Airtable excels as a relational database with powerful automation and real-time collaboration, while Notion is a more affordable all-in-one workspace combining documents, databases, and wikis in a single interface. Airtable costs 2-3x more but offers superior data manipulation; Notion is better for general knowledge management.
Airtable vs Notion — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Choose Airtable if you need robust database management, complex workflows, API integrations, or real-time data analysis with powerful automation capabilities. Choose Notion if you want an affordable, easy-to-use all-in-one solution for team documentation, project tracking, and knowledge management without advanced technical requirements.
Cloud-based relational database platform with advanced automation and API capabilities.
All-in-one workspace for notes, databases, wikis, and team collaboration
Structured comparison data for Airtable vs Notion with 409 attributes.
Starting Price Per User/Month (Annual Billing)
Free Tier Monthly Recording/Creation Limit
Monthly Subscription Cost (Personal Plan)
Starting Price per User/Month (Annual Billing)
Base Monthly Cost Per User (Annual Billing)
Airtable vs Notion — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Airtable vs Notion.
Which is better for CRM and sales management?
Airtable is superior for CRM due to its powerful relational database capabilities, allowing you to link deals to accounts, contacts, and activities with advanced filtering and automation. Notion can work for basic CRM but lacks the query complexity and automation power needed for sophisticated sales workflows.
Can I use Notion instead of Airtable to save money?
It depends on your needs. Notion is 50% cheaper ($10 vs $20/user) and better for general project management and knowledge bases. However, if you need complex data relationships, heavy automation, or frequent API calls, Airtable's superior capabilities justify the premium cost. Notion's API is severely rate-limited (3 req/sec vs Airtable's 30 req/sec).
Which has better integrations with other tools?
Airtable has significantly better integration capabilities due to its 30 requests/second API rate limit compared to Notion's 3 requests/second. Airtable supports Zapier, Make (Integromat), and native webhooks for real-time syncing. Notion has growing integrations but is bottlenecked by its lower API rate limits for high-volume workflows.
Notion's free plan offers unlimited pages and blocks, but with feature limitations: no synced databases, limited relations, and basic automation. Airtable's free plan is more limited in records (1,200) but has more powerful data manipulation in that smaller space. For pure storage, Notion wins; for data complexity, Airtable wins.
Which platform has a shorter learning curve?
Notion is significantly easier to learn for non-technical users, with a drag-and-drop interface that feels like Google Docs. Airtable requires understanding relational database concepts like linked records, lookups, and rollups, which can take 1-2 weeks of practice to master.