Glide vs Softr
Both are no-code tools. Here is what separates them.
What Glide is
Glide is a platform for turning spreadsheets and tables into working apps. A source such as Google Sheets, Excel or Airtable is connected, and Glide builds an app on top of it, so the data stays in the file a team already maintains while the app provides the interface onto it. Apps can start from a template or from an existing spreadsheet and then be customised. Different teams can be given their own views of the same data, actions can be attached to records, and people are invited with permissions that set what each of them can see and do. There is an API, and apps are published from the platform to desktop and mobile. GlideOS is a separate product from the original Glide platform and needs its own subscription. It is an AI software development platform for internal business apps: a project starts from a spreadsheet, a prompt or a file, and GlideOS reads the structure and logic of the data to generate screens and workflows from it. Automations can be triggered by incoming events, and repetitive tasks can be handled by predefined rules. GlideOS works with more than 1,000 services and does not require them to be installed or configured in advance. Describing what needs to be built is enough for it to identify the relevant integrations, and authorisation is completed through a Connect card inside the app. GlideOS has a free plan at $0 a month with one project and a limited credit allowance. Solo costs $25 a month with five projects, a database and 100 MB of storage. Team costs $125 a month with 25 GB of storage and support for between 5 and 100 members. Enterprise pricing is custom and includes 100 GB of storage, single sign-on, custom connectors, priority support and a dedicated success manager. Common builds include a CRM shaped to a specific workflow, secure customer portals, procurement and order management, inventory tracking, logistics and shipment tracking, and dashboards for following business metrics. Glide holds SOC 2 Type 2 certification and complies with GDPR and CCPA. It is not open source, and it is free to start with paid upgrades for more capacity.
What Softr is
Softr turns a spreadsheet or database into a working web application without writing code. Its most common use is putting a client portal or internal tool on top of an Airtable base, which is the job it was originally built for, though it now connects to more than Airtable alone. Data can come from Airtable, Google Sheets, Notion, monday.com or Google BigQuery, and Softr can also build and hold databases of its own. On top of that data you assemble the interface: listings, directories, job boards, online courses, e-commerce, upvoting sites, marketplaces and event listings are all templated starting points. The company's claim is that an app can be built and launched in under thirty minutes, which is a fair description of the simpler cases rather than every case. Permissions are the part that makes it usable for client work. Access is controlled at a granular level, so different users see different records, which is what separates a real portal from a published spreadsheet. Users who share a business email domain with somebody building in the workspace are classified as team users, and builders in the workspace can be added as app users at no cost. It connects outward through Zapier and Make for automation, through payment providers and custom APIs for transactions, and through Google Analytics or Fathom for measurement. There is a REST API for driving Softr programmatically. Apps can be converted into downloadable mobile applications, and feedback portals can be built to collect input from users in real time. Softr AI, launched in October 2023, generates applications from a description rather than starting from a blank template. The company complies with SOC 2 Type II, which is usually the question that decides whether an internal tool is allowed. Pricing is freemium, with unlimited apps, databases, workflows and forms on paid plans, and a 50 percent discount for non-profit and educational organisations.
We are not affiliated with either product. Upvote counts come from the published formula and neither position was paid for.