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  5. Airtable vs import.io

Airtable vs import.io

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

import.io
import.io
Stacks40
Followers91
Votes24
Airtable
Airtable
Stacks1.0K
Followers890
Votes40

Airtable vs import.io: What are the differences?

Developers describe Airtable as "*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. On the other hand, import.io is detailed as "Extract data from the web". import.io is a free web-based platform that puts the power of the machine readable web in your hands. Using our tools you can create an API or crawl an entire website in a fraction of the time of traditional methods, no coding required.

Airtable and import.io are primarily classified as "Spreadsheets as a Backend" and "Web Scraping API" tools respectively.

Some of the features offered by Airtable are:

  • Attachments
  • Link Tables
  • Fully mobile

On the other hand, import.io provides the following key features:

  • Real-time data extraction
  • website automation
  • Automatic webpage conversion into data (Magic)

"Powerful and easy to use" is the primary reason why developers consider Airtable over the competitors, whereas "Easy setup" was stated as the key factor in picking import.io.

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Advice on import.io, Airtable

DetStartups
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

import.io
import.io
Airtable
Airtable

import.io is a free web-based platform that puts the power of the machine readable web in your hands. Using our tools you can create an API or crawl an entire website in a fraction of the time of traditional methods, no coding required.

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.

Real-time data extraction; website automation; Automatic webpage conversion into data (Magic); crawling; bulk extract; authentication; REST API
Attachments;Link Tables;Fully mobile;Instant collaboration;Easily undo mistakes
Statistics
Stacks
40
Stacks
1.0K
Followers
91
Followers
890
Votes
24
Votes
40
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 8
    Easy setup
  • 5
    Native desktop app
  • 5
    Free lead generation tool
  • 3
    Features based on users suggestions
  • 3
    Continuous updates
Pros
  • 19
    Powerful and easy to use
  • 8
    Robust and dynamic
  • 6
    Quick UI Layer
  • 4
    Practical built in views
  • 3
    Robust API documentation
Integrations
Plotly.js
Plotly.js
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to import.io, Airtable?

ParseHub

ParseHub

Web Scraping and Data Extraction ParseHub is a free and powerful web scraping tool. With our advanced web scraper, extracting data is as easy as clicking on the data you need. ParseHub lets you turn any website into a spreadsheet or API w

ScrapingAnt

ScrapingAnt

Extract data from websites and turn them to API. We will handle all the rotating proxies and Chrome rendering for you. Many specialists have to handle Javascript rendering, headless browser update and maintenance, proxies diversity and rotation. It is a simple API that does all the above for you.

Octoparse

Octoparse

It is a free client-side Windows web scraping software that turns unstructured or semi-structured data from websites into structured data sets, no coding necessary. Extracted data can be exported as API, CSV, Excel or exported into a database.

Sheetsu

Sheetsu

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

Kimono

Kimono

You don't need to write any code or install any software to extract data with Kimono. The easiest way to use Kimono is to add our bookmarklet to your browser's bookmark bar. Then go to the website you want to get data from and click the bookmarklet. Select the data you want and Kimono does the rest. We take care of hosting the APIs that you build with Kimono and running them on the schedule you specify. Use the API output in JSON or as CSV files that you can easily paste into a spreadsheet.

Sheety

Sheety

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

BeautifulSoup

BeautifulSoup

It works with your favorite parser to provide idiomatic ways of navigating, searching, and modifying the parse tree. It commonly saves programmers hours or days of work.

Apify

Apify

Apify is a platform that enables developers to create, customize and run cloud-based programs called actors that can, among other things, be used to extract data from any website using a few lines of JavaScript.

2Captcha

2Captcha

2Captcha provides a pay-as-you-go CAPTCHA solving API for developers and automation teams. The service supports multiple CAPTCHA types including image CAPTCHAs, reCAPTCHA (v2, v3), hCaptcha, GeeTest, FunCaptcha, and Cloudflare Turnstile. The API can be integrated into Python, PHP, Java, JavaScript and other environments to automate CAPTCHA handling in scraping, testing, and browser automation pipelines.

JustSEO.ai

JustSEO.ai

Analyze your website's SEO elements and AI visibility with JustSEO.ai - Professional SEO analysis tool

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