# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtable-vs-baserow
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtable-vs-baserow.md (~2,200 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtable-vs-baserow.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtable-vs-baserow.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

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.

- Airtable: grade BB, 70.9/100, rank #118 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/airtable.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/airtable.json
- Baserow: grade B, 63.6/100, rank #276 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/baserow.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/baserow.json

## 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

| Category | Weight | Airtable | Baserow | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 94 | 65 | Airtable +29 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 77 | Baserow +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 72 | Baserow +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 78 | 54 | Airtable +24 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 40 | Baserow +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 49 | 72 | Baserow +23 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 86 | 65 | Airtable +21 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **70.9 · BB** | **63.6 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Airtable | Baserow |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Formagrid Inc (Airtable) | Baserow B.V. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.airtable.com` | `https://api.baserow.io` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, SSE (legacy) |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Airtable's Terms of Service and Developer Terms. The airtable.js client and the MCP CLI on GitHub are MIT | 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 |
| Tools exposed | 40 | 7 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `com.airtable/mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-08-07 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-05-31 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-15 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 2.2k stars, 569k npm/wk | 6.1k 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).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtable-vs-baserow.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtable-vs-baserow.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "airtable", "b": "baserow"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare airtable baserow`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/airtable.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/baserow.json

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