10 Reasons Customers are Switching to Knack from Airtable: A Builder’s Guide

When it comes to building web applications for small and medium businesses, choosing the right platform is critical. While Airtable is a great tool for lightweight database management, Knack outshines it in flexibility, scalability, and functionality for more complex business applications. This is because Knack offers SMBs relief from SaaS sprawl with an an All-In-One platform that include a powerful Online Database, Built-In Automation/Integration tooling, and a robust front end web application builder.  Here are 10 reasons why customers are increasingly turning to Knack for their all-in-one database, automation, and front-end web application needs.

What is Airtable?

Airtable combines the spreadsheet-like simplicity with a relational database to help individuals and teams collaborate on various projects and workflows. It allows users to create applications using templates and flexible views like grids, calendars, and Kanban boards, making it ideal for project management. With its ease of use and automation capabilities, Airtable empowers users to streamline business processes, but it is generally limited in overall scope and struggles with large datasets.

Airtable’s pricing starts at $20 per seat per month. Their pricing structure is built to greatly add costs as your team and app grows.

What is Knack?

Knack is a powerful no-code platform designed to help individuals and businesses build custom web apps and databases tailored to their specific needs. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, Knack enables users to organize, manage, and display data effectively, whether it’s through customer portals, custom CRMs, data management tools, or another type of solution. Users can build dynamic apps with advanced features like forms, reports, and user roles, and integrate natively with tools like QuickBooks, Slack, Google Drive, the Microsoft suite, and over 400 other tools. Unlike traditional spreadsheets, Knack provides robust capabilities for creating relational databases and secure portals, empowering users to streamline operations, enhance collaboration, and scale processes without writing a single line of code.

Knack’s pricing starts at just $59 per month for unlimited users. Knack does not charge per usage and scales as your business scales.

Airtable vs Knack: Why Users are Making the Shift to Knack

Advanced User Management

Knack Strength:
Knack offers granular user roles and customizable permissions, enabling true role-based access control, allowing users to see only their relevant records. For example:

• Personalized Views: Users can log in and view only the records directly connected to them, such as a project manager seeing their assigned projects.
• Group-Based Access: Users can access records linked to a group or company they belong to, like viewing tasks connected to their projects.

Builders can set field-level permissions, secure filtering of records and fields, and build dynamic dashboards tailored to each user.

Airtable Limitation:
Airtable is limited in the number of pre-set roles and support for custom permissions or dynamic user-specific workflows. This rigidity makes it unsuitable for applications with diverse external users like clients, vendors, or contractors.

Airtable Limitation:
Airtable is limited in the number of pre-set roles and support for custom permissions or dynamic user-specific workflows. This rigidity makes it unsuitable for applications with diverse external users like clients, vendors, or contractors.

Robust Database Relationships

Knack Strength:
Knack excels in managing complex data relationships by allowing you to connect records across multiple tables. For example:

• Link many contacts to a single company.
• Associate one order with multiple products.
• Connect multiple managers to multiple projects.

These connections make it easy to build relational data structures, enabling dynamic functionality like filtering, reporting, and seamless navigation between related records, all within your app. Data updates cascade dynamically, ensuring consistency across tables.

Airtable Limitation:
Airtable’s “Linked Records” are simplistic references, lacking dynamic relationship management, hierarchical support, or auto-updating capabilities.

Airtable Limitation:
Airtable’s “Linked Records” are simplistic references, lacking dynamic relationship management, hierarchical support, or auto-updating capabilities.

Powerful Workflow Builder

Knack Strength:
Knack allows multi-step workflows with nested conditions, enabling complex automation. You can build workflows that update records, trigger emails, and assign tasks based on user roles or data conditions—all within one platform.

Airtable Limitation:
Airtable workflows are limited to basic automations. Creating workflows with multiple conditions or actions requires additional tools like Zapier or Ma, which increases complexity and cost.

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Airtable Limitation:
Airtable workflows are limited to basic automations. Creating workflows with multiple conditions or actions requires additional tools like Zapier or Ma, which increases complexity and cost.

Built-In Authentication Portal

Knack Strength:
Knack provides built-in user authentication with login portals, password reset, and registration, all without third-party tools. This is ideal for creating secure client portals, partner dashboards, or vendor management systems. Here’s why:

• Seamless User Authentication: Knack allows you to require users to log in before accessing your app, ensuring secure data access right out of the box.
• Customizable Access Levels: You can define exactly who will use your app and set their access levels, creating tailored experiences for different roles without additional third-party tools.
• Default Open Access with Security Options: While Knack apps are accessible by default via a URL, you can easily enable login requirements to restrict access, providing flexibility and control.

Airtable Limitation:
Airtable has rudimentary end user portal capabilities and charges for portal user access making it difficult to scale to your ecosystem as it grows. It also lacks native authentication for external users, so builders typically integrate third-party point solution tool integration like Softr or Noloco, adding complexity and cost. Knack a simpler and more secure solution for apps needing robust login systems.

Airtable Limitation:
Airtable has rudimentary end user portal capabilities and charges for portal user access making it difficult to scale to your ecosystem as it grows. It also lacks native authentication for external users, so builders typically integrate third-party point solution tool integration like Softr or Noloco, adding complexity and cost. Knack a simpler and more secure solution for apps needing robust login systems.

Advanced Multi-Step Form Builder

Knack Strength:
Knack’s Forms workflows for data collection workflows allow builders to create user-friendly forms, offering unmatched flexibility, advanced logic, and usability.

Knack supports multi-step forms, guiding users through complex workflows with ease. You can dynamically adjust steps based on user input, simplifying intricate processes. Airtable lacks this capability, requiring workarounds or external tools.

Knack forms provide a seamless user experience with features like flexible one, two, or three-column layouts, drag-and-drop fields, and rich media integration for embedding images, videos, or descriptions. Field-specific filters ensure only relevant options are displayed, streamlining data entry. Airtable’s rigid layouts and limited styling don’t compare.

Forms also leverage Knack’s advanced business logic to customize user interactions:

• Conditional Logic: Show or hide fields dynamically based on input.
• Submission Actions: Automate processes like record updates, email notifications, or redirects.
• Custom Validation: Ensure data accuracy with tailored validation rules and error messages.

Knack also allows embedding custom HTML/CSS, making it easy to create polished, branded forms. Airtable lacks such customization options.

Airtable Limitation:
Airtable forms are basic: no multi-step forms, limited layout options, and no custom validation messages. Airtable’s logic is basic, with limited field validation and no dynamic workflows and embedding custom HTML/CSS for more powerful customization if needed. 

Advanced Logic and Validation

Knack Strength:
Knack supports advanced business logic capabilities including validation rules, conditional rules, and record actions, providing unmatched customization and automation for businesses needing precise, custom workflows.

Validation Rules

Knack ensures data accuracy by enforcing customizable validation criteria during data entry, which helps eliminate errors and maintain data integrity effortlessly.. You can:

• Limit character counts, file types, and sizes.
• Use regular expressions for advanced text validation.
• Set secure password requirements.
  

Conditional Rules

Knack automates field values based on specific conditions, enabling dynamic workflows. For example:

• Set a 5% commission for sales with more than two years of experience.
• Flag invoices as “Overdue” when payments are late.
  

Record Rules

Knack’s record actions automate backend processes, triggering updates or creating new records when forms are submitted or fields are edited helping streamline operations and reduce manual workload. Use cases include:

• Tracking record creators or last updates.
• Automatically updating connected records.
• Generating new records like receipts or status changes.
  

Airtable Limitation:
Airtable’s logic is basic, with no support for complex dependencies or robust validation. Knack’s ability to handle complex logic, ensure data accuracy, and automate workflows makes it a superior choice over Airtable for businesses needing scalable and efficient apps. This dynamic functionality simplifies complex data updates that Airtable cannot handle natively.

Built-In Integrations and Automations Tooling

Knack Strength:
Knack Flows is a new capability built directly within the Knack Platform that offers over 400 native integrations through Knack Flows. Connect directly with tools like Stripe, PayPal, and CRMs, or automate processes across systems.

You can manage all your workflows in one place, no more juggling multiple tools or constantly re-establishing integrations. Quickly adjust processes, fix issues, and maintain compliance with ease, all without adding unnecessary complexity to your tech stack. Knack Flows integrates seamlessly with all the tools you already use, so you can build, manage, and evolve your automations directly within your Knack environment. No extra setup, no steep learning curve, just a streamlined way to get more done. Unlike leveraging additional automation platforms Airtable that require separate subscriptions, Knack Flows is bundled right into your Knack plan. That means no surprise fees and a more transparent, affordable solution for growing businesses.

Airtable Limitation:
Airtable’s automation capabilities are basic and heavily reliant on external platforms like Zapier or Make. This approach adds:

• Extra subscription costs.
• Increased complexity when managing workflows.
• Risk of broken connections requiring constant maintenance.

Airtable’s fragmented setup makes scaling and maintaining automations cumbersome, especially for growing businesses.

Payments Integration

Knack Strength:
Knack includes native payment processing with Stripe and PayPal. This makes it easy to collect payments directly within your application. Knack seamlessly combines payment processing with user logins and workflows, creating a unified solution for secure, automated, and scalable e-commerce features. Knack streamlines payment processing, making it easy to handle everything from basic transactions like event registrations to more complex orders, such as bundling multiple items into a single seamless transaction. With Knack, you can:

• Accept Donations: Ideal for charities and non-profits, enabling streamlined donation processing.
• Create Member Areas: Restrict access to exclusive content or services until membership fees are paid.
• Build Self-Service Portals: Allow customers to view invoices, update payment information, and make payments on their own schedules.
• Support Multi-Item Payments: Charge for multiple items in a single order, perfect for retail or service-based businesses.

Airtable Limitation:
.Airtable lacks built-in payment capabilities, requiring third-party integrations for even basic payment functionality. This approach adds complexity, costs, and risks of disjointed workflows.

With Knack, businesses gain a comprehensive payment system directly integrated into their app, making it the superior choice for businesses looking to accept payments on the web.

Mobile Responsiveness

Knack Strength:
Knack automatically generates mobile-responsive front-end interfaces. You can design dashboards, forms, and pages that look great on any device without extra coding.

Airtable Limitation:
Airtable is primarily designed for backend management, offering limited flexibility for mobile-friendly front-end customization.

Price Scalability

Knack Strength:
Knack’s fixed pricing model is cost-effective for teams with large user bases or external collaborators. Applications involving hundreds or thousands of users can scale without incurring massive per-seat costs.

Airtable Limitation:
Airtable’s per-seat pricing becomes prohibitively expensive as user numbers grow, particularly for external portals.

Why Builders Choose Knack

Knack combines a powerful online database, robust automations and integrations platform, and customizable web application builder into one seamless solution that scales with unlimited users in every subscription. Whether you’re creating client portals, internal tools, or e-commerce platforms, Knack provides the flexibility, scalability, and cost-efficiency that Airtable cannot match.

Ready to build your next web application with Knack? Explore Knack for Free to experience all these capabilities and more and see the difference for yourself!