Airtable vs. Notion: Detailed Comparison – 2024

Airtable and Notion are renowned and popular services for project management and collaboration. We have decided to compare them. In this comparison, we will consider their areas of application, functionality, advantages, disadvantages, and, of course, prices. Let's begin with a general description of both systems, briefly discussing what they are and what they are intended for.

Airtable is a cloud platform for the creation and management of relational databases and workflows. With its help, companies and teams can store and organize any type of information (projects, tasks, clients, ideas, etc.), as well as interact with it. Sometimes it is called Airtable CRM, used for appropriate purposes. However, the capabilities of this system are more extensive and diverse.

The service was founded in 2012. The headquarters of the developers are located in San Francisco (USA). The creators position Airtable as a low-code platform for developing next-gen applications. It combines database functionality with the convenience of online tables. This is one of its most attractive features. Beyond databases, Airtable helps you create and manage workflows. This platform is great for marketing, sales, product management, operations management, finance, HR, and other areas. Built-in AI components make the system even more comfortable and flexible, allowing you to automate and optimize almost any process in a couple of clicks.

The Airtable service is, of course, among the available connectors in our catalog. So you can try ApiX-Drive's capabilities to set up integrations with Airtable.

What is Notion? This is an all-in-one service for storing, organizing, and managing projects, tasks, notes, and data. Its tools help users, teams, and companies increase individual productivity and collaboration. The platform is a cloud space with functionality for managing projects and monitoring work processes. With its help, you can create your own wiki system, product roadmap, and even a full-fledged CRM. It can also be used as a database or simply to collect important notes and ideas.

The system appeared on the market in 2016. It was released by Notion Labs, a startup from San Francisco. Initially, it was intended only for creating and storing notes, but over time its capabilities have been significantly expanded. Now users of the service have access to working with full-fledged documents, tracking tasks and projects, to-do lists, a calendar, and a number of other functions. Notion's block-based interface allows you to flexibly embed text, images, videos, lists, databases, and other content. In addition, here you can customize templates and interact with colleagues in real-time.

The Notion service can be easily connected to other online tools thanks to our connector. ApiX-Drive users have the ability to configure integrations with Notion in no-code mode.

Both services are popular tools for project management and collaboration. We suggest going through the main functions of the platforms, organizing a kind of competition: Airtable vs Notion.

Data storage and management is one of the key functions of both services. However, Airtable implements it more powerfully and conveniently. Users of this platform have access to a relational database with a full backend and a clear tabular interface. It allows you to easily manage any datasets – from to-do lists to client databases. In addition, there are functions for formatting data in columns and rows, as well as quickly searching for information.

Notion's block interface contains a number of similar tools. Still, this system is more suitable for project management. It allows you to create tables inside documents, but does not provide a full-fledged database. Here you can only select text as the main field type, while Airtable supports other types. Thus, the advantage in this round clearly belongs to Airtable.

Both systems allow you to filter, sort, and group data in the database and also provide several types of display. All of this makes it possible to process information in different ways, which makes them useful for project managers.

Airtable offers the following types of data display:

Notion supports the following formats:

In this category, Airtable comes out ahead again, offering more data displays than its competitor. Additionally, the no-code Interface Designer function of this platform allows you to adapt the interface to team requests or project specifics. However, the selection of Notion formats also looks quite decent. According to this criterion, its lag is minimal.

Airtable and Notion have libraries of ready-made project templates, sorted for convenience into dozens of thematic categories. Users can easily choose the most suitable templates for their projects in various fields: sales, marketing, design, engineering, planning, and so on. They can flexibly configure and customize them, as well as fill them with the necessary data. The capabilities of competing systems in this segment are approximately equal.

Artificial intelligence is one of the most important criteria for comparing Notion vs Airtable. Both platforms come with built-in smart tools. Notion's AI assistant is capable of generating and editing text from scratch, summarizing meeting notes, adding unsorted data to tables, and advising users. Notion AI is not included in the basic plans. There is an additional charge of $10 per month for its use.

Airtable offers an extensive marketplace of pre-installed integrations, which includes 1000+ systems and applications. With them, you can effectively complement the standard functions of this platform. For example, you can add tools for creating pivot tables, generating QR codes, warming up leads, and so on.

Notion also has a catalog of integrations. You can expand its capabilities by connecting to a number of third-party services such as Calendly, ClickUp, Figma, IFTTT, Zoom, and others. Both systems provide an API that allows developers to create integrations with these services.

Today, it is not sufficient to be a powerful and highly functional service. The choice of platform is now greatly influenced by factors such as convenience and clarity. You may have already guessed that we will now compare our competitors in terms of user experience quality and interface accessibility.

Airtable offers a comprehensive set of tools, but its user interface (UI) is more technical and less intuitive compared to alternatives. Upon registration, you will have the opportunity to create your own project (database) from scratch or based on a template. Despite the availability of ready-made templates and context menus, the development process may appear quite complex to inexperienced users. Overall, the UI is heavily loaded with elements and requires time to master. Many companies hire Airtable developers to implement this platform and understand its functionalities in depth. Once you have learned to work with it, you will have a truly powerful tool with a wide range of applications, from managing client requests to overseeing large-scale projects.

Notion developers designed its interface in such a way that as few people as possible ask how to use Notion. It has a simple and intuitive structure that doesn't overwhelm users with too many drop-down menus and tabs. Instead, users get a completely minimalist UI in the style of a document editor. The necessary tools can be accessed in a couple of clicks through the command line. Launching a new project based on a template is also easier and faster here than in Airtable. Notion lets you add an unlimited number of pages, nest them, and create shared workspaces. Overall, its UI is more friendly to novice users, as it looks more like a text editor than a database.

The Airtable control panel looks intimidating to newbies, but experienced users will find a ton of useful tools here. Notion offers a simpler and more intuitive UI, which won’t be difficult to understand. Service interfaces were developed for different purposes and audience segments, so choosing a winner based on this criterion is impractical.

Airtable pricing:

Notion pricing:

Based purely on numbers, Notion will cost you less. However, when choosing a service, you should focus not only on the cost but also on what you get for the money. Savings may not be justified when you lack functionality.

In the final part of our comparison review, Airtable vs. Notion, we will look at their main advantages and disadvantages. Without this information, it is extremely difficult to make a truly balanced, informed decision about choosing a platform. Therefore, we recommend that you study it carefully before finally deciding on the service.

Pros of Airtable:

Advantages of Notion:

Cons of Airtable:

Notion imperfections:

Comparing Notion vs. Airtable is quite difficult since these systems differ not only in functionality but also in their purpose. The first is ideal for working with documents and projects, while the second is for organizing and managing data. Airtable has a fairly complex interface. The subscription costs for its plans are comparatively high. Notion is a simpler and less expensive platform, but its functionality may not be enough for large-scale projects. We tried to reveal the main capabilities and features of the services. Both tools are powerful and have already proven themselves well in the market. We hope that our article will help you make the best choice.

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