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Airtable VS Salesforce Lightning Platform

Compare Airtable VS Salesforce Lightning Platform and see what are their differences

Airtable logo Airtable

Airtable works like a spreadsheet but gives you the power of a database to organize anything. Sign up for free.

Salesforce Lightning Platform logo Salesforce Lightning Platform

Low-Code Development Platforms
  • Airtable Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-19
  • Salesforce Lightning Platform Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-25

Airtable

Release Date
2013 January
Startup details
Country
United States
State
California
Founder(s)
Andrew Ofstad
Employees
250 - 499

Airtable features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Airtable provides an intuitive, visually appealing interface that makes it easy for users to create, manage, and navigate complex data sets without extensive technical knowledge.
  • Customizability
    Airtable offers robust customization options, allowing users to tailor databases and views to their specific needs, including various field types, multiple views, and linked records.
  • Collaboration Features
    Airtable supports real-time collaboration, enabling multiple users to work on the same database simultaneously while tracking changes and maintaining version history.
  • Integrations
    Airtable integrates with various third-party applications and services such as Slack, Google Drive, and Zapier, allowing for seamless workflow automation and enhanced productivity.
  • Templates
    Airtable offers a wide range of pre-built templates for different use cases, which helps users get started quickly without having to build everything from scratch.
  • Mobile App
    Airtable's mobile application allows users to access and manage their databases on the go, ensuring flexibility and continuous productivity.

Possible disadvantages of Airtable

  • Cost
    While Airtable offers a free tier, many of the more advanced features and higher usage limits are locked behind a subscription model, which can become costly for larger teams or extensive use.
  • Performance Issues
    Some users have reported performance issues with Airtable when working with very large databases, including slow load times and laggy interface responsiveness.
  • Limited Offline Access
    Airtable relies heavily on an internet connection, and its offline capabilities are limited, which may be a drawback for users who need consistent access without reliable internet.
  • Data Export Options
    Data export options are somewhat limited compared to other database management tools, making it more difficult to extract data in certain formats for use outside of Airtable.
  • Learning Curve
    Despite its user-friendly interface, the extensive features and customizability of Airtable can present a learning curve for new users, requiring time to explore and understand its full capabilities.
  • Lack of Advanced Features
    Airtable may lack some advanced features found in more specialized or traditional database management systems, making it less suitable for particularly complex or highly specific data management needs.

Salesforce Lightning Platform features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Salesforce Lightning offers a modern and intuitive user interface that is more visually appealing and easier to navigate compared to its predecessor, Salesforce Classic. This makes it easier for new users to learn and transition to the platform.
  • Component-Based Architecture
    The platform's component-based framework allows developers to build reusable components, which can save time and enhance consistency across applications.
  • Mobile Optimization
    Lightning is designed with mobile in mind, ensuring that applications built on this platform are mobile-responsive and can be accessed across various devices seamlessly.
  • Enhanced Productivity
    Features such as drag-and-drop builders, pre-built components, and a robust set of customization options help developers and business users create applications efficiently, improving overall productivity.
  • Integration Capabilities
    Lightning Platform supports integrations with a variety of other systems and applications through open APIs, allowing seamless data exchange and connectivity across platforms.

Possible disadvantages of Salesforce Lightning Platform

  • Complexity for Developers
    Developers accustomed to Salesforce Classic might face a steep learning curve when adapting to the Lightning Platform's new methodologies and tools.
  • Performance Issues
    Some users have reported slower performance speeds with Lightning, especially when dealing with highly customized implementations or large volumes of data.
  • Limited Compatibility
    Certain features and customizations available in Salesforce Classic may not yet be fully supported or transferred to Lightning, potentially limiting functionality for some users.
  • Higher Implementation Costs
    Transitioning to Lightning may involve significant upfront costs due to training, redevelopment of existing features, and customization, which can be a barrier for smaller organizations.
  • Frequent Updates
    While regular updates can be beneficial, they may also result in compatibility issues or require frequent adjustments to custom components, which can be challenging to manage.

Airtable videos

Airtable API Tutorial With cURL and JavaScript

More videos:

  • Review - Airtable Review | Features, Pricing & Team Use
  • Review - Airtable Blocks for Project Management
  • Review - Airtable vs. Google Sheets
  • Review - airtable review

Salesforce Lightning Platform videos

Salesforce Lightning Platform Overview Demo

More videos:

  • Review - Salesforce Lightning Platform

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Airtable and Salesforce Lightning Platform)
Project Management
95 95%
5% 5
No Code
98 98%
2% 2
BPM
0 0%
100% 100
Task Management
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Airtable and Salesforce Lightning Platform

Airtable Reviews

  1. Sanjana Shah
    · Data Scientist at Boston Institute of Analytics ·
    Airtable: Spreadsheets + Databases = Efficiency

    Airtable is a powerful cloud-based software that combines spreadsheets and databases, offering real-time collaboration and customizable features for efficient task management1.

    🏁 Competitors: monday.com, ClickUp, Smartsheet
    👍 Pros:    Free forever plan and affordable paid options starting at $10 per month.|Visually appealing and user-friendly interface.|Pre-made templates for easy setup and use.|Real-time collaboration and communication.|Customizable features for task management.
    👎 Cons:    Limited project customization without a paid plan.|Top-tier accounts required for gantt tools.|May take time to learn and grasp advanced features.

The Top 7 ClickUp Alternatives You Need to Know in 2025
Benefits:Airtable's ability to integrate various data sources into one platform allows teams to maintain a centralized source of truth while leveraging powerful visualization tools6.
Top 10 Notion Alternatives for 2025 and Why Teams Are Choosing Ledger
Airtable blends spreadsheets with database features, offering teams a powerful way to organize structured information. While its flexibility is impressive, it's not purpose-built for communication or team collaboration at scale.
25 Best Asana Alternatives & Competitors for Project Management in 2024
Airtable is one of the most popular Asana alternatives. It’s project management tool that helps teams create detailed databases for their work. Users can group and sort data in custom fields with views like Grid to include only the relevant project information.
Source: clickup.com
Top 10 Microsoft Power Apps Alternatives and Competitors 2024
Airtable Pricing: Airtable offers a freemium plan with limited features for individual users. Paid plans start at $10 per user per month for additional features and functionalities. Enterprise plans with custom pricing cater to large-scale deployments.
Source: medium.com
The 10 best Asana alternatives in 2024
If you're looking for a project management app that leans more toward data management, try Airtable. Out of the box, Airtable's default view looks like a spreadsheet. It offers a few project templates based on your team type (such as marketing or sales), or you can build a "base" from scratch. From there, you can add highly customizable fields (or columns) to each row, so...
Source: zapier.com

Salesforce Lightning Platform Reviews

10 Best Low-Code Development Platforms in 2020
OutSystems provides the platform for developers to easily deliver and edit those applications. Salesforce Lightning is a suite of tools for developing business apps. Zoho Creator low code development platform can be used by non-developers and is perfect for building simple applications.
Best Google App Maker alternatives in 2020
For small to medium sized businesses, it’s hard to pass up Retool for flexibility and price. While not free, AppSheet is similarly low-priced at $5 per user per month to begin with and is already integrated within Google Sheets and infrastructure. Many companies are already using the Microsoft Office365 suite of tools, making Microsoft Power Apps a great option as well....
Source: retool.com
The 11 Best Low-Code Development Platforms
The Salesforce Lightning solution combines data with RAD. It has all the power of Salesforce with low-code app development.Salesforce Lightning Platform combines tools such as App Builder, Lightning Flow, SalesforceDX, and Heroku in an all-in-one utility that dramatically speeds up the software development process.
Source: www.xplenty.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Airtable seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 130 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Airtable mentions (130)

  • How to Build Internal Tools 100x Faster
    It is possible to speed up the development and delivery process for many internal applications by using no-code or low code tools. These vary in offerings from open source to SaaS, including popular ones like AirTable, BudiBase, Retool, NocoDB and others. These can all greatly help speed up delivery times. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Growing a side-project to 100k Unique Visitors in one week
    For the backend, I opted for Airtable as a database. It's a simple, no-code solution that I've used before. It's not the most powerful database, but it's perfect for a project like this. I could easily add, edit, and delete records, and it has an embeddable form functionality that I used for user submissions. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • A list of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS offerings that have free tiers of interest to devops and infradev
    Airtable.com — Looks like a spreadsheet, but it's a relational database unlimited bases, 1,200 rows/base, and 1,000 API requests/month. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • How to generate links to a record to view it in an Interface?
    The ?XXXXX part of the URL identifies the type of interface page it is. Just copy that and then your formula is just "https://airtable.com.../...?XXXXXX=" & RECORD_ID() I'm not sure it works in every type of interface page (where you've started from a blank page for example). There has to be something to identify the record viewed from the page, if you see what I mean. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Working on a personal app for data tracking. looking for suggestions
    So I started building something on airtable.com that would allow me to easily track updates for each batch. What in your experience would make sense to track that I may be missing? Source: over 1 year ago
View more

Salesforce Lightning Platform mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Salesforce Lightning Platform yet. Tracking of Salesforce Lightning Platform recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Airtable and Salesforce Lightning Platform, you can also consider the following products

Asana - Asana project management is an effort to re-imagine how we work together, through modern productivity software. Fast and versatile, Asana helps individuals and groups get more done.

OutSystems - Build Enterprise-Grade Apps Fast.

Trello - Infinitely flexible. Incredibly easy to use. Great mobile apps. It's free. Trello keeps track of everything, from the big picture to the minute details.

Kissflow - Kissflow is a workflow tool & business process workflow management software to automate your workflow process. Rated #1 cloud workflow software in Google Apps Marketplace.

Basecamp - A simple and elegant project management system.

Mendix - Mendix is the fastest and easiest low-code platform used by businesses to create and continuously improve mobile and web apps at scale.