
Show HN: Airtable, a real-time spreadsheet-database hybrid - howsta
https://airtable.com/invite/a3sz9t7b
======
Erwin
Here's one use case: i tried importing a 500+ row wine spreadsheet into it (it
has columns like type, producer, name, vintage, rating, source etc).

I had to save the file as CSV and import it -- or at least that's what I
thought, but filepicker seems to support picking from google drive. I don't
know if it would have accepted a spreadsheet.

Your app seems sluggish to scroll compared to Google Docs at that size, and
the record density seems low (I see 29 records per page vs 50 on Google Docs).
This is using Chrome 38 on Linux.

The "link to another table" seems interesting, but my data came denormalized
so I have a column with e.g. 10 different repeated values on 500 rows. Maybe
it would be nice to automatically clean that up somehow. For example, I could
Copy the column and have a some Paste (unique values only) option. Maybe the
dialogue that comes up (suggesting to expand the spreadsheet) could even tell
you about that. Or maybe there could be an option to convert a text field to a
separated linked table.

I had some conditional formatting set up via Google Docs, which could be nice
to have here; e.g. red wines have a red background in that wine type table.

I don't have a simple primary key -- it's really a composite of {wine
producer, wine name, vintage}. The app didn't mind importing non-unique values
into that first column. I don't know what the alternative might have been --
an auto-generated primary key?

Having said all of the above, I really like Google Docs and it will take some
amazing features to make me switch to anything else. Multi-user planning and
documentation via docs is great -- I have a shopping list everyone can update
and I can see it change real time on the phone in the shop while someone is
changing it from their desktop, and it's always up to date.

~~~
aofstad
Thanks a lot for your feedback, these are definitely things we're looking to
tackle.

We're planning on improving scrolling performance soon, it's definitely a
priority for us to improve our performance for large datasets.

As for the linking, we definitely want to do more to help you normalize your
data. We can also infer column types to help with the import process. Doing
this type of thing on paste is an interesting idea.

We have some ideas for how to make it so that you don't need a primary column.
One thing that you can do now is make the primary column a formula, and then
reference other columns to generate a key.

~~~
shrig94
If you're interested in talking about the challenges of creating a performant
spreadsheet, I've built a javascript-based spreadsheet backed by a database
that's more performant than Google Docs/any open source table available on the
internet. I'd be happy to share the techniques.

Edit: reach me at shri (at) freshvc (dot) com

~~~
mikegioia
How about posting the source :P

~~~
hughstephens
+1 would love to see the source ;)

------
EvanMiller
This looks like a nice product. Software companies have been struggling to
make a mass-market database program ever since Lotus 1-2-3 (the "3" was a
database), but the spreadsheet remains king, despite the fact that for storing
structured data, it is almost as bad as a Word document with macros. So I'll
be rooting for you.

One complaint: Referring to your Basic plan as being "Free forever" is a bit
disingenuous. In my opinion, the FTC ought to prohibit use of this term by
tech companies located in the 650 and 415 area codes.

~~~
sedachv
> Software companies have been struggling to _sell_ a mass-market database
> program ever since Lotus 1-2-3 [that is not Access]

There, I fixed it for you. (disclosure: I worked on a similar tool, had a
friend, one of the best programmers I know, who built a similar tool, worked
on an ERP system that addressed many of the same use cases, and I started
Skysheet, YC W09, with gruseom).

~~~
Pxtl
MS office has been non-optional for the workplace computer for decades, so any
tool has to compete with "free-as-in-had-to-buy-it-anyways".

~~~
atheken
Access is great as a personal, single-user database, but how much software has
been written to expand it past that limitation in small businesses? Also,
Access isn't available for Mac. And Access doesn't run on your iPhone/iPad. I
don't entirely disagree with your comment, but I do think there's room and
demand in the market for something like AirTable.

I've personally been dabbling with similar idea for years. Guess I should have
invested my time and money in getting it to market.

~~~
sedachv
> Access is great as a personal, single-user database, but how much software
> has been written to expand it past that limitation in small businesses?

There were (and in all probability still are) many multi-user Access projects
in use by small businesses.

> I don't entirely disagree with your comment, but I do think there's room and
> demand in the market for something like AirTable.

So you don't entirely disagree with a bunch of people who have failed to find
this imaginary demand, but you think the demand is there? There is demand for
business applications for verticals, and for general ERP functions like
timesheets and payroll. The demand for an Access-like or "better spreadsheet"
product is all of the "Oh yeah, it sounds cool" variety that never results in
sales.

------
christiangenco
This looks fantastic! I was drooling during the demo video - you've improved
on so many things from the standard spreadsheet at once.

If I could make a request for the API: it's almost impossible to get a simple
JSON serialization of a table in Google Spreadsheets. There are so many times
where I just want to make a really simple MVP with a backend data source, but
don't want a full-fledged Firebase database. If I could just stick my data in
an Airtable sheet and point my Javascript to load it and create the page
dynamically, that would be ideal.

~~~
adrenalinup
You should give prismic.io a spin. You basicaly define data format in as JSON,
CRUD interface is generated just from data description. The data you you add
is also JSON you can easily retrive. You can query the data with predicates.
Did a few projects with it, didn't need a database, or create a CRUD, such a
relive.

------
perplexes
Ah, another DabbleDB! I hope you stick around longer. :)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabble_DB](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabble_DB)

~~~
zmanian
DabbleDB was great. I was so sad it closed.

------
heartbleed
[https://filippo.io/Heartbleed/#airtable.com](https://filippo.io/Heartbleed/#airtable.com)

~~~
kolev
Nice! Are you gonna automate checks for each submitted link or this is a one-
time thing?

~~~
heartbleed
No plans to automate. I would have emailed the OP but couldn't see any contact
details in their profile.

Detected via a Firefox extension [1] (there are several on AMO). Given the
nature and severity of the vulnerability, and how widespread it still is (I
get an alert every few days), I'm surprised everyone doesn't use one.

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/foxbleed/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/foxbleed/)

------
howsta
FYI, we require that you oauth in via a Google account purely for
authentication right now. We don't request permissions for your email,
calendar, contacts, or other data--only your name, email, and profile picture
(which is used in the UI). We're working on support for email/password based
signup, as well as oauth support for other services.

~~~
foobarqux
Should I be able to access the templates after I auth or do I need an invite?

~~~
howsta
If you click through the link in this HN post (
[https://airtable.com/invite/a3sz9t7b](https://airtable.com/invite/a3sz9t7b) )
it has an invite code embedded in the URL. Once you're signed in, if you visit
airtable.com/templates you will be able to browse through and directly add a
template to your workspace. You can also visit airtable.com/templates without
an invite code and browse (but not add)

------
salimmadjd
Congrats! I got very excited when I first saw the video. Then I signed in to
use it, but got stuck.

For me the UI seems a bit heavy. Not sure what it is about the UI, but it
feels very constrained for me. It could just be the color, the size of the
fields or something. But I think with a small amount of UI tweak it'll feel
more welcoming and happy.

I know I'll use it for sure, but now I just don't see a reason to reach out
for it over Google Apps. Which is a challenge you'll face.

For example, your demo apps are all great, but for anyone who is hiring or
sales leads are a pain, there is already a fully integrated product out there.
For the rest, Google Apps might just work fine.

Basically, I think it comes down to fining your product-market fit and going
after that segment.

------
KMag
I don't suppose they've considered making IEEE 754-2008 decimal floating point
numbers the default number representation. It's a shame Intel didn't consult
Dr. William Kahan earlier in their design of the x87 floating point unit. At
this point, binary floating point is deeply entrenched despite most uses
outside of scientific modeling being better suited to decimal floating point.

Most spreadsheet calculations are better suited to decimal floating point, and
decimal floating point numbers are more intuitive for most users. A surprising
number of the "Excel bugs" you find online are people misunderstanding binary
floating point numbers, or some of the display hacks Excel uses to hide binary
artifacts.

~~~
rbonvall
There's also DEC64, Douglas Crockford's proposal for a decimal floating point
type to serve as the only numeric type in future programming languages:
[http://dec64.org/](http://dec64.org/)

~~~
KMag
POWER and RISC-V processors already have hardware support for IEEE 754-2008
decimal floating point numbers, and C# has language support for IEEE 754-2008
decimal floating point.

It seems the main claimed advantage of dec64 over IEEE 754-2008 decimal64 is
in the fast-path zero-exponent case. Note that V8, SpiderMonkey, and many
other dynamic language implementations use a separate compact fast-path
representation of integers that renders this point moot. Also, no benchmarks
are provided to show the supposed speed advantages of dec64 libraries over
decimal64 libraries.

Also, I doubt the dec64.org's claim that the primary reason for slow uptake of
decimal64 is the speed of software implementations.

In short, dec64 is mildly interesting, but its claimed advantages aren't
enough to justify abandoning the decimal64 format that already has hardware
support and language support in a very popular language. Intel also had a
large role in standardizing the decimal64 format, so I suspect they'd be much
more likely to implement decimal64 in hardware instead of dec64 in hardware.

Edit: on a side note, it's unfortunate that neither dec64 nor decimal64 forces
normalization, complicating comparison and sorting.

------
michaelmior
Looks pretty great. I'm not sure if I have a use case personally, but seems
quite well-executed. Any plans for an Android app?

Also, minor note. On the fifth step of the tour, the word "seperate" is
misspelled.

~~~
howsta
Thanks for checking it out! Yes, an Android app is on the roadmap for the near
future. Thanks for the heads up, will fix the typo in the next deploy. If you
want some inspiration for uses cases, we do have a template gallery here:
[https://airtable.com/templates](https://airtable.com/templates)

------
kbd
The "instantly syncs updates with all users" bit caught my eye. I always
wonder how people go about implementing that.

Asana works that way, and they have their own framework named Luna that does
some functional reactive magic. Meteor, which I've been working with a lot
lately and have really enjoyed using, was also created by some ex-Asana
people, and enables the same type of real-time synced updates.

I was just wondering if you could share anything about your technology stack
or how you accomplish the real-time updates. Are you using Meteor?

~~~
howsta
First off, we're huge fans of both Meteor and Asana. I spoke with Geoff @
Meteor a couple years ago when we were first starting to build out the
Airtable product and was very impressed by their approach and vision.

We've closely followed the developer blogs of both those projects (and in
Meteor's case, their source code). With those learnings, we built our own
realtime database engine that supports relational data (which Meteor doesn't
yet support) and also some other major features like the ability to undo any
user action out of order (like git revert), which is necessary to support undo
in a multi-user context (because the last thing that you did may not be the
last change globally if other people are concurrently making changes). Undo is
a particularly challenging feature to implement in a structured relational
database context, because it can't be reduced to a set of simplistic character
insertion operations as is the case for a google word doc, or a spreadsheet
(which is a simple 2d array of values without type constraints, foreign key
relations, etc).

~~~
yourad_io
Very impressive, one more congratulation from me. And a couple quick
questions:

How do you handle conflicts? E.g. If two users change the same scalar value
(of an integer cell, let's say) at the same time. Do you accept one and throw
a warning back to the unlucky users?

How much to you cache locally? I had begun a framework such as this at some
point, with the ultimate goal of being usable offline via the localStorage
cached version (and sync upon connect), so I have a good idea of how much pain
you must have gone through sorting this out :)

You wrote your own real-time database engine. You're nuts! (in a very good
way). Have you written anything about this? It would be interesting to hear
both about the database and the experience of "rolling your own" at such a low
level.

You guys need a dev blog.

~~~
howsta
Hi, yes--we definitely want to get a dev blog up and start talking about some
of this stuff!

Re: conflicts, in the case of a scalar value, last in wins, and the system (if
you consider the server and each client as nodes in a distributed system) is
eventually consistent (i.e. everyone will eventually see the exact same
state). In that particular case, we show the other user's profile picture and
highlight the cell to flag that change so you realize somebody else is editing
at the same time as you.

~~~
yourad_io
Nice. There is probably an argument to be made for a notification when you
update something and someone else also updates it and your update loses (i.e.
small time difference updates or conflicts + your client wasn't last)

Although to be fair, I suppose "undo" covers this. Can you undo an action
taken by someone else? (User A commits "aa", User B commits "bb", User A
commits "yy"; Can User A, undo to both "bb" and "aa"?)

Edit to add: Looking forward to the dev blog.

------
addisonj
Very impressed.

Spreadsheets have never quite "clicked" with me, but this did. It exposes a
lot of functionality that your average person would want out of a spreadsheet
in a much friendlier way.

I am really curious on the "database" side though, can this handle a couple of
tables with 10k rows linking to one another? Maybe an API that allows me to
return JSON with some query language? If so, would be a great tool for CRM
like tools and any small/medium data set where a nice UI for editing would
come in handy

~~~
aofstad
Thanks for your comments! We're actively working on performance improvements
needed on both the client side and server side, but right now it would be very
sluggish at that scale. We do have immediate plans to expose an API, probably
sometime early 2015.

------
dannyking
This looks great - actually it could be exactly what we need to manage our
overbearing CRM spreadsheet. Looking forward to that account invite - would
start using it today!

~~~
aofstad
Sounds like Airtable would be pretty ideal for that. You can import that CRM
spreadsheet to get started! You can actually start today, just click the "Get
it started" button here:
[https://airtable.com/invite/a3sz9t7b](https://airtable.com/invite/a3sz9t7b)

------
kbendyk
This really looks very nice!

After defining 3 tables with related records, some thoughts:

\- Trying to enter some records, I pressed space in the checkbox column, "zoom
view" appeared instead of changing the value (enter changes the value), I
understand that this is a convention in your system, but what's the point of
the zoome checkbox? :)

\- Detail view shows checkbox columns, as checkbox - name and another value-
changing checkbox below, waste of space - record with 4 column takes almost
all modal window.

\- Changing value of checkbox with enter, disallows submitting detail view, so
there is no submit, but then I cannot simply discard changes made in the
detail view, when I press ESC - data still changes. To revert changes, I had
to press ctrl-z several times.

\- I noticed that of the entered characters changed to ?, I'm not shure how
cannot replicate it, but entering some strange character, and clicking around
does the trick.

\- I think you should consider adding standard spreadsheet/browser keyboard
shortcuts: F2, alt+down.

\- Make page up / page down work.

\- Adding related record, could automatically open new detail window -
creating unnamed row seem pointless.

Good luck!

~~~
howsta
Thanks for the feedback! Good points - will add these to our queue for
features

------
clyfe
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCVj5RZOqwY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCVj5RZOqwY)

~~~
radiowave
Yes, that's exactly what I was reminded of. It's really sad that DabbleDB is
no longer around.

------
benackles
Great execution! I wonder if this is what Paul Graham was envisioning when he
wrote about a "web-based excel/database hybrid" in his post "Startup Ideas
We'd Like to Fund"[1] in 2008.

> 22\. A web-based Excel/database hybrid. People often use Excel as a
> lightweight database. I suspect there's an opportunity to create the program
> such users wish existed, and that there are new things you could do if it
> were web-based. Like make it easier to get data into it, through forms or
> scraping.

> Don't make it feel like a database. That frightens people. The question to
> ask is: how much can I let people do without defining structure? You want
> the database equivalent of a language that makes its easy to keep data in
> linked lists. (Which means you probably want to write it in one.)

[1]
[http://old.ycombinator.com/ideas.html](http://old.ycombinator.com/ideas.html)

~~~
dang
I wonder what language that makes it easy to keep data in linked lists he
might have had in mind.

~~~
tptacek
Obviously, C, where a linked list is the first library every new programmer
learns to write.

------
sharp11
Great concept, implementation look very nice, change your intro video. You're
giving me a product tutorial when what I want is to understand the use cases
and benefits. I don't care about how to use it (yet), I want to know why to
use it. Also, please lose the background music - very distracting in a
tutorial.

~~~
livestyle
Excellent point. The video totally misses the "why" of this product.

Very difficult to get non technical peeps just suddenly ditch spreadsheets.

I think a focus on a specific use case i.e job would be better approach. Seems
to be to broad in terms of the jobs that it is addressing.

~~~
howsta
Hi, good point--we have a template gallery that shows the "why" use cases
[https://airtable.com/templates](https://airtable.com/templates)

And also are building out a few dedicated pages for the most common use cases
like the job applicant tracking one you described:
[https://airtable.com/applicantTracking/a3sz9t7b](https://airtable.com/applicantTracking/a3sz9t7b)

------
inthewoods
Really interesting product - one use case I don't see you attacking is stock
or financial data. A typical use case would be as follows: \- I want to load
up a bunch of stock data - Daily open/close/high/low for a bunch of stocks. \-
I'd like to have the tool automatically pull this data from Yahoo Finance or
Google Finance. \- Then I'd run formulas on the data - so a simple example is
PercentRank on the 50 day moving average. \- Present a summary table with all
the other data hidden away.

Right now, I can do this in Google Spreadsheets but it is a lot of work, and I
can do this in Excel but it requires manually pulling down the data and then
painstaking updating formulas and making sure nothing breaks. I could also do
this in R but it's too complex for me.

Thanks for sharing and good luck!

------
ccath
I read hacker news for a long time and decided to join just to congratulate
you for this! I'm a developer and truly like the database aspect of the app.
Linking tables is super easy and I like to organize some things in a certain
way. Google Docs is not enough most of the time. Right now only need it for
personal use and totally loving it! One thing I haven't figured out yet is how
to do auto increment in keys. I'm also looking forward for the android
version. I also have a suggestion but not sure if the direction you're going
for. I'd love to be able to do stats. Being able to query the data in a
certain way (besides filters), building the select statement.

~~~
aofstad
Thank you! We don't do auto-increment keys but is something we're considering
(or at least auto column types like date created). We will definitely be
adding more analysis features soon. One thing you can do (which may not be too
discoverable) is select a range of number cells in a column to get a summary
at the bottom.

------
tekacs
Any chance you could get the mobile app not lose its cache when 'closed' (or
rather 'crashed'/'restarted')?

At the moment, offline support works fine unless the app closes or crashes, at
which point it loses all of its data until next connect.

I'd love to use this app frequently and for data I need constant access to,
but have a nightmare scenario of it losing its cache just as I walk into a
room without internet (London Tube, many offices, ...).

Totally happy for better offline support to go in a paid plan. :)

~~~
howsta
It's on our short term roadmap along with a lot of other major improvements
planned for the mobile app. Totally agree the experience would be greatly
improved if it handled reopening the app better!

~~~
yoshyosh
You guys should check out www.realm.io, it will be a great way to handle this
type of stuff quickly. I am an iOS engineer there

------
gwintrob
This looks beautiful! Love the database model, which reminds me of
Salesforce's flexibility with an AWESOME front end. Really excited to see how
people use it.

------
porter
At first I thought it was just a prettier, easier to use version of Excel.
Then you showed me the filtering and I had an "Aha" moment. Excel is quick and
easy, but it's hard to ask questions about your data. Databases make it easy
to ask questions, but it's not quick and easy. You guys seem to have taken the
best of both worlds, added in some super simple short-cuts, and there's a
mobile app to boot. Kudos!

------
jcavin
I like the presentation. Very easy to follow along in the beginning, but you
kinda lose me at 1:59. I think you can do a better job explaining this. Really
think that the phone view next to the website view is a great touch.

With todoist if you complete a task it crosses it out, which really looks
great visually if you are checking off a list. maybe if you check one of the
rows, finished column, it crosses out everything in that row.

~~~
howsta
Thanks for the feedback. We'll find a way to make the foreign table creation
at 1:59 more intuitive.

Re: the auto cross out, one thing you can do is add a filter that filters by
"Completed?" = unchecked, which will make each row automatically fade out when
you check (you can create a different view to show the Completed books)

------
cmls587
This is the absolute best for structured data... been a beta user and hooked
on the mobile app now. It's basically replaced evernote for me.

------
shawn-butler
I will look into this more so good job.

The tour seems a little broken in that the callouts sometimes appear in
locations for "menu items" before the menu appears but is still very
informative.

See image before menu: [http://bit.ly/1xq1XYI](http://bit.ly/1xq1XYI) And
image after menu: [http://bit.ly/1rprJrk](http://bit.ly/1rprJrk)

~~~
howsta
Thanks for letting us know, will look into it now

------
ivankirigin
Congrats this looks awesome!

Have you thought much about automation? For example, it would be awesome if
every email I send/receive could create or update a row anchored on the
recipient/source email.

Seems niche, but building that means I could completely automate what RelateIQ
does best. That's just one example, and the point of this kind of automation
is that it enables any workflow I need.

~~~
howsta
Thanks! Yes, it's definitely on the roadmap. We will support certain types of
integrations/automations natively, and also plug in to Zapier/IFTTT for others

------
claar
This UI would make a fantastic database admin interface.

If this were a JavaScript library that let me use MySQL/PostgreSQL on the
back-end, I would be the first to buy a license, even if pricey. I could even
live with a reduced feature set, such as no revisions.

Alas, companies can only focus on so many business plans at once. :)

------
tisakowi
I have been looking for an easy-to-use cloud database and this looks like
it!!!! I am kept being amazed at the lack of an app equivalent for MS Access.
That is a very useful tool but not fit for the cloud/collaboration age.
Kudos!!I think there are tons of people that will use it.

------
iancarroll
First off, love it!

Second, when modifying the properties of a multiple options column you can't
see text past a certain point, even though the row is clearly big enough:
[http://i.imgur.com/6ju4vCe.png](http://i.imgur.com/6ju4vCe.png)

~~~
aofstad
Thanks for pointing this out! We'll get it fixed.

------
13hours
Native mobile SDKs would be fantastic. We often have to develop mobile apps
for clients where there is a need for a relational db in the cloud that the
client can maintain with data. The app has to access that data to displayed,
as well as add new data.

------
jashkenas
Gorgeous work — and from poking around in the console a bit, it looks as
though you're using the latest version of Backbone.js.

Any interest in having Airtable featured on the list of example apps on the
Backbone homepage? If yes, drop me a line...

~~~
howsta
Couldn't find your email listed (PS your site ashkenas.com seems to be down
right now). Can you email me at howie @ airtable.com?

~~~
jashkenas
Ah yes, it is. I'm jashkenas at gmail. Thanks!

------
zyxley
This could be really nice for hobbyist usage for tabletop RPGs, but to fully
fit that niche it really needs (a) anonymous sharing (with a read-only mode),
and (b) a way to copy a shared 'app' to your own account.

------
jonalmeida
I just imported a movie list with the names and year into a table. I want to
automagically import the description from IMDB. What would be the best way to
do that without going fully into manual mode?

~~~
aofstad
We don't do anything of this sort yet, but if you can get the data into a CSV
you can import that into a table.

------
beenpoor
Awesome homepage and video! Bloody well done. All the best. It looks quite
useful and easy to use. Have good export functionalities and handle different
OSes and you have a winner!

------
tunesmith
How does this compares to products like Bento (RIP) and Filemaker?

~~~
howsta
Hi, the biggest differences between us and Bento/Filemaker/MSAccess (and even
older products like Ashton Tate's dBase, Lotus Approach, etc) are:

1) Airtable is seamlessly realtime and instantly shareable with collaborators
(which we believe is highly important for most use cases).

All those other products required desktop software installation, and sharing a
DB with multiple users required involved setting up a networked shared drive
with a file that was concurrently accessed by multiple users.

2) Airtable supports a full fledged mobile, simple-to-use interface. Mobile
access is increasingly important, and none of those products provided a mobile
interface (with the exception of Bento). Our mobile app instantly syncs all
your changes with the web interface, or other shared collaborators.

3) Airtable supports the speed of data entry of a grid based interface on the
web, while maintaining database structure (typed columns, 1 row = 1 record)
which means we can alternately display records as cards (on mobile) or in the
future, points on a map, events on a calendar, etc. Many of the other products
forced you to use a form-based interface for record creation/editing, rather
than allowing grid-based editing.

4) More modern paradigm. We support features like @mentions, row comments,
direct file uploads from dropbox/box/google drive, etc, that add a useful
collaboration layer on top of just the raw data.

------
mgulaid
Well-polished product.. can you u talk a little bit about the design and the
front end. what did you use for the UI design and front end. it is clean..

~~~
howsta
We have a custom frontend framework that supports realtime data
synchronization. We use some pieces of other frameworks, like Backbone's
routing and events library. Andrew Ofstad (@aofstad) is our design lead, and
created the aesthetic framework (he previously lead the Maps redesign at
Google).

------
kolev
Great... but could be useless without an API.

~~~
howsta
Hi Kolev! We do have plans to release an API (by end of this year or early
next). If you're interested in getting early access and providing feedback on
the features you would need, please fill out this form:
[https://getforma.wufoo.com/forms/q1ijurhh1cp2kfu/](https://getforma.wufoo.com/forms/q1ijurhh1cp2kfu/)
Or, reach out to me directly at howie@airtable.com

~~~
kolev
Just did! Thanks!

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jkandah
For someone who has spent a lot of time in Excel hacking things together this
looks very useful.

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scottbessler
Is pricing per user? It doesn't seem like it is, but that seems like a missed
opportunity.

~~~
howsta
Hi, yes it is, sorry for confusion! It's fixed now on
[https://airtable.com/pricing](https://airtable.com/pricing)

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dh0913
I've been following this company for a while and have been a beta tester.
Great product!

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pearknob
Great product. Nice to see Howie start another startup (Remember Etacts?)

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orbifold
Are there any plans to make this scriptable with say Javascript?

~~~
howsta
We're going to release an API in the near future (
[https://airtable.com/api](https://airtable.com/api) ), but that would be used
for server-side integrations (ie you must deploy your own server to host your
own code talk to Airtable's servers).

We do want to support some form of scripting that would be hosted on OUR
servers, but that's further out on the roadmap. We also have plans to support
external integrations and triggers via Zapier/IFTTT.

~~~
mikeknoop
Reach out if you need any help on the Zapier front :)

~~~
howsta
Thanks! Will do. Been using Zapier personally for some misc personal workflow
(receipts=>evernote=>email to our accountant). Love it!

~~~
RA_Fisher
Not sure what kind of back-end is accessible to users, but I bet Airtable
could fit into this flow nicely: [https://zapier.com/engineering/database-
query-automation/](https://zapier.com/engineering/database-query-automation/)

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alpacaaa
Killer product and beautiful video. Congrats!

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tosh
Reminds me of the RelateIQ look and feel.

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aikah
Impressive!

can you tell us more about the stack used?

~~~
howsta
Thanks! We use node on the backend, and have our own realtime database engine
that supports relational data, and out-of-order undo. We also have a custom
frontend framework that consumes the realtime changes pushed from all other
clients.

See more in my other comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8374468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8374468)

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doczoidberg
great work. for anyone who wants an open source spreadsheet editor I can
recommend handsontable

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fiatjaf
No way this a spreadsheet. This is just a CRUD app with data displayed in
rows. Zero chance of catching with spreadsheet users.

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kdr77
Why does it require Google auth?

~~~
aofstad
We require that you oauth in via a Google account purely for authentication
right now. We don't request permissions for your email, calendar, contacts, or
other data--only your name, email, and profile picture (which is used in the
UI). We're working on support for email/password based signup, as well as
oauth support for other services.

~~~
username3
I hesitate entering my credentials because of [http://furbo.org/2014/09/24/in-
app-browsers-considered-harmf...](http://furbo.org/2014/09/24/in-app-browsers-
considered-harmful/)

------
nojvek
any chance we could this as a axax front-end to mysql database? I'd pay for
it. Looks amazing. Would solve so many issues.

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notastartup
The classical music is a nice touch. It already makes me feel sophisticated
and smart. Everyone copies Apple's music causes seizure amongst hipsters.

Quick question about the technology used here. How do you sync the data
entered from mobile app to the web app? What did you use to create such a
beautiful UI?

~~~
howsta
Thanks!

Re: data sync, see this comment thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8374364](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8374364)

Re: UI, see here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8374446](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8374446)

~~~
notastartup
I know its a tall order but any future in open sourcing some parts of the
framework?

