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Head to head · Sheets records · October 2026 research run

Airtable vs Baserow

Airtable scores 70.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Baserow's 63.6 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Baserow leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do sheets records.

AirtableFormagrid Inc (Airtable) · HTTP API BB70.9/100#118 of 629 BaserowBaserow B.V. · HTTP API B63.6/100#276 of 629

Which one, for what

Airtable BB

Good for Teams that already keep operational data in Airtable and want an agent to read, filter and update typed records or build bases through MCP.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 94 against 65
  • Security & auth, 78 against 54
  • Transparency & trust, 86 against 65

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for

5 requests a second per base, and a 429 blocks further requests for 30 seconds

Baserow B

Good for Teams that want Airtable-style typed tables they can also self-host, with row-level reads and writes by an agent through table-scoped tokens or a small MCP tool set.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 72 against 49

Also in its favour

  • Open source

Watch for

The MCP endpoint's key sits in the URL path, and the docs say it grants full access to modify data in the workspace

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAirtableBaserowEdge
Reliability16%209465Airtable +29
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27377Baserow +4
Agent ergonomics13%16.26872Baserow +4
Security & auth14%17.57854Airtable +24
Payments & pricing10%12.53040Baserow +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.84972Baserow +23
Transparency & trust7%8.88665Airtable +21
Negative events≤1500
Total70.9 · BB63.6 · B

Facts side by side

FactAirtableBaserow
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorFormagrid Inc (Airtable)Baserow B.V.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.airtable.comhttps://api.baserow.io
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP, SSE (legacy)
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under Airtable's Terms of Service and Developer Terms. The airtable.js client and the MCP CLI on GitHub are MITMIT for the core, including the REST API and the MCP server. Code under premium/ and enterprise/ is source-available under Baserow's own licences and needs a paid subscription in production. Docs are CC BY-SA 4.0
Tools exposed407
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrycom.airtable/mcpnot listed
Last release2026-08-072026-09-29
Terms last updated2024-05-31no date given
Privacy policy last updated2026-07-15no date given
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot found in the text
Popularity2.2k stars, 569k npm/wk6.1k stars

Verdicts

Airtable

Tokens are limited by scope and by base, and the official MCP server at mcp.airtable.com covers records, schema, interfaces and automations in 40 tools. The REST API allows 5 requests a second per base with a 30-second lockout after a 429, writes take 10 records a call, and the Free plan stops at 1,000 calls a month.

Baserow

Database tokens are limited to chosen tables and to create, read, update or delete, and the REST API has a public OpenAPI description with batch calls of 200 rows. The MCP server authenticates with a key in its URL, runs over SSE only and has no read-only mode. Cloud requests are capped at 10 at a time.

Before you call either

Airtable

  1. Create a personal access token with only the scopes needed and add each base to it. A token with no base added sees nothing
  2. Stay under 5 requests a second per base. After a 429, wait 30 seconds before the next call
  3. Send writes in batches of 10 records, and use performUpsert with fieldsToMergeOn so a repeated call updates instead of duplicating
  4. Use table and field IDs, not names, and set returnFieldsByFieldId so a rename doesn't break the call
  5. POST to /listRecords when a filterByFormula would push the URL past 16,000 characters

Baserow

  1. Create a database token with only the tables and operations needed. It can't change tables or fields, which need a JWT from /api/user/token-auth/
  2. Send Authorization: Token YOUR_DATABASE_TOKEN, and add user_field_names=true or rows come back keyed as field_123
  3. Use the /batch/ endpoints for up to 200 rows a call, and keep to 10 requests in flight on Baserow Cloud
  4. Treat the MCP URL as a password. Keep it out of logs and version control, and delete the endpoint to revoke it
  5. Over MCP, call get_table_schema before create_rows or update_rows, and page list_table_rows with page and size

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Airtable or Baserow?

Airtable scores 70.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Baserow's 63.6 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Baserow leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

Do Airtable and Baserow need an API key?

Airtable takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Baserow needs an API key.

Can an agent call Airtable and Baserow without installing anything?

Yes. Airtable has a hosted endpoint at https://api.airtable.com and Baserow at https://api.baserow.io.

Are Airtable and Baserow open source?

No open-source release is listed for Airtable. Baserow is open source (MIT for the core, including the REST API and the MCP server. Code under premium/ and enterprise/ is source-available under Baserow's own licences and needs a paid subscription in production. Docs are CC BY-SA 4.0).

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