If the only part of Airtable you open every day is the kanban view, an Airtable alternative can be a plain kanban board instead of another database. You give up linked tables, formulas and interfaces, and you stop paying per editor. If your team really runs on those tables, none of the boards on this page replace them, and a database alternative such as Baserow or NocoDB is the better move.
We build a kanban board, so we are not neutral. Airtable prices below come from Airtable's pricing page and its plan limits page, read on 22 October 2026. Check both before you budget, because plans change.
Why do people look for an Airtable alternative?
Most of the reasons come down to money and fit. Airtable bills per editor, and the Team plan is $20 per user per month on annual billing, while Business is $45. A team of ten editors on Team pays $200 a month before anyone has built a single automation.
The second reason is fit. Airtable is a database that happens to have a board view. A lot of teams start there because a spreadsheet felt too flat, put a to-do list into a base, and end up maintaining field types, linked records and permissions for what is really a three-column list.
Roundups also mention Airtable's change of ownership to Bending Spoons. Softr's comparison reports that Airtable says its prices will not change. Treat that as a reason to look at your options, not as a reason to panic.
Where does the Airtable free plan stop?
The free plan is real, and for a solo project it is enough. The limits are on Airtable's plan page: 1,000 records per base, 1 GB of attachments per base, and 5 collaborators with editor permissions. Read-only collaborators are unlimited.
The record limit is the one people hit. A card in a kanban view is a record, so a board that has been running for a year of client work can reach 1,000 cards without anyone noticing, and then new cards stop. That is the point where the free plan turns into the $20 per editor plan.
What do the current Airtable alternative lists miss?
The top results are long lists of nine to fifteen tools. The Softr roundup is written by a vendor that sells a competing product, and the monday.com one leads with monday.com. Both are built for teams replacing a company-wide database, with checklists for SSO and audit logs.
Neither answers the smaller question: what if you only ever used the board? Neither prices that case, and neither tells you what a card costs you in limits on a free plan. The rest of this post answers that.
What does Airtable cost compared with a flat-price board?
Airtable's cost is per editor, so it grows with every person who needs to move a card. Here are the annual-billing numbers for Team at $20 per editor per month.
| Editors | Airtable Team per month | Airtable Team per year |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | $100 | $1,200 |
| 10 | $200 | $2,400 |
| 25 | $500 | $6,000 |
EasyKanban is free for 3 boards with unlimited cards and up to 3 team members per board. Pro is €6 a month or €60 a year and removes the board and member limits. The honest comparison is not price for price, because Airtable can do things a board cannot. It is price for the job you actually use it for.
Which parts of Airtable does a kanban board replace?
A board replaces the view and the habits around it. Cards sit in columns, you drag them across, and you filter by tag or person. It does not replace formulas, rollups, linked tables or the interface designer.
A quick test: list the five tables in your base. If three of them are really lists of tasks with a status column, a board covers them. If they are linked, so that a client record feeds an invoice record feeds a project record, you are using a database and should stay on one.
Two things people expect from the board view that a plain board still does well:
- Limits on work in progress. Airtable's kanban view groups by a field and shows every record. A board can warn you when a column holds too many cards, which is how WIP limits keep a team from starting everything at once.
- Starting without setup. A base needs fields before it needs cards. A board needs a column name.
Which Airtable alternatives fit which kind of team?
Pick by what you use Airtable for, not by the longest feature list.
If you run a real database with linked records, Baserow and NocoDB are the closest match and both offer self-hosting. If your base is mostly docs and notes, Notion is the usual move, and we compare it in our Notion alternative guide. If you want one tool for projects, goals and docs and are fine with per-seat pricing, the ClickUp alternative guide walks through what that costs as a team grows.
If you want a board and nothing else, see how EasyKanban compares to Trello, or try a board without an account on the no-signup board. The comparison is simple: columns, cards and tags, at a price that does not move when a fourth person joins.
How do I move from Airtable to a kanban board?
Export the table as CSV from Airtable's grid view, then import that file into the board tool. EasyKanban reads a CSV and asks you to map its columns in the import dialog, pre-filling any column called Title. Keep one column for the card title and one for the stage.
Before you import, delete the fields you never look at. A board shows a title, a description and a tag. Attachments, comments, members and custom fields are not imported, so fourteen extra fields will not come along, and it is better to find that out on a copy than on your live base. Keep the Airtable base for a month and read from it, so nothing is lost if you change your mind.
What are the trade-offs of leaving Airtable?
You lose structure. Airtable stops you from typing text into a date field, and a board lets you write anything on a card. You lose automations that run between tables, and you lose the interface designer if you built client-facing pages with it.
You gain a smaller thing to maintain. For a team of three that tracks content, leads or client work, that trade is usually right. For a team of thirty with an operations base, it is usually wrong.
FAQ
What is the best free alternative to Airtable?
For a database, Baserow and NocoDB are free to self-host. For a task board, a free kanban board is enough. EasyKanban is free for 3 boards with unlimited cards, with no record limit like the 1,000 records per base on Airtable's free plan.
Is there an Airtable alternative with no per-seat pricing?
Yes. Airtable charges per editor, $20 a month on Team with annual billing. EasyKanban charges per account instead, free for 3 boards or €6 a month for Pro with unlimited boards and members, so adding a fourth person does not change the bill.
Can I import my Airtable data into a kanban board?
Yes, through CSV. Export the table from Airtable, make sure one column holds the stage and one holds the card title, then import it. Linked records, formulas, attachments and comments do not come across, so check a copy first.
Does Airtable have a kanban view on the free plan?
Airtable's plan page does not list the kanban view as restricted on Free, but it caps free bases at 1,000 records. Since each card is a record, a busy board reaches that cap, and new cards stop until you upgrade.
When should I stay on Airtable?
Stay if your work depends on linked tables, formulas or interfaces that other people use. A board is the better choice when the base has turned into a task list with a status column and you pay per editor to move cards.