Airtable as a backend, what do you think?
Using airtable as a backend (cms & database), generate static site with gatsbyjs and deploy it to netlify. As far, satisfied with the result.
Maybe will open the code in the near future, so everyone can use it. Or make it saas, what do you think?
The use case are limitless. But, i preferred to use it as a ugc or directory website.
Here's the screenshot :
Backend:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k9F-p8HWMPMoaLRKYto9oDkKKICZwrn0/view?usp=drivesdk
Use-case:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xPdVre4mN-FeVnWUh5JSUqHT00eo4iqI/view?usp=drivesdk
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Update:
Since this is just my small project, what i'm looking for is unified platform. I want to store everything on airtable (even a website).
But, if you want something more powerful. I recommend contentful or graphcms.
"Airtable as a backend is just another cheap and free alternative on how you can use airtable platform"
What do you think?
👋 Hey @fauz_io! I'm the cofounder of a company called Clay that's building a new product that's a combination of Airtable/Firebase, Zapier & AWS Lambda all rolled into one. I think it might be a better fit for what you're looking to do, and we're onboarding new customers every day if you want to check it out.
I filmed a mini-video to give you a quick tour: https://www.useloom.com/share/cd8374c98e4e421bbc4ec237cfd58880
Would love to give you a more in-depth walkthrough if you're up for it (our onboarding is essentially non-existent right now, coming out next week, so some walkthrough required :) )! I'm at nicolae@clay.run if you're up for a chat!
We're specifically focused on helping people quickly build directory sites as one of the use-cases, so could be great for that purpose. You can also save JSON objects, use our pre-built front-end components & we don't have the same API limits Airtable has so it's well suited to be used as a backend. We also have a Zapier app that can help you automate beyond the product, and full-featured webhooks you can leverage.
Either way, I do think tools like Airtable can be a good fit, as long as you can get around the API limit & if you don't need auth. Hope that's helpful
Ah - this looks super promising. Getting around API limits is a big pain point with most of these services.
This looks really cool. I’m curious to know if it can also handle auth. I’m trying to build and enrich a large dataset and I might fall into your onboarding persona. I’d be down to link up and chat
Interesting! Seems like a DB + code focused workflow/logic automation.
How will you price it?
That's a great description of it Marko :) Thanks for checking it out!
Right now we're looking to price it based on users accessing the tool, amount of data stored & functions run - likely something similar to Zapier in that respect.
Would love to get your feedback if you try it out, it's still early so missing many onboarding features as I mentioned, but we're over here at : slack.clay.run and we're pushing improvements every day!
Let us know what you're looking to build / automate and we'll do our best to help :) We're seeing more and more people use it for Growth hacking, or unique CRM use cases with automation as one example, while others are using it as their core backend to power directory sites, or SaaS apps.
Thanks Nicolae! Won't have time to check it out this week, but will give it a spin over the weekend.
I use it as a back end to power my MVP. The formula fields are very helpful to automate some calculations w/ out having to write out a process that does it.
Also check out Integromat.com -- kind of like Zapier but much more powerful. I've built a fully-functional API (multiple response & error handling) using Airtable as the back end.
Wow, interesting. Should i create curated content on how developers use airtable? 🤔
Would buy/read this for sure
I would definitely read it -- love how simple DB management on Airtable is. Would love to know more about the limitations in terms of speed and API.
Yeah. I didn't knew why i love airtable so much. I store almost everything on it. Project management to invoicing. Waiting a feature to accept payment on their form.
What's the economics of it?
Did you mean, what's the profit for me?
Then, my concern is always: Build the pool first, then the fishes.
Create a benefits, money will follow.
No I wanted to know how much Airtable costs you. I think it will be costlier than conventional framework setup.
Sorry for misunderstood, actually i can use it for free. But i need the block features for another project and cost me $24 a month.
Actually they're pretty pricey for a DB -- Like Fauz.io said, $24 per user per month. However, their integrations and features make it worth while on my end. They have a limitation of 50,000 records per DB you create (spread over multiple tables). So you wouldn't want to build a full application on it.
Yes you right, but i think everyone who started with airtable will move once their business grows up.
Not about their features, but their limitations for power use are suck.
@fauz_io @nicoslepicos I just launched https://table2site.com/ which is a tool allowing you to create websites with Airtable . Would love to know your opinions!
holy, good luck bro. it is awesome, really!!!
i can't stop thinking to build saas about it, but stuck with coding process. Since my background is a marketer.
when you tell me about it, i was very happy that someone build it.
one more. create a simple video to make your target customer more trust to your product.
Thank you ❤️❤️!
I agree about the video. Just need to find the time & creative mindset to do it 😀
Let me know if there's anything else.
I use airtable for everything. I wrote a wrapper around their API that lets me cache, join, search, and do a bunch of other stuff to make it easier. Eventually the wrapper should be able to seamlessly switch to another service like graphcms or firebase while preserving the airtable schema
I like your solution. In my opinion Contentful is better if you need "complex" data types, good assets hosting, multiple users and "complex" workflows.
I am currently using Google Spreadsheet as a backend with Gatsby and Netlify . I chose Google Spreadsheet because the majority of my data are numbers and I also make formulas to compute some data (statistics, etc.)
I am wondering if Airtable could be a alternative for my use case.
I would prefer something like contenful instead?
Contentful is great, has been tested it. This is just another cheap and free perspective on using airtable.
Alternative would be use an Import plugin for Wordpress with the output being a site like Marketplace Themes
That is good use case.
With airtable, i think we can create more open curated content, because everyone can edit the data on it. Right?
That's true - edits would be easier without needing to deal with Wordpress permissions.
Would https://graphcms.com/ be a better fit?
Services like graphcms, contentful etc are greater because their environment is set to serve jamstack.
But, i think airtable also want to go there in the near future.
Be sure to put a cache in front of your API calls. Airtable has crazy low limits on api
Output from gatsbyjs are static, just call the API when building or updating a page.
ah, makes sense for that use case. it becomes difficult if trying to do dynamic queries