| Axis | Weight | Airtable | Softr | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16% | 4.5 | 4.1 | Airtable |
| Integrations | 16% | 4.6 | 4.2 | Airtable |
| SEO and GEO | 13% | n/a | n/a | Not compared, axis does not apply |
| Design quality | 12% | 3.8 | 3.9 | Softr |
| Agent performance | 10% | 3.5 | 3.2 | Airtable |
| Speed | 9% | 4.0 | 3.7 | Airtable |
| Value | 9% | 3.2 | 3.9 | Softr |
| Scalability | 7% | 3.5 | 3.1 | Airtable |
| API and MCP access | 5% | 4.8 | 3.9 | Airtable |
| Code ownership | 3% | 2.3 | 2.1 | Airtable |
| Overall, weighted | 100% | 4.0 | 3.8 | Airtable |
Axis definitions and the full weighting are on how we review. Both tools last verified 20 August 2026.
Where the capabilities differ
| Capability | Airtable | Softr |
|---|---|---|
| Full-stack backend | Partial, data and automations | No, front end over a data source |
| Database included | Yes, this is the product | Yes, or connect Airtable and Sheets |
| Auth included | Yes for collaborators, plus guest access through the Portals add-on | Yes, with user groups and gated pages |
| Code export | No, data export only | No, none at all, and no migration path off the platform |
| GitHub sync | No | No |
| One-click deploy | Yes, Interfaces publish instantly | Yes |
| Custom domain | No, though Portals publishes branded guest access | Yes, paid plans |
| Mobile or native output | Native mobile client | Responsive web and PWA |
| Team collaboration | Best in class | Yes |
| Public API or MCP server | Yes, and the strongest here: official MCP server, one-click OAuth for Claude and ChatGPT, a Claude Code plugin, an npm CLI, an agent-skills library and a native agent runtime | Yes, REST API and MCP server from the entry paid tier, with the vendor noting certain endpoints may be limited to higher plans |
| Self-hosting the output | No | No |
Shaded rows are the ones where the two differ.
What each one costs
Airtable
Free plan with record limits. Team at USD 20 per user a month billed annually, USD 24 monthly, and Portals guest access is a separate add-on from USD 120 a month for 15 guests.
Team plan, billed annually. USD 24 billed monthly. Portals guest access is a separate add-on from USD 120 a month for 15 guests.
| Plan | Price |
|---|---|
| Free | Free |
| Team | USD 20 |
| Business | Not captured |
| Enterprise Scale | On request |
Softr
Apps, databases, workflows and forms are unlimited on every tier including Free. What Free limits is builders (3), app users (5), database records (5K) and workflow actions (500 a month). Paid plans from USD 19 a month.
Basic plan.
| Plan | Price |
|---|---|
| Free | Free |
| Basic | USD 19 |
| Professional | Not captured |
Prices are shown in the currency each vendor publishes, never converted. Sorting by price groups the currencies and orders within each one, so it is not an exact cross-currency comparison.
We list the plans we could verify on the vendor's own pricing page. Where a plan exists but its price was not published in a form we could capture, the row says so rather than carrying a number we cannot source.
Which one should you choose
Pick Airtable if your project looks like teams that need shared operational data first and an interface over it second. Its strongest axes in this pairing are reliability, integrations, agent performance. Avoid it for building an actual product, or anything with public pages.
Pick Softr if your project looks like client portals, membership directories and internal views over data that already lives in airtable. Its strongest axes here are design quality, value. Avoid it for products with their own data model, or anything that has to scale past a few thousand active users.
And the dissenting notes, which we publish rather than average away: on Airtable, Two panellists thought Airtable should not be in an app builder index at all. It stays because Interfaces are marketed as app building and buyers evaluate it that way. On Softr, One panellist argued the value score is too low given how much consulting work a Softr portal displaces. The majority held the mark because the free plan stops at three builders, five app users and 5K records, so a real deployment is on a paid tier immediately.
Frequently asked
- Is Airtable better than Softr?
- On our weighted overall rating, Airtable scores higher: 4.0 for Airtable against 3.8 for Softr. Axis by axis it is closer than that sounds. Airtable leads 7 of the 9 axes that apply to both, Softr leads 2, and 0 are tied. The right choice depends on which axes you weight, not on which total is larger.
- Which is cheaper, Airtable or Softr?
- Airtable starts at USD 20 / user / month, billed annually and Softr starts at USD 19 / month, billed monthly. Each figure is the vendor's own published price and currency, not converted, so compare the pricing models rather than the two numbers: Airtable bills as free plan with record limits. team at usd 20 per user a month billed annually, usd 24 monthly, and portals guest access is a separate add-on from usd 120 a month for 15 guests. and Softr bills as apps, databases, workflows and forms are unlimited on every tier including free. what free limits is builders (3), app users (5), database records (5k) and workflow actions (500 a month). paid plans from usd 19 a month..
- Can I move a project from Airtable to Softr?
- Only as far as code export allows. On the code ownership axis Airtable scores 2.3 and Softr scores 2.1 out of five, which reflects how much of the running application you can take with you and whether it still works once moved.
- Which one is better for search visibility?
- The SEO and GEO axis, which we weight at 13 percent, does not apply to both tools here. Airtable builds software that sits behind a login or ships to an app store, so there are no public crawlable pages to test and the axis is left out of its overall rating. That is true of both tools, so search visibility is not the axis to decide this pairing on.