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Airtable vs Sheetlabs: What are the differences?
Developers describe Airtable as "Real-time spreadsheet-database hybrid *". Working with Airtable is as fast and easy as editing a spreadsheet. But only Airtable is backed by the power of a full database, giving you rich features far beyond what a spreadsheet can offer. On the other hand, *Sheetlabs** is detailed as "Turn your spreadsheets into APIs effortlessly". Drag & drop your data, name your API and choose what data people can see - that's it. Documentation is created automatically.
Airtable and Sheetlabs can be categorized as "Spreadsheets as a Backend" tools.
Some of the features offered by Airtable are:
- Attachments
- Link Tables
- Fully mobile
On the other hand, Sheetlabs provides the following key features:
- Import spreadsheets from CSV, XLS and XLSX formats. You can even Zip or Gzip your spreadsheets first. Replace or update spreadsheet data whenever you like
- Create APIs from your data: define what queries can be made over the data, limit what data is returned and how much
- Interact with the APIs in a variety of formats: JSON, XML, JSONP, YAML and PHP serialised arrays
I'm trying to set up an ideally "no- code" way to have a backend of 3 different tables and be able to find a value in table #3 (contains businesses & cities) by first finding a record in table #1 (7,000+ zip codes) that corresponds to a city (table #2 has the unique cities), and then finding which businesses are located in these cities ( in this specific, original zipcode lookup). And return the business and a description via an API to a front-end results page, which happens to be a WordPress page - but doesn't need to be. I've tried Airtable's API, AirPress (a finicky WordPress plugin for Airtable's API), and I've looked at Sheetsu and a similar spreadsheet as backend and a simple API. I run into the issue where they work fine when you just need to query 1 table, but when you need to use the result from that query in another query to a different table. I'm back in SQL land - where sure it could be done with SQLite - needing to probably create an intersection table or a JOIN and build an API off of that. Is there a way to accomplish what I want without going back to SQL queries and some API?
You're right that there isn't a great way to join tables with Airtable's API. The closest you can get is to use a linked record field, which acts as a pointer to another record. You still end up with the problem you mentioned of having to run another query on the second table separately.
Your best bet is to stick with an actual SQL database. Using an ORM should make your life significantly easier so you don't actually have to write raw SQL. If you still want a graphical interface to your data, BaseDash lets you view and edit SQL databases just like Airtable. A full API with join support is coming soon, so that could be your perfect solution to this problem.
Let me introduce you to integromat. It connects these services without you having to work any code. And it even has a decent database built inside it.
It makes is an easy process to develop multistep workflows with multiple services and it’s free tier is surprisingly functional.
Pros of Airtable
- Powerful and easy to use19
- Robust and dynamic8
- Quick UI Layer6
- Practical built in views4
- Robust API documentation3
- Great flexibility0
Pros of Sheetlabs
- Free tier does not lack any features1
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