Airtable vs monday.com (2024): Which Tool Is Better?

Airtable and monday.com are two popular tools that take different approaches to project management.

Airtable is a cloud-based “intelligent spreadsheet” of sorts that allows users to develop robust applications and tools without delving into traditional software development tools. It offers extensive customization, so you can tailor it to your business needs.

On the other hand, monday.com is a comprehensive work management solution that adds workflow, customizations and integrations on top of task management to enable users to build complex, collaborative workflows around any date or task-based task.

Let’s explore what Airtable vs. monday.com yields across pricing, features, pros and cons.

Airtable vs. monday.com: Comparison table

Airtable vs. monday.com: Pricing

Both Airtable and monday.com offer several pricing tiers that are charged per seat per month and billed annually or monthly. Both platforms escalate their features and capabilities in higher-priced tiers, with Airtable emphasizing custom databases and workflow automation and monday.com focusing on project management, resource management and team collaboration.

Something to consider is the availability of Gantt charts and timeline views. monday.com provides these features at a lower cost tier compared to Airtable, which may influence the decision for teams whose workflows rely heavily on these visual features.

Airtable pricing

• Free: Basic functionalities for individuals or very small teams.
• Team: $20 per user per month billed annually, or $24 billed monthly.
• Business: $45 per user per month billed annually, or $54 billed monthly.
• Enterprise Scale: Custom pricing.
• Airtable AI: $6 per seat per month.

For more information, check out our full Airtable review.

monday.com pricing

• Free: Limited features suitable for up to two people.
• Basic: $9 per seat per month billed annually, or $12 billed monthly.
• Standard: $12 per seat/month billed annually, or $14 billed monthly.
• Pro: $19 per seat per month billed annually, $24 billed monthly.
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing.

For more information, read our full monday.com review.

Airtable vs. monday.com: Feature comparison

Workflow automation

One of the primary benefits of using project management software is that they help you streamline your workflow, saving you time. monday.com excels in workflow management. You can use an extensive list of task automations and templates, and can even program automatic notifications according to your needs.

Airtable offers basic automation capability. You can use custom logic to minimize repetitive tasks. To access more advanced automation tools, such as multi-sequence automation, you may need to integrate Airtable with a third-party application.

Data management

Perhaps the most important functional difference between Airtable and monday.com is the fundamental nature of how the project management tools manage data. A simplified explanation is that Airtable, as the name implies, uses a table as its foundation for storing data, while monday.com is oriented around tasks.

Think of Airtable as the ultimate spreadsheet where you create a spreadsheet-like set of data — which Airtable calls a base — and then build workflows, integrations and functionality off that base. Airtable is essentially a combination database, workflow engine and set of integrations and collaboration tools.

monday.com uses a task as its core data element, which has inbuilt concepts like due dates, assignees and other fields already defined. There are also pre-built reports, dashboards and workflows. While this task orientation might seem constrained, the project management software has a rich set of templates and functionality that allows users to configure it for any workflow associated with time, from planning digital media releases to managing a sales funnel.

Templates

Airtable and monday.com allow easy signup and provide a rich set of templates to get users started.

By virtue of its template universe, Airtable allows users to share their bases as templates the general public can access. monday.com lacks this specific feature, although users can share a link to their boards and essentially share their work with others as long as they have the link provided.

Airtable provides more templates when including the user-contributed universe, though the monday.com templates I sampled generally had more documentation and prepopulated elements that demonstrated how to use the template effectively.

The templates provided by both tools are wildly diverse, from real estate and manufacturing to product release and customer relationship management-like templates, allowing users to quickly access a prebuilt example and get a feel for how the tool works.

Interface

Airtable and monday.com both offer highly configurable interfaces and similar capabilities to view individual records in various ways, ranging from kanban boards to calendar views. These views will change dramatically based on the template the user selects or the customizations built.

However, the underlying view for data in monday work management is some variant of a multilevel task list. In contrast, Airtable’s default view is essentially a configurable table that should be familiar to anyone who’s spent time in a spreadsheet.

The power of these project management tools comes when creating and customizing additional views and adding integrations and workflows that turn Airtable or monday from a data repository to a full-fledged workflow engine.

Gantt charts

Airtable has Gantt chart capabilities within its Team plan to enable users to visually manage project timelines and dependencies. It’s a feature that’s particularly useful for project managers who need to oversee multiple project timelines simultaneously and adjust them as projects evolve.

monday.com also provides Gantt chart functionality starting from its Standard plan, which is more accessible to smaller teams or projects on a budget. monday’s integration of Gantt charts with other features like task management and automation enhances the overall project tracking experience.

Customer support

Airtable provides a solid customer support system primarily through a ticketing system, complemented by a comprehensive help center and an active community forum. It offers extensive self-service resources that include detailed how-to articles, in-depth guides and a variety of instructional videos available on its YouTube channel. This approach is well suited for users who prefer to self-serve or those who can wait for ticket responses, typically handled within 1-2 business days.

In contrast, monday.com excels in customer support by offering 24/7 access across all its plans, including the free version, which is a plus for businesses that operate beyond conventional hours or in multiple time zones. Additionally, higher-tier plan subscribers benefit from dedicated customer success managers. monday.com also provides a wealth of educational resources, such as a learning academy, community forums and daily live webinars.

Collaboration

monday was designed as a configurable project management tool, and it edges Airtable out on collaboration features. For individual tasks, you can post comments and tag other collaborators using the @ notation and can embed files. Chat messages, files and a nice depiction of task updates are separated in a tabbed view.

Airtable offers a familiar iMessage-style chat feed and @ notation and time-sequenced notes on record changes, but the display is not as visual, nor can files be embedded by default. This shortcoming could be remedied through intelligent integrations with favored collaboration software, and both tools integrate with popular tools like Slack, Teams and Basecamp.

Airtable pros and cons

Pros of Airtable

• Data import is quick and easy.
• All plans come with Interface Designer for customization.
• Quite visually appealing.
• Easy to use for spreadsheet users.
• Has a rich template gallery.

Cons of Airtable

• Has limited workflow automation.
• Gantt charts are only available in higher-priced plans.
• Can be complex for non-spreadsheet users.
• Highly dependent on integrations.
• Not as scalable as monday.com.

monday.com pros and cons

Pros of monday.com

• Powerful automation tools.
• Extensive list of integrations.
• Intuitive and user-friendly interface.
• Highly customizable.
• Easily scales across teams of all sizes.

Cons of monday.com

• Default settings send too many notifications.
• There’s a steep learning curve for advanced features.
• Time tracking is only available in the Pro account.
• New users can be overwhelmed by features.
• Limited features in the free plan.

Review methodology

To compare Airtable and monday, we tested both tools to get firsthand data across several parameters, including their core features, advanced tools, user interface, free version and paid plans. We also looked at user ratings and testimonials to enrich our findings as well as to get a better understanding of the pros and cons of both tools. Here’s a summary of how they compared across key criteria.

Should your organization use Airtable or monday.com?

Small businesses will find Airtable and monday.com to be capable of handling their project management tasks. Both software offer an intuitive user interface with easy-to-use core features.

However, monday.com offers slightly more functionality, which might be needed by larger companies with more complex projects. The workflow automations and built-in tutorials give a slight edge to monday.com. However, users who are transitioning from Microsoft Excel or other spreadsheet-based solutions may prefer to use Airtable.