Side-by-side comparison · Databases & Backend
Airtable vs PlanetScale vs Xano
Everything that matters when choosing between them, in one place: our rating, what each can do, what they cost, and the trade-offs.
Comparing 3 tools, the maximum.
At a glance
Airtable
3.9Pick it if: Small marketing and ops teams who need a shared database and don't have a developer.
PlanetScale
3.9Pick it if: Teams running a real product who need their database to stay fast and never go missing.
Xano
3.6Pick it if: No-code builders who have hit the limits of their app builder's built-in database.
Overview
| Attribute | Airtable | PlanetScale | Xano |
|---|---|---|---|
| In one line | Spreadsheets that behave like a database, with forms, views and automations built in. | Fast, serious databases for apps that have outgrown the free tiers. | A no-code backend with a visual way to build the logic behind your app. |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Paid | Freemium |
| Starting price | $24/seat/mo | From $5/mo | $99/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | No | Yes |
| Works with Claude Code | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Rating breakdown
Our scores out of 5. The higher bar in each row is highlighted.
| Attribute | Airtable | PlanetScale | Xano |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 3.9 | 3.9 | 3.6 |
| Ease of useHow quickly someone non-technical gets value from it. | 4.5 | 3.0 | 4.0 |
| FeaturesHow much it can do, and how well the pieces fit together. | 4.0 | 3.5 | 4.0 |
| Output qualityHow good the results are before you fix them. | 4.0 | 5.0 | 3.5 |
| Value for moneyWhat you get for the price, including the free plan. | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 |
| Speed & reliabilityHow fast it is and how often it falls over. | 4.0 | 5.0 | 3.5 |
Feature comparison
A tick means it does this today. A dash means we haven't checked.
| Attribute | Airtable | PlanetScale | Xano |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access & platform | |||
| Free plan | Yes | No | Yes |
| Mobile app | Yes | No | No |
| Desktop app | Yes | No | No |
| Browser extension | No | No | No |
| API access | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Teams & business | |||
| Team workspace | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Enterprise plan or SSO | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Connects to other apps | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Open source or self-hosted | No | No | Yes |
| AI abilities | |||
| Works with your files | Yes | No | Yes |
| Understands images | No | No | No |
| Makes images | No | No | No |
| Makes video | No | No | No |
| Writes code | Yes | No | Yes |
| Runs agents or automations | Yes | No | Yes |
| Learns your brand or style | No | No | No |
| Works in many languages | Yes | – | – |
| Capabilities score | 11/ 17 | 4/ 17 | 9/ 17 |
Pricing
Plans as listed on each vendor's site when we last checked. Confirm before you buy.
| Attribute | Airtable | PlanetScale | Xano |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plans | Free Free One person or a tiny team with a small list. | Postgres, single node From $5/mo Staging and small apps that can tolerate a restart. | Free Free Learning the tool and building a prototype. |
TeamOur pick $24/seat/mo, or $20/seat/mo billed yearly Most small teams. | Postgres, high availabilityOur pick From $15/mo Production apps with paying users. | EssentialOur pick $99/mo, or $85/mo billed yearly A live app with a small team. | |
Business $54/seat/mo, or $45/seat/mo billed yearly Bigger teams syncing data from other systems. | Metal From $50/mo Apps where database speed is the bottleneck. | Pro $249/mo, or $224/mo billed yearly Agencies and products with heavier traffic. | |
Enterprise Scale Custom Large organisations with many workspaces. | Vitess (MySQL) From $39/mo MySQL apps that need to shard as they grow. | Custom Custom Enterprises with compliance or hosting rules. | |
Enterprise Custom Single-tenant or fully managed setups. | |||
| Which plan to pick | Free is only for testing; you'll hit the 1,000-record cap fast. Team is the plan for nearly everyone, and billing yearly saves about 17 percent. Keep editor seats to the people who actually change data, since viewers and form fillers are free. | Don't start here for a weekend project; Neon or Supabase are free. When a product has paying customers, the $15 high-availability Postgres is the sensible entry point. Only go to Metal once Insights shows the disk is the slow part. | Build everything on Free, where the only real limit is the API rate cap. Essential is the plan you launch on. Pro only earns its keep if you're an agency running several client backends in one account. |
Key features
| Attribute | Airtable | PlanetScale | Xano |
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Pros and cons
| Attribute | Airtable | PlanetScale | Xano |
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Who each one is for
| Attribute | Airtable | PlanetScale | Xano |
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How we compare
Ratings are our own, from using each tool, across ease of use, features, output quality, value for money, speed & reliability. The "Visit" buttons may use affiliate links, which never affect a score.
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