Grist vs Airtable
Airtable: Both let teams build shared spreadsheet-style databases and apps for collaborative data work.
Grist
The evolution of spreadsheets
As of 13 November 2026, Grist has a free plan and paid plans start at $10/month. Hybrid spreadsheet and database tool combining spreadsheet editing with relational data structure, open source with a hosted tier. Softwr lists it under Databases.
Overview
What Grist does
Hybrid spreadsheet and database tool combining spreadsheet editing with relational data structure, open source with a hosted tier.
What people use it for
- Collaborative data and spreadsheet management
- Database creation and automation
- Team data analysis and reporting
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Grist.
- Business plan has minimum 5-user requirement
- Enterprise self-hosted pricing not disclosed publicly
- Annual billing discount only 20%, lower than some competitors
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Grist
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
Pricing
What Grist costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Free
Free
- Unlimited documents
- Up to 5,000 records per document
- 30-day snapshot history
- 100 AI Assistant credits (one-time)
Pro
$10 /mo
- Up to 100,000 records per document
- 3-year snapshot history
- 100+ AI credits monthly
Business
$30 /mo
- 150,000 records per document
- 5-year snapshot history
- 2,000 AI credits monthly
- Automations and priority support
- Minimum 5 users required
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Does Grist have a free version?
Yes. Grist Free includes unlimited documents with up to 5,000 records each, 30-day snapshot history, and 100 AI Assistant credits. No credit card required.
SourceHow much does Grist Pro cost?
Grist Pro is $10/user/month (billed monthly) or $8/user/month with annual billing. It includes up to 100,000 records per document and 3-year snapshot history.
SourceWhat does Grist's Business plan include?
Grist Business is $30/user/month ($24 annually) with a minimum of 5 users. It includes 150,000 records per document, 5-year snapshot history, 2,000 AI credits monthly, and automations with priority support.
SourceDo nonprofits get discounts on Grist?
Yes. Nonprofits receive a 50% discount on the Pro plan with Letter of Determination verification.
SourceKeep looking
Where to go from Grist
- Grist alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Grist pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Grist badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Databases softwareThe full category
- Best Databases softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Databases software for
Compare Grist with
- Airtable
- FaunaDB
- PostgreSQL
- Amazon Aurora
- MariaDB
- DataGrip
- Estuary
- Google Cloud SQL
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Firebase Realtime Database
- Qdrant
- Readyset
- Redpanda
- RisingWave
- ScyllaDB
- Solace PubSub+
- SQLite
- Amazon RDS
Other Databases software
Create apps that perfectly fit your team's needs
Free, then $20/month per editor11 researched notesDocument-relational database whose hosted service closed in 2025 and whose core is now unmaintained Apache 2.0 code.
Free plan12 researched notesMySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud
Free plan12 researched notesCross-platform database IDE from JetBrains for SQL and NoSQL databases
Free, then $8.25/mo12 researched notesReal-time data integration combining streaming, CDC, and batch
Free, then $0.5/GB10 researched notesFully managed relational database service for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server
Free plan9 researched notesEnterprise-grade relational database management system
Free plan15 researched notesStore and sync data in real-time across all clients
Free plan8 researched notesHigh-performance vector database for similarity search and embedding-based retrieval
Free plan9 researched notesDatabase caching and optimization that reduces infrastructure costs 30-70%
Free plan10 researched notesStreaming database that maintains incremental materialised views in SQL instead of Flink jobs
Free, then $0.227/hour12 researched notesMulti-protocol event broker sold as software, cloud service or a hardware appliance
Free plan12 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Grist, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Grist
Grist alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Grist pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Grist
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Grist badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
Best Databases software alternatives
Industrial process historian with published per-tag pricing and no client licence fees
Per tag band per year
NetApp-owned managed service for Cassandra, Kafka, OpenSearch, PostgreSQL and Cadence with a bring-your-own-cloud model
quote
Erlang MQTT broker for large IoT fleets, relicensed to BSL with production free use limited to one node
Per month by connection and session volume
Attribute-based access control and masking applied inside Snowflake, Databricks and BigQuery
quote
MPP analytical database with a MySQL wire protocol and sub-second aggregation on wide tables
Open source, no licence feeStreaming database that maintains incremental materialised views in SQL instead of Flink jobs
Per RisingWave Unit hour
Centralised data access governance from the creators of Apache Ranger, now rebranding as Trust3 AI
quote
The Meta-lineage distributed SQL query engine, distinct from the Trino fork
Open source, no licence fee