Learning Airtable

Chapter 13. Platforms That Extend Airtable

Airtable’s unique value proposition as an easy-to-use web-based database has prompted many developers to start companies that make tools explicitly for use with Airtable. This chapter will look at two major categories of applications you can use to extend your Airtable bases—connectors and app builders.

Connectors allow us to create automation workflows based on and interacting with our Airtable data. Chapter 11 examined Airtable Automations, which allows for multistep workflows fully based on no-code logic. Before Automations was released in 2020, the no-code community went to tools like Zapier and Make.com to connect third-party apps to Airtable. We will look at both Make and Zapier in this chapter, comparing the capabilities of each with Airtable Automations.

In Chapter 12, we looked at Airtable Interfaces, which allow Airtable users to create internal interactive applications based on data in their Airtable databases. Before Interface Designer was released, users optimized other platforms to build dynamic database-driven websites on top of their Airtable bases, such as Softr and Stacker. In this chapter, we’ll look at key differences between Airtable Interfaces and app builders. For example, app builders offer compelling cost savings if you have many users, and both Softr and Stacker have capabilities for building an app intended for outside users.

The first chapter of this book noted that Airtable is a product that reflects many ...