AWS IAM vs Airtable

Overview

AWS IAM

Stacks1.2K

Followers820

Votes26

Airtable

Stacks1.0K

Followers890

Votes40

Airtable vs AWS IAM: What are the differences?

Airtable: *Real-time spreadsheet-database hybrid *. Working with Airtable is as fast and easy as editing a spreadsheet. But only Airtable is backed by the power of a full database, giving you rich features far beyond what a spreadsheet can offer; AWS IAM: Securely control access to AWS services and resources for your users. AWS Identity and Access Management.

Airtable belongs to "Spreadsheets as a Backend" category of the tech stack, while AWS IAM can be primarily classified under "Cloud Access Management".

Some of the features offered by Airtable are:

Attachments
Link Tables
Fully mobile

On the other hand, AWS IAM provides the following key features:

Manage IAM users and their access - You can create users in IAM, assign them individual security credentials (i.e., access keys, passwords, and Multi-Factor Authentication devices) or request temporary security credentials to provide users access to AWS services and resources.
Manage IAM roles and their permissions - You can create roles in IAM, and manage permissions to control which operations can be performed by the entity, or AWS service, that assumes the role. You can also define which entity is allowed to assume the role.
Manage federated users and their permissions - You can enable identity federation to allow existing identities (e.g. users) from your corporate directory or from a 3rd party such as Login with Amazon, Facebook, and Google to access the AWS Management Console, to call AWS APIs, and to access resources, without the need to create an IAM user for each identity.

"Powerful and easy to use" is the primary reason why developers consider Airtable over the competitors, whereas "Centralized powerful permissions based access" was stated as the key factor in picking AWS IAM.

9GAG, PedidosYa, and Splunk are some of the popular companies that use AWS IAM, whereas Airtable is used by Zenefits, Hazeorid, and Cookly. AWS IAM has a broader approval, being mentioned in 133 company stacks & 50 developers stacks; compared to Airtable, which is listed in 40 company stacks and 20 developer stacks.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on AWS IAM, Airtable

DetStartups

Nov 11, 2019

Needs advice

I'm trying to set up an ideally "no- code" way to have a backend of 3 different tables and be able to find a value in table #3 (contains businesses & cities) by first finding a record in table #1 (7,000+ zip codes) that corresponds to a city (table #2 has the unique cities), and then finding which businesses are located in these cities ( in this specific, original zipcode lookup). And return the business and a description via an API to a front-end results page, which happens to be a WordPress page - but doesn't need to be. I've tried Airtable's API, AirPress (a finicky WordPress plugin for Airtable's API), and I've looked at Sheetsu and a similar spreadsheet as backend and a simple API. I run into the issue where they work fine when you just need to query 1 table, but when you need to use the result from that query in another query to a different table. I'm back in SQL land - where sure it could be done with SQLite - needing to probably create an intersection table or a JOIN and build an API off of that. Is there a way to accomplish what I want without going back to SQL queries and some API?

59.9k views59.9k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

AWS IAM	Airtable
It enables you to manage access to AWS services and resources securely. Using IAM, you can create and manage AWS users and groups, and use permissions to allow and deny their access to AWS resources.	Working with Airtable is as fast and easy as editing a spreadsheet. But only Airtable is backed by the power of a full database, giving you rich features far beyond what a spreadsheet can offer.
Manage IAM users and their access - You can create users in IAM, assign them individual security credentials (i.e., access keys, passwords, and Multi-Factor Authentication devices) or request temporary security credentials to provide users access to AWS services and resources.;Manage IAM roles and their permissions - You can create roles in IAM, and manage permissions to control which operations can be performed by the entity, or AWS service, that assumes the role. You can also define which entity is allowed to assume the role.;Manage federated users and their permissions - You can enable identity federation to allow existing identities (e.g. users) from your corporate directory or from a 3rd party such as Login with Amazon, Facebook, and Google to access the AWS Management Console, to call AWS APIs, and to access resources, without the need to create an IAM user for each identity.	Attachments;Link Tables;Fully mobile;Instant collaboration;Easily undo mistakes
Statistics
Stacks 1.2K	Stacks 1.0K
Followers 820	Followers 890
Votes 26	Votes 40
Pros & Cons
Pros 23 Centralized powerful permissions based access 3 Straightforward SSO integration Cons 1 Cloud auth limited to resources, no apps or services 1 No equivalent for on-premise networks, must adapt to AD	Pros 19 Powerful and easy to use 8 Robust and dynamic 6 Quick UI Layer 4 Practical built in views 3 Robust API documentation

What are some alternatives to AWS IAM, Airtable?

Sheetsu

Use spreadsheet as your database. Give data to your users the nice way, directly from the tool you know. Without bothering webdeveloper.

Sheety

Power websites, apps, or whatever you like, all from a spreadsheet. Changes to your spreadsheet update your API in realtime.

Sheetlabs

Drag & drop your data, name your API and choose what data people can see - that's it. Documentation is created automatically.

MCPTotal

Deploy MCP apps in one click—securely and at scale. MCPTotal.io is a newly launched, 100% free hub for connecting cloud accounts to MCP with total confidence. Isolated, sandboxed servers. Token-vaulted credentials. Built-in governance. Real-time visibility and zero-friction security. Works out of the box with existing AI agents, includes OAuth, and lets you run custom MCP apps with no compromises. Built by security experts.

Agentic AI

Empowering Enterprises and Partner MSPs to reduce costs, boost security and compliance, and tame multi-cloud chaos

CloudEagle.ai

CloudEagle.ai is an AI-powered SaaS Security platform that secures SaaS environments by discovering all applications, monitoring access risk, enforcing least-privilege policies, and automating access reviews. Organizations reduce risk, improve compliance, and gain continuous visibility across SaaS apps.

Identity Management Simplified

Keycloak Enterprise-grade identity & access management, fully managed! Enable user authentication and authorization in minutes, so you can keep growing.

Employee and Customer Identity Solutions

Infisign's Workforce and Customer Identity Clouds enable secure access, authentication, and automation—putting identity at the heart of business security and growth.

CoreSight

Create investor-ready business plans in seconds, not days. AI-powered business plan generation for startups and entrepreneurs.

sheet2api

Use any Google Sheets or Excel Online spreadsheet to power a fully-fledged API, no coding required.

Related Comparisons

Some of the features offered by Airtable are:

Attachments
Link Tables
Fully mobile

On the other hand, AWS IAM provides the following key features:

Manage IAM users and their access - You can create users in IAM, assign them individual security credentials (i.e., access keys, passwords, and Multi-Factor Authentication devices) or request temporary security credentials to provide users access to AWS services and resources.
Manage IAM roles and their permissions - You can create roles in IAM, and manage permissions to control which operations can be performed by the entity, or AWS service, that assumes the role. You can also define which entity is allowed to assume the role.
Manage federated users and their permissions - You can enable identity federation to allow existing identities (e.g. users) from your corporate directory or from a 3rd party such as Login with Amazon, Facebook, and Google to access the AWS Management Console, to call AWS APIs, and to access resources, without the need to create an IAM user for each identity.

AWS IAM vs Airtable