Hey, folks!
My client is transitioning from Airtable to an alternative — I’m choosing between Baserow and NocoDB.
Currently testing both tools to see which one is better, since they are pretty similar, yet different in various details.
“Import from Airtable” feature is wonky in both apps — NocoDB failed to import the column names properly and there are some other stuff which are incorrect, while Baserow did a better job at it, but file/image import completely fumbled and they are just unusable (unless I can download a specific file and guess it’s file format, and add it manually), while NocoDB had the file extensions, at least.
Anyway, I have a few specific questions:
• How to multi-select rows?
My client often copies data from Airtable and pastes it into Google Sheets / Excel.
The process is insanely straightforward in Airtable — there’s a literal “select all” checkbox and it’s possible to just hold SHIFT and multi-select from one row to another.
NocoDB? No such thing, as far as I’m aware, which is mind-boggling. It is possible to hold the individual checkbox and hover over the others, but it takes a lot of time if you have a lot of rows. Also, it’s possible to click on an individual cell and hold SHIFT to select the others — seems faster, but it still takes a helluva lot of time.
Baserow is even worse, because it’s only hold SHIFT.
However, Baserow has 200 rows limit, while NocoDB — 100 rows (edit: seems like it was a bug, because I managed to select and copy over 700 rows (not all columns were included). Moreover, I tried copying from different tables (not just views) and some columns prevented copying data entirely, giving the error “Failed to copy to clipboard”.
Moreover, the performance in NocoDB is (way?) worse than in Baserow, or so it seems. I have a beefy laptop, mind you, so not sure why it is the case. Maybe it’s an issue on my side, but if that’s not the case than NocoDB definitely struggles if there’s more than 3K rows for sure. That being said, I did try refreshing the page and tried copying several times — sometimes it works fine, sometimes it lags like a lot, even freezes a page entirely (only page refresh saves the day). Not sure what’s going on.
Well, NocoDB is a winner here, since even with lags, it still allows copying more than 200 rows.
• Is it possible to multi-select rows, copy them and paste into Google Sheets / Excel?
Basically, the feature my clients needs. If it’s possible is it available on a free plan and a self-hosted version too?
• How to show a referenced/linked record in a table?
After I imported data from Airtable, I noticed that referenced/linked records are not showed, but only the name of the DB they are linked/referenced from.
This is how it looks like ↓
As you can see, the companies (компании) not visible in the column, only the DB they are referenced/linked to «Компании» — the same goes to «Тарифы» (tariffs, the last column on the image).
If it’s intended and cannot be changed, then it’s a pretty strange design choice. I hope I’m wrong.
• File input field — is it available on a self-hosted version for free?
It’s not mentioned anywhere, but I want to know if my client can use a file input field to attach, well, attachments, like files and images on a self-hosted version for free.
• What are the difference in features-availability between self-hosted and free/paid cloud versions?
Last, but not least. I want to self-host NocoDB for my cient, so they would have full control over the data among other reasons — I will also use Make to create automations for them, like connecting NocoDB (self-hosted) to Webflow.
Unlike Baserow, which (kinda clearly) displays the difference between self-hosted version and a cloud one, NocoDB doesn’t even feature self-hosted in the pricing section, and it can be found only if looking at FAQ — even then FAQ does mention that there’s a difference in features between self-hosted and cloud versions, but there’s no info about it.
So… what features self-hosted version lacks?
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That’s about it, haha.
Thank you all for the replies in advance!