Any existing relational database becomes a collaborative, Airtable-style smart spreadsheet under NocoDB. It connects to PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQL Server, or SQLite, introspects the schema - tables, relationships, indexes - and renders it as interactive Grid, Gallery, Kanban, Calendar, and Form views without migrating a single row. Your business data stays in your database; NocoDB keeps only its own metadata (view configs, permissions, webhooks) in a separate store. Every connected table automatically gets REST APIs with Swagger documentation, effectively turning legacy databases into modern backends. The spreadsheet layer adds 20+ field types including formulas, lookups, rollups, links, attachments, and currency, plus sorting, filtering, grouping, and multi-field editing. Views can be locked or shared publicly with password protection, role-based access control scopes permissions per user, and webhooks plus CSV, Excel, and Airtable import round out integration. An ERD view visualizes the schema. Built with Node.js and Vue, deployed via Docker, handling millions of rows.

Airtable's spreadsheet-database model, self-hostable and open-source: that is Baserow. It presents data in a spreadsheet-style grid, but underneath each table is a real relational structure with typed fields, links between tables, filters, sorts, and multiple views (grid, gallery, form, kanban, calendar). Beyond the database core, it includes an application builder for composing pages and portals on your data, workflow automations, and dashboards. Everything is API-first: each table exposes a REST endpoint with token auth and webhooks, so it plugs directly into n8n, Zapier, or custom scripts. The stack is Django (Python) on the backend, Vue.js on the frontend, PostgreSQL for storage, with Redis for async tasks. Core features are MIT-licensed; premium features are a paid add-on. The self-hosted version has no row, storage, or API request limits - Airtable's per-base record caps and monthly API quotas simply don't exist here, and capacity is bounded only by your PostgreSQL database and disk. Existing Airtable bases, CSVs, and Excel files import directly with structure preserved, so migration doesn't start from a blank slate, and both the backend and frontend support plugins for custom field types and integrations without forking the core. For non-technical teammates the interface behaves like a spreadsheet; for engineers, the data model is the API.