Airtable vs SeaTable

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.

SeaTable

API tokens are limited to one base and to read-only or read-write, and the official MCP server marks every tool as read-only or destructive. The Free plan allows 3,000 API calls a month in total, and base calls are capped at 200 a minute. The status page showed the base API degraded for 0.77 per cent of 30 days.

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

SeaTable

1. Create an API token for the one base with read-only permission unless writes are needed, then exchange it at /api/v2.1/dtable/app-access-token/ for a Base-Token
2. Renew the Base-Token before it expires after 3 days, and send it as Authorization: Bearer to /api-gateway/api/v2/dtables/{base_uuid}/
3. Read x-ratelimit-remaining and x-ratelimit-reset on every base call. SeaTable Cloud allows 200 base calls a minute and answers 429 with no body
4. Batch writes to save the monthly quota. One call appends or updates up to 1,000 rows over REST and 100 over MCP
5. Over MCP, prefer update_rows and delete_rows to query_sql, which can run UPDATE and DELETE, and call get_schema before writing