# Airtable vs firebase **URL:** \ **Category:** Questions about Thunkable X\ **Created:** [January 27, 2021, 3:50pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636 "2021-01-27T15:50:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![leena.ranexargq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4491bb/32.png) [@leena.ranexargq](https://community.thunkable.com/u/leena.ranexargq)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 3:50pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/1 "2021-01-27T15:50:23Z")
Can someone guide me what are pros and cons of using/not using both. Is it true that airtable slows things down while firebase is fast. Thanks in advance ---
**Author:** ![muneer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/muneer/32/75210_2.png) [@muneer](https://community.thunkable.com/u/muneer)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 4:13pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/2 "2021-01-27T16:13:09Z")
Firebase is currently free but will not be so for a long time. Google already announced it. In the other hand, Airtable is free with a limit of 1,200 records. Airtable takes the table structure of rows and columns but Firebase is an object oriented structure following JSON style so you access things like a files browser not like a spreadsheet. I noticed, in Thunkable, the connection to Airtable is not very stable and the connection my reset with updates. In the other hand, Firebase is very stable and has more advantages such as storage to save files or authentication service. The speed is a more complicated issue. I used both and can say that Firebase is faster and the speed is consistent apart from stored functions which are slower than Amazon. I noticed Airtable speed goes up and down like sea waves but I cannot say that this is due to Airtable as other factors effect the performance such as the speed of the internet connection. ---
**Author:** ![leena.ranexargq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4491bb/32.png) [@leena.ranexargq](https://community.thunkable.com/u/leena.ranexargq)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 4:27pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/3 "2021-01-27T16:27:50Z")
Wow, thanks for detailed answer, I have many images that I need to store. So which one should I use? ---
**Author:** ![muneer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/muneer/32/75210_2.png) [@muneer](https://community.thunkable.com/u/muneer)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 4:30pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/4 "2021-01-27T16:30:29Z")
Both provides abilities to store images. Having said that, both recommend saving your images somewhere and store the URL in the DB ---
**Author:** ![leena.ranexargq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4491bb/32.png) [@leena.ranexargq](https://community.thunkable.com/u/leena.ranexargq)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 4:40pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/5 "2021-01-27T16:40:57Z")
So mediaDB - images to be stored and airtable - image URLs to be stored? OK? ---
**Author:** ![muneer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/muneer/32/75210_2.png) [@muneer](https://community.thunkable.com/u/muneer)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 4:48pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/6 "2021-01-27T16:48:35Z")
In Airtable, you can set the field type as attachment which will allow any kind of files to be saved but from experience, I got problems trying to retrieve it in Thunkable. Of course this may change in the near future and the Thunkable team are working in updating the platform all the time. As of know, the best is using MediaDB/cloudinary to store images and use the URL in Airtable. ---
**Author:** ![leena.ranexargq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4491bb/32.png) [@leena.ranexargq](https://community.thunkable.com/u/leena.ranexargq)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 4:58pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/7 "2021-01-27T16:58:28Z")
OK thanks ---
**Author:** ![Steven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Steven](https://community.thunkable.com/u/Steven)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 11:21pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/8 "2021-01-28T23:21:41Z")
@muneer I’m interested in hearing more about your experience with Airtable. Can you expand on what you mean by `the connection to Airtable is not very stable and the connection my reset with updates`? Obviously we want the experience to be smooth and easy for our users so if that isn’t the case please let us know. We’ll work on improving things as best we can. ---
**Author:** ![muneer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/muneer/32/75210_2.png) [@muneer](https://community.thunkable.com/u/muneer)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2021, 9:01am UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/9 "2021-01-29T09:01:18Z")
Yes @Steven, I noticed that a lot with Airtable and Google Sheets in November and December when the team are launching the enhanced Legacy UI (move invisible components to block screen) before the Drag & Drop UI. I stopped using it for that and also because Thunkable does not provide a way to use the filter function directly. Now I am having the issues with another problem related to Airtable again. The Drag & Drop UI does not have the copy menu item to save a copy of the project in progress. So I share the project with my other account (free account `@yahoo`) but the real problem is the project is shared without the Airtable connections and instead all tables are replaced to local tables with the content of each cell as “Thunkable”. The real hassle is that once you try to restore the Airtable connectios you will have to visit each screen and rebind all components to AirTable tables and columns again which is time consuming and error prune. This issue is not in Firebase RT DB. ---
**Author:** ![apploro.codert](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/apploro.codert/32/107708_2.png) [@apploro.codert](https://community.thunkable.com/u/apploro.codert)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2021, 11:43am UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/10 "2021-01-29T11:43:33Z")
airtable is better but it can have 1500 cell i think ---
**Author:** ![muneer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/muneer/32/75210_2.png) [@muneer](https://community.thunkable.com/u/muneer)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2021, 11:45am UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/11 "2021-01-29T11:45:55Z")
The free version is up to 1200 rows only in all tables. Which means if you have 3 tables each has 400 rows then you have to start paying to add more data. ---
**Author:** ![drted](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/drted/32/92694_2.png) [@drted](https://community.thunkable.com/u/drted)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2021, 12:14pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/12 "2021-01-29T12:14:01Z")
@muneer, do you have a link for this? I couldn’t find that announcement. > [@muneer](#): > > Firebase is currently free but will not be so for a long time. Google already announced it. ---
**Author:** ![muneer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/muneer/32/75210_2.png) [@muneer](https://community.thunkable.com/u/muneer)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2021, 12:47pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/13 "2021-01-29T12:47:56Z")
I was referring to the `Flame` plan which has been taken off and no loner offered ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/uploads/thunkable/original/3X/2/4/2444bc159aabe059a9ce6293f42b759c82515641.png) The current Spark plan ( the free plan) has a limit of 1GB of storage which will not be appropriate for base64/image type of data with reasonable user activity. ---
**Author:** ![muneer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/muneer/32/75210_2.png) [@muneer](https://community.thunkable.com/u/muneer)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2021, 10:35am UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/14 "2021-01-31T10:35:04Z")
Dear @Steven Check this as a sample of the disconnection problem of Airtable > [@One more issue with "number of rows"](http://community.thunkable.com/t/one-more-issue-with-number-of-rows/1076086/6): > > Yeath, thank you for your respond The problem was in airtable data source and conversion to thunkable. I created new data source in airtable, connect it to my project and now it works correct ---
**Author:** ![ioannis](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/ioannis/32/146956_2.png) [@ioannis](https://community.thunkable.com/u/ioannis)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 1:30pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/airtable-vs-firebase/1071636/15 "2024-11-08T13:30:28Z")