Airtable is a platform from the company of the same name that blends the simplicity of a spreadsheet with the power of a relational database. It looks and feels much like Excel or Google Sheets, but under the hood it can link records together, enforce data types and turn them into tidy applications. It suits anyone who keeps their data in scattered spreadsheets today - from individuals and small businesses to large teams in marketing, product or operations.

The principle is straightforward: you enter data into tables (bases) as if into a workbook, but every field has its own type - text, number, date, single select, attachment, link to another record and many more. You can then view the same data as a grid, kanban, calendar, gallery or timeline, depending on what you need to see. From the fields you build formulas, filters and groupings, and you decide what gets measured and calculated, and how.

Beyond record-keeping, Airtable offers automations (e.g. send an email when a new record is added), custom interfaces for people who shouldn't touch the raw data, and connections to dozens of services like Slack, Google Drive or Gmail. Data exports to CSV, and crucially - Airtable acts as the data backbone for no-code tools like Softr or Glide, so you can spin up a web or mobile app from it in no time.