[HN Gopher] APITable: open-source Airtable alternative
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APITable: open-source Airtable alternative
Author : chepy
Score : 199 points
Date : 2022-12-25 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| foolfoolz wrote:
| the best air table alternative is google sheets
| czx4f4bd wrote:
| In what way? Google Sheets doesn't offer nearly the same set of
| functionality without a lot of extra scripting work on top.
| Also, it isn't open source.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Nonsense, it's obviously emacs.
| christmaspizza wrote:
| Is there an ongoing trend of sketchy "OSS" product offerings
| using this same website layout and similar fake quotes from
| users? I feel like I'm seeing this a lot recently.
| xfz wrote:
| Looks good, are they going to offer a hosted model? I couldn't
| find pricing on their website, just an email sign-up.
|
| Airtable's pricing just didn't work for me as an individual user
| - $$$s per month even for a simple table with ~2000 rows. At
| least Google had the good sense to make it accessible to
| individuals, because those same people then go on to make
| decisions at work.
| teej wrote:
| Google, with the monopoly profits it commands in search, can
| afford to subsidize everything else. A startup that does one
| thing cannot.
| 0x008 wrote:
| Also try out NocoDB as a good air table alternative.
| tough wrote:
| nocodb seatable are good options
| djbberko42 wrote:
| I hope you've reissued the secret keys you accidentally checked
| in (as you can see them in the PR diffs). Cool project!
| comprev wrote:
| This alone doesn't fill me with much confidence. Such a basic
| opsec error.
| florbo wrote:
| Eh, mistakes happen. For me it's all about how they're
| handled.
| connordoner wrote:
| And, so far, it's been handled pretty damn crap.
| moralestapia wrote:
| This is great but I have trouble running it, so I just opened a
| couple PRs and bug reports.
|
| Thanks for releasing this!
| Mortiffer wrote:
| Is it just me or is this category of product exploding right now?
|
| Here, a list of similar tools that let you easily make a data
| model and generate some descent UI from it ?
|
| https://budibase.com/ https://baserow.io/ https://directus.io/
| https://strapi.io/ https://nocodb.com/ https://keystonejs.com/
| https://saltcorn.com/ https://www.plasmic.app/
| https://www.appsmith.com/ https://www.jigdev.com/
| https://www.sanity.io/ https://www.jetadmin.io/
| https://dashibase.com/ https://cortezaproject.org/
|
| The above are only the open source ones with a descent number of
| GitHub stars. I can't think of another time when I found so much
| competition in one product category. Or am I mistaken and this is
| not special?
| rvba wrote:
| Isnt there some joke that every month a new starup tries to
| reinvent pivot tables?
| melony wrote:
| There's also https://github.com/illacloud/illa-builder.
|
| Only Retool alternative I have found so far that's not AGPL or
| open core.
| hysan wrote:
| I've noticed that productivity tooling has been exploding in
| recent years. Note taking is another similar category where
| there is a ton of competition. Things were already ramping up
| pre-COVID, but ever since the WFH movement started, I've gotten
| the sense that there has been a lot of monetary investment in
| this space.
| ralph84 wrote:
| Before they get too far along they should consider changing the
| name. Airtable would probably have a good trademark infringement
| case that it's confusingly similar.
| nawgz wrote:
| You really think so? "Table" is common database vernacular and
| "API" is the most generic term in all of software these days.
| APITable also sounds nothing like Airtable and doesn't even
| have similar connotations. Gonna have to disagree with you, but
| open to hearing more context for your thought if you care to
| expand
| mtmail wrote:
| > doesn't even have similar connotations
|
| IMHO their tagline is "Open source & Airtable alternative" so
| they're trying to make a connection
| jswny wrote:
| Airtable was so cool when I tried it years ago but it was
| insufferably slow. Just unusable as are many web apps these days
| unfortunately
| [deleted]
| darkteflon wrote:
| We use Airtable a lot with work projects; I also use it for
| some personal stuff - a web-available relational database is
| very convenient. But yup, it's still slow as molasses.
| mark_mart wrote:
| Are they mostly for marketing? I have never needed something
| like Airtable, so just curious.
| hysan wrote:
| For those who have tried, how does this compare to other Airtable
| alternatives like Nocodb, Baserow, Seatable, etc?
| TedShiller wrote:
| Airtable was a really cool startup when they came out in 2012.
| There was nothing else like it. Now, with their mass layoffs, and
| free alternatives, it makes you wonder if they can survive as a
| company.
| bachmeier wrote:
| I have an account and I've tried to use it. It's never been
| clear to me who their paid customer is - though obviously
| they've found a ton of customers, so this is nothing more than
| my own curiosity.
|
| The entry-level paid plan is limited to 5000 rows, so it's not
| a substitute for an SQL database. If I want to capture data in
| this type of app with a few hundred rows, why not use a
| spreadsheet, which everyone already knows how to use and
| already has installed? For other uses, Trello significantly
| overlaps, but with a simpler interface. Put differently, why
| pay for Airtable unless you need a performant way to manage a
| significant amount of data?
| CPLX wrote:
| I'm using it for internal business process stuff. Like
| keeping track of client deliverables, events, things like
| that.
|
| It's basically the next step when you're annoyed with Google
| Sheets for that kind of thing. The advantage is that it's
| just super quick and easy to use for normal people that want
| to go one step past a normal excel type spreadsheet into
| something with a little bit of automation or custom views.
| ushakov wrote:
| They're a $10B+ company now. Incredible, isn't it?
| lancesells wrote:
| According to the $1.4B they raised. Love the product but
| let's not get ahead of ourselves.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| gkoberger wrote:
| I see some serious red flags on their homepage:
|
| * "Partners" just seem to be logo-hijacking potential hosting
| platforms (not actual partnerships)
|
| * Most of the links in the footer don't work
|
| * The testimonials use fake names + stock art
|
| * API keys checked into a public repo
|
| * Seems to be built by (or somehow associated with) this company
| (hhttps://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/312911-47), but with no
| links back
|
| Please be careful using this product. Not trying to be insulting;
| but if you're going to use it I'd make sure you install it
| locally.
|
| That being said, I love this as a concept. Airtable is so so nice
| as a backend/DB for simple sites, and I'm intrigued by an open
| source competitor!
| fnord123 wrote:
| > Airtable is so so nice as a backend/DB for simple sites, and
| I'm intrigued by an open source competitor!
|
| https://baserow.io/
| darkteflon wrote:
| Looks interesting but it's only open-core: loads of important
| features locked behind subscription pricing, plus you lose
| the ability to self-host: https://baserow.io/pricing
| christmaspizza wrote:
| Is there an ongoing trend of sketchy "OSS" product offerings
| using this same website layout and similar fake quotes from
| users? I feel like I'm seeing this a lot recently.
|
| edit: through "product hunt"?
|
| further edit: looks like this isn't new:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29864157 maybe it's just
| gotten worse and I've noticed it or its "products" in my feeds
| recently
| jahewson wrote:
| It's also AGPL licensed but has incompatibly-licensed
| dependencies.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| wow yeah this is as strong of an AVOID signal as it gets.
| bluelightning2k wrote:
| This looks awesome. Really well done and certainly well
| presented!
| pomatic wrote:
| Looks very promising from the landing page... but the one click
| gitpod instance is localised in a language that I don't speak.
| (Mandarin? Thai?). Is there English language support available,
| and if so, how does one turn it on?
| moralestapia wrote:
| This!
|
| By translating a lot of things I was able to reach an options
| panel with a language setting, among the options there was
| "English (beta)" and clicking on it restarts the UI but nothing
| changes.
| erdos4d wrote:
| I don't see the point of this. Airtable sucks at anything except
| providing a managed database you can store a small amount of data
| in for free. If you have to do the hosting yourself, just choose
| postgres.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Is there a user-friendly web interface for Postgres that you
| recommend? A database on its own isn't really a replacement for
| Airtable.
| kgodey wrote:
| We're building one - our first release is coming early 2023:
| https://github.com/centerofci/mathesar
| CPLX wrote:
| You can get a non-technical person to spin up a Postgres
| database to do something like keep track of ad campaign run
| dates or client deliverables or whatever?
| xenospn wrote:
| This is fantastic - can't wait to try it out!
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(page generated 2022-12-25 23:00 UTC)