Airtable makes a database feel like a spreadsheet. pylo gives you a real backend that your team can still use without code: data model, API, permissions, flows, admin UI, forms and analytics, hosted in Germany.

TL;DR

Airtable is a no-code app platform built around a spreadsheet-like database, anyone who is familiar with spreadsheets can build a base, add views and an interface,and automate a few steps. pylo is a backend platform, where you get the same ease of modelling in the admin panel, plus a typed GraphQL API, a permission model that holds data, flows, forms, events and AI access with approval. If your team tracks work in tables, Airtable is great, if you wanna build products or apps on that data, pylo is the better solution.

What is pylo?

pylo is a Backend-as-a-Service platform from Germany, which you can use to build the operating system for your company. You model entities, fields and relations in the admin panel or through the API, and pylo generates a typed GraphQL API with great developer experience automatically. The same permission model governs data, the admin UI, forms, flows and the MCP server, with pylo flows you can build automations on top of your own data model and connect to most tools you already use. So with pylo you build apps, automations and products on one coherent base across your whole team.

What is Airtable?

Airtable is a US company whose product combines a relational database with a spreadsheet-inspired interface. Data lives in bases made of tables, with linked records, lookups, rollups and formulas; on top of that you build views like grid, kanban and calendars, interfaces for teams, forms, portals for external guests and automations. Airtable also offers AI features, AI agents and a REST API for developers. It has a huge template library for many different use cases and integrates with most SaaS tools.

At a glance

A backend instead of a spreadsheet

Airtable is at its best when people work in the grid and use it like a spreadsheet; it gets harder when other software has to work with the data. Each base has a record limit, from 1,000 on Free plan to 125,000 on Business plan. Linked records only work inside one base, so related data in different bases needs sync or automations to stay consistent. The REST API allows only up to five requests per second per base and both, Free and Team plans cap API calls per month. Teams that build a customer portal, an app or a shop integration on Airtable often end up with a cache or a second database in front of it.

In pylo you add an entity, a field or a relation in the admin panel and the typed GraphQL API updates at once, without any migrations or redeployments. Possible field types include relations, enums, JSON, public or private files, rich text, dates, booleans and number/text formatters, with validation built in. Relations work across your whole workspace and API requests are unlimited on every plan.

Permissions that follow the data everywhere

Airtable controls access per workspace, base and interface, in paid plans you can limit who edits a table or a field. Inside a base, anyone with access sees every record in it, so teams split data into separate bases or hide it behind interfaces and portals. pylo separates tenants at the row level, inside a single tenant, any entity can act as the requester (ARO) and any entity as the requested object (ACO), with hierarchies and field-level rules. Every path into the data is GraphQL, so the same permission rules apply to every part of pylo: the API, the admin panel, forms, flows and MCP.

pylo flows instead of capped automations

Airtable automations are easy to set up, with triggers on records, forms and schedules and actions for email and a variety of third-party tools, where every plan caps the runs per month, from 100 on Free tier to 100,000 on Business, and when you hit the cap, automations stop until the next month. Custom logic runs in JavaScript script actions inside Airtable. In pylo you build automations in a visual workflow engine called pylo flows, where any event in pylo can start a flow, in addition can cron triggers or webhooks. pylo flows include retries, custom rate limiting, error handling and full event logs and everything is statically typed. pylo ships integrations for email sending and a range of third-party systems, for anything else you want to extend your flows with, write a flow action in TypeScript.

Admin views and forms built on the same permissions

Airtable's views and interface designer are among the best no-code UIs available and we won't pretend otherwise. pylo's admin UI has a different focus; you can compose list and detail views from predefined components, decide who sees what and show or hide fields depending on a entity instance's state. The views use the same permission model as the API, so nobody sees data through a view that they couldn't read anyway. A very powerful form builder comes to build forms on top of it, deeply integrated. With pylo forms, you can create forms that can be public or authenticated, with hidden fields, conditional rendering, direct mapping to your entities, including relations, and submission limits per form or per user.

Events and dashboards built in with pylo analytics

Airtable keeps a revision history per record and lets you put charts into interfaces, but for analysis across changes over time, you export data or build it with webhooks. Every create, update and delete in pylo emits an event with the full before and after state, which you can combine with external events you bring in through the API. You can then build visualizations and custom dashboards on top of both, internal and external data and events.

AI and MCP with guardrails

Airtable runs a hosted MCP server that respects the connected user's permissions and if that user can edit a base, the AI writes to it directly, but you can also make the connection read-only by leaving out the write scopes. pylo's MCP server is live for customers, you simply connect it as a specific user and the AI gets exactly that user's read permissions, nothing else. pylo never applies an AI's writes directly, instead they arrive as proposals that a human accepts or declines. That makes it safe to let an assistant work on production business data without giving up writes altogether.

File handling

Airtable stores attachments per base, with 1 GB on Free, 20 GB on Team and 100 GB on Business. pylo stores files in EU-hosted object storage with public or private links, no file size limit and any file type.

Agencies and multi-tenant work

With pylo, agencies can run many client workspaces from one user account, where each workspace has its own tenant and permissions and one login switches between them. The database separates tenants with row-level security. In Airtable on the other hand, every editor in every client workspace counts as a paid seat and sharing data with a client's own team usually means paying for their seats too or setting up a portal.

Pricing

Airtable charges per editor, so ten people who edit data cost $200 a month on Team and $450 on Business, billed annually, before you reach any limi and each new hire raises the bill. pylo bills per tenant and every plan includes unlimited users, so the price stays the same when your team grows or when you give a client's staff access. Its price already includes pylo flows, the full admin UI, forms, analytics and personal onboarding. Every pylo plan has every feature the plans differ only in included usage.

Hosting, compliance and reliability

All pylo content data, data models and databases live in data centres in Germany, our subprocessor list is public and names every non-EU parent company openly. A GDPR data processing agreement is part of the terms and we never use customer data to train AI models. Paid plans come with a 99.5% availability SLA, hourly encrypted backups kept for 30 days at a separate German location and support from the team that builds the product.

Airtable stores data on AWS in the US by default and EU data residency in Frankfurt is only available on the Enterprise Scale plan and it covers part of the data, such as records, attachments and base history. Airtable holds SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 certifications.

Where Airtable is the better choice

We would rather tell you than have you find out later:

• The spreadsheet grid is hard to beat; people who know Excel are productive in minutes.

• It has more view types out of the box, including kanban, calendar, gallery, timeline and Gantt, where pylo only offers table, kanban and timeline.

• Formulas, lookups and rollups work like spreadsheet formulas and need no code.

• The interface designer and portals let you build team apps and guest access without a developer.

• It has native mobile apps, a huge template library and integrations with most SaaS tools through Zapier, Make and its own connectors.

• Airtable has formal certifications and a larger community than pylo

If your team needs a better spreadsheet to track work, Airtable is excellent. pylo is for teams that build apps, products and automations on their data and need a real backend for that.

Where pylo is a great Airtable alternative

We think these are the main reasons to pick pylo over Airtable:

• A backend, not just a base. Typed GraphQL API, unlimited API requests and relations across your whole workspace, no per-base record limits and no five-requests-per-second ceiling.

• One system instead of a stack. The data model, API, permissions, flows, admin UI, forms, events and MCP are all one product. There's no second database or cache in front of your tables, to get the heavy lifting done.

• Schema changes without a deploy. Add an entity or field and the typed GraphQL API is live immediately, without any migration or redeployment.

• Permissions down to the record. API, admin panel, forms, flows and MCP all go through the same permission layer, with hierarchies and field-level rules. You don't have to split data into separate bases to hide it.

• Automation without a monthly cap. The flow builder covers event, cron and webhook triggers, with retries, rate limiting, typed actions and full logs. Custom actions are plain TypeScript and integrate easy with static typed input and output types.

• Non-developers can still work without you. Configurable admin views, state-dependent fields and a full form builder let operations teams handle their own changes.

• Analytics you don't have to instrument. pylo records every change as an event with before and after state and custom dashboards sit right next to the data.

• AI access that's safe for production. MCP runs with the connected user's exact read permissions, and every write goes through human approval as a proposal.

• No per-seat pricing. Unlimited users and API requests and all features on every plan, only three meters are billed: flow actions, records, and file storage/traffic.

• Built for agencies. You can run many client workspaces with separate tenants and permissions, switch between them with one login and give client teams access without paying per seat.

• German hosting from a German company. pylo hosts user data in Germany on every plan and the DPA is part of the terms. You get a 99.5% SLA from the first paid plan, hourly backups with 30-day retention and personal support from the people who build the product.

FAQs - Questions and answers about pylo

• Is pylo a spreadsheet like Airtable? No, pylo shows your data in configurable list and detail views, not in an editable grid with formulas. With multi-select, bulk edit, copy and paste of large datasets and customizable columns, the default view is very similar to a spreadsheet, though. pylo is built as a backend that non-developers can also work with.

• Is pylo open source? No, but you can export all data at any time as CSV or JSON or through the API. The data models, flow definitions and generated SDK code are yours to keep, even after you leave.

• Can I self-host pylo? No, but if you need specific hosting options, we can discuss them as part of the Enterprise plan.

• Does pylo scale? Yes, production workspaces already run with millions of records and ten thousands of flow runs today.

• Where exactly is my data? Content data is in data centres in Germany and backups are kept at a different German location.

• Can I get access now? pylo is currently in private beta, you can just request access and we will set up your first entities with you on a call and onboard you personally for your first project.