ClickUp vs Airtable Compared: Is Airtable or ClickUp Better?

Whether you are a beginner to project management or an old pro, you need to stay up to date with the latest software reviews, especially for reviews like this one! In this ClickUp vs Airtable article, we compare these two project management software solutions side by side.

Which tool is better? Which one is more suitable for your project or company? Keep reading to find out!

What is the difference between ClickUp and Airtable?

The main difference between Airtable and ClickUp is that Airtable focuses more on allowing project teams to design and customize workspaces, with a special emphasis on views and automations. ClickUp tries to be more holistic by streamlining project and task management, teamwork and docs. Both are cloud-based apps, however.

Your typical Airtable review highlights the ways that Airtable is all about transforming simple views into powerful tools, for example, making a spreadsheet into the basis of a workflow. Meanwhile most of the ClickUp review articles like to point out how ClickUp’s goal is to be a single software to replace a collection of apps, and many ClickUp alternatives like Asana, Wrike, Jira and Smartsheet also seem to have similar aims.

ClickUp vs Airtable comparison chart

Check out this table of the basic Airtable vs ClickUp reviews and ratings side-by-side.

Airtable vs ClickUp: Pricing

ClickUp has a free plan, then 3 paid plans called unlimited, business and business plus; and finally there is an enterprise plan with custom pricing.

Airtable also has a free version, and after that there are only 2 paid plans called plus and pro; and then Airtable also offers an enterprise package with custom pricing. 

Winner: ClickUp

ClickUp has one more pricing option over Airtable, therefore, more choices mean better pricing overall. However, Airtable’s prices are still very competitive.
 

Free versions

Both Airtable and ClickUp have free plans, and those are quite similar. ClickUp’s free plan gets you 100 MBs of storage, unlimited numbers of users, unlimited tasks and other team collaboration tools. Airtable’s free version is also good for an unlimited number of read-only users but only 5 active users.

Winner: ClickUp

Again, ClickUp wins when it comes to prices and free versions, as there is no limit for the number of users which can be on the free plan, although ClickUp admits their free version is still best for personal use.
 

Customer support

ClickUp has 24/7 customer support on all their plans, a live chat support in all the paid plans, and priority support with their best plans.

You can submit a support request at any time over their website. Airtable’s customer service includes email support in all their plans, but priority support is reserved solely for the enterprise subscribers.

Winner: ClickUp

ClickUp wins these three categories in a row for pricing, free plans and customer service options, but in no category is Airtable too far behind.
 

ClickUp vs Airtable: Knowledgebase & learning

Airtable has on-demand webinars for all their subscribers, free or paying. There is also an amazing self-service knowledgebase where users can seek out solutions to simple problems.

ClickUp has onboarding training workshops and administrative training webinars and tutorials.

Winner: Airtable

Both the self-service knowledgebases of ClickUp and Airtable are similar enough, but for this area of competition, Airtable does indeed knock out ClickUp for being slightly superior for helping users help themselves solve their project management software issues.

Either way, both are ideal project management tools for beginners, and have full video tutorials on YouTube or their social media sites for further tips.
 

Ease of use

As two leading project management tools, both ClickUp and Airtable are very user friendly, knowing that ease of use is such an important factor for choosing a project management solution.

Winner: Airtable

Ease of use is not an easy category for crowning SaaS winners, as so many platforms attempt to be as user friendly as possible. Still, in the end, a winner must be chosen and Airtable it is. 

Airtable vs Clickup features & functionality

Now let us turn to the features of project management tools.

Task management

If all work can be approached as a project, then any project can be dissected into its tasks and subtasks. Other important task management tools include due dates, timeframes, priorities, assignees and task dependencies. 

Winner: ClickUp

Airtbale feels more like a supercharged to-do list than a total task management package, including due dates, prioritization, calendars and completed tasks.

ClickUp is the more robust task manager platform, with a lot more customization and collaboration built into tasks, like custom fields, recurring tasks and checklists.
 

Project collaboration

When it comes to teamwork, the two big names of the game are collaboration and communication. Many great PM systems offer email syncing, internal chat, and messaging via @ notifications.

Winner: Airtable

With Airtable you can invite others into your workspaces or your table bases, which are collections of tables. Get your team member’s attention with @ mentions, send notifications and assign tasks to team members, and there is even a Slack integration for better team communication.

ClickUp, on the other hand, will still serve as a reliable teamwork tool.
 

Templates

Thanks to digital technologies and the elimination of paper in the workspace, templates are a fast and effective way to expedite the initiation of a task or project.

ClickUp and Airtable both offer nice template libraries which are categorized by job, department or project type. Templates are also customizable and shareable.

Winner: Tie

It was hard to find a winner for the template category, so this one is a fair draw. Both ClickUp and Airtable have templates for things like marketing, sales and CRM, HR, creative content production, project management, budgeting and expenses tracking, operations, professional services and even for personal use. 
 

Docs

Not all project management software solutions can be used to create documents, whether these docs are project plans, wikis, contracts or other important docs.

Winner: ClickUp

ClickUp offers an entire module for docs. It is a beautiful and simple drag and drop doc builder, and you can easily collaborate on creating and designing docs, or turn your docs into workflows.

There is also rich formatting for buttons, attachments and widgets. With Airtable, you mostly get some docs tools via templates.
 

Views

There are many dashboards to visualize your project management process. Kanban boards are the kings of task management, while Gantt charts are great for timeframes and workloads.

Other lists can be useful for things like costs, budgeting and expenses, whereas mind maps are ideal for idea generation and brainstorming.

Winner: ClickUp

Both systems have similar views, so the question is what do you get with the free or basic plans? ClickUp’s free plan includes list view, board view and calendar view, and you get 100 uses of Gantt charts, timeline views and workload views each. Airtable gets you grid views, Kanban boards, form views, gallery views, while timeline views and Gantt charts are reserved for the better plans.
 

Automation

Automated workflows are simple protocols that your software can follow without any human sitting behind the screen doing the work. They are triggered by events and set off chains of actions.

For example: whenever a project team member changes a task status, an automated notification can go out to the project manager.

Winner: Airtable

This was another very close category but in the end Airtable got the gold. It requires almost no coding knowledge, but if you do have a little knowledge of Javascript, your workflow possibilities are endless.

ClickUp’s automations builder is intuitive and well designed, with basic ‘when-then’ rules-based logic. You can automate things like status, assignees, priorities, dates and more. 
 

Integrations and extensions

Integrations are how different applications can communicate with one another often by sharing data, and sometimes a powerful extension can even activate a task or trigger an event with another piece of SaaS. Integrations are therefore a foundational aspect of any business software stack.

Winner: Airtable

Airtable focuses more on powerful extensions rather than just providing a library of native integrations. Such Airtable extensions include tools for time tracking, shared whiteboards, CSV imports, and AirFlow connectors to sites like Google, Shopify, Facebook and other APIs.

ClickUp’s native integrations include Jira, Slack, GitHub, Basecamp, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams and more. With connecting tools like Zapier, both ClickUp and Airtable can work along with other PM tools like Asana, Monday.com, Zoho Projects, Wrike, Smartsheet and Trello. 
 

Mobile apps

Mobile project management apps can these days do almost anything a desktop or browser version can do, including task management like checklists and to-do lists, team communication and team collaboration, calendar management, and being a shared file manager.

Winner: Airtable

Airtable and ClickUp both have mobile apps for iOS and Android, and generally speaking, both mobile apps are among the best for project  management on the go.

Airtbale will take the number one spot here because it has the design and aesthetics that are just a bit more eye-pleasing than those of ClickUp. But when it comes to having real-time access to your ongoing project and teamwork, neither a mobile tool will disappoint. 

Is ClickUp better than Airtable? Our takeaways

The topic of what is the best project management software solution gets trending from time to time, and people want to know, is there really one PM app to rule them all? The answer is, No. And in this article, all we tried to do was compare ClickUp to Airtable. In the end, as you’ll see from our table, ClickUp barely manages to beat out Airtable this round. 

Now, there are many other contenders for the best PM system, including these amazing top ten project management tools, many of which are perfect for PM beginners. So, if neither ClickUp nor Airtable feel right for you, go forth and explore ClickUp and Airtable alternatives.