Stackby Review: Is This Airtable Alternative Worth It?

What Is Stackby (and How Does It Compare to Airtable)?

Stackby positions itself as an Airtable competitor, and the comparison is fair. At its core, it's a spreadsheet that functions like a database — or maybe a database that looks like a spreadsheet. If you've ever tried to manage relational data in Google Sheets and hit a wall, this is the category of tool that solves that problem.

The concept is straightforward: you get the familiar rows-and-columns interface everyone already knows how to use, but with the ability to create relationships between different tables of data. Think of linking your email campaigns to specific audience segments, or connecting project tasks to team members and due dates. Airtable popularized this approach, and Stackby is aiming to carve out its own space in the same territory.

This particular deal launched as the first AppSumo offering of 2020, priced at $59 for a lifetime deal that's stackable up to five codes. But before you jump in, it's worth understanding exactly what you're getting — and what Airtable gives you for free.

AppSumo Deal Breakdown: What You Actually Get

The lifetime deal starts at $59 for a single code, and you can stack up to five codes to increase your limits. With the first code, you get one workspace, two users, 20 stacks (databases), 10 gigabytes of attachment storage per stack, and a set number of rows per database.

Here's where things get a little underwhelming. Each additional code only adds two more users, five additional gigabytes of storage, five more databases, and 5,000 more rows. The scaling is linear rather than doubling, which feels stingy when you're already limited to a single workspace. A more generous approach — doubling the allotments with each stacked code — would make this deal significantly more attractive.

Stackby recommends creating separate workspaces for each department in your business (sales, marketing, design, etc.), but since this deal only includes one workspace, you'll need to organize everything under a single roof. That's a meaningful constraint for teams that want clean separation between departments.

Airtable's Free Plan: The Elephant in the Room

You can't evaluate Stackby without acknowledging what Airtable offers at no cost. Their free plan includes unlimited bases (databases), which already surpasses Stackby's limited allocation. The main restrictions on Airtable's free tier are 1,200 records per base, 2 gigabytes of attachments per base, and only two weeks of revision history.

Step up to Airtable's paid plan at $10 per user per month and you jump to 5,000 records per base, 5 gigabytes of attachments, and six months of revision history. It's a recurring cost, sure, but it's modest — and you're backing an established company with a proven track record.

The math isn't complicated: if you're a solo user or small team with basic needs, Airtable's free plan covers a lot of ground without spending a dime. That makes the value proposition for Stackby's paid lifetime deal harder to justify on features alone. But there is one area where Stackby pulls ahead.

The Killer Feature: Built-In API Integrations

Where Stackby genuinely differentiates itself is with native API integrations baked directly into your columns. Instead of needing a third-party automation tool or paying for Airtable's premium API access, Stackby lets you pull data from external services right into your spreadsheet cells.

At the time of this review, there are about 15 integrations available, including some heavy hitters: Slack, YouTube, Hunter.io for email lookups, Google PageSpeed, MailChimp, WhatsApp, and Twilio. You can create an API-type column in any stack and connect it directly to these services.

This is the feature that should drive your buying decision. If you're already a heavy user of one or more of these integrated platforms and you want to pull that data into a relational database without cobbling together Zapier automations, Stackby delivers real value here. For everyone else, it's a nice-to-have that doesn't necessarily outweigh Airtable's broader ecosystem.

Inside the Product: Templates, Views, and UI Quirks

Stackby's interface will feel immediately familiar if you've used Airtable — perhaps a little too familiar. The template gallery layout, color scheme, and overall design language bear a strong resemblance. That said, Airtable has a significant head start in template variety, with far more categories and options to choose from. Stackby offers roughly two dozen categories with a handful of templates each, covering use cases like CRM, email marketing, project tracking, film production, and education.

The templates are genuinely useful for getting started quickly. The email marketing template, for example, comes pre-configured with linked tables for emails, topics, and segments, demonstrating how relational data works in practice. You can see which emails belong to which topic, filter by audience segment, and track status — all connected through linked columns indicated by small directional arrows in the header.

There are some UI issues worth noting. Menu items occasionally disappear before you can click them, requiring quick reflexes or workaround navigation. The calendar view can be sluggish to load and sometimes requires a page refresh. These aren't dealbreakers, but they signal a product that still has some polish left to apply.

Can Stackby Replace Your CRM or Project Management Tool?

Short answer: probably not. Stackby includes templates for both CRM and project management, but they're bare-bones implementations compared to dedicated tools. The project tracker offers basic columns for project names, notes, categories, and a calendar view for due dates, but it lacks the depth of something like ClickUp, Asana, or Trello — no Kanban boards, no time tracking, no advanced automations.

The CRM template is similarly limited. You can store client names, contacts, and phone numbers, and you can always add custom columns, but there's no pipeline tracking, no email integration, and no deal stages. It's essentially a glorified contact list with relational linking capabilities.

For solopreneurs or very small teams with minimal requirements, these templates could get you by. But if you're already invested in a dedicated CRM or project management platform, Stackby won't pull you away. Its strength lies in custom relational databases and API-connected data, not in replacing specialized tools.

Final Verdict: 6.4 out of 10

Stackby earns a 6.4 out of 10. It's a functional product that's past the beta stage, with solid core features for building relational databases. The built-in API integrations are a genuine differentiator that could save you money on third-party automation tools if you're a heavy user of the supported platforms.

However, Airtable's generous free plan is tough competition. You get unlimited databases at no cost, and the paid tier is only $10 per user per month — hardly a bank-breaker. The AppSumo deal's scaling limitations (especially the single workspace restriction and modest per-code increases) make it hard to recommend enthusiastically for growing teams.

The bottom line: if one of Stackby's API integrations solves a specific pain point for you, the lifetime deal could pay for itself quickly. Otherwise, most users will be better served starting with Airtable's free plan and only paying when they genuinely outgrow it. It's not that Stackby is bad — it's that the competition gives away a lot for nothing.

Watch the Full Video

Prefer watching to reading? Check out the full video on YouTube for a complete walkthrough with live demos and commentary.