Airtable vs Trello in 2026 Records in a table, or cards on a board.

Both can run a small team's work. Airtable is a table of records you design. Trello is a board of lists with cards that move across. One gives you structure to build, the other gives you stages to move through.

Jacky Fakkeldij Building Driftto, on his own · Updated 23 October 2026

I build Driftto, an iPhone app for getting a thought into the right place without first finding the app, waiting for it to open and picking where it goes. Airtable and Trello are both places it writes to, so I had a reason to read how the two differ when the question is where a small team should keep its work.

In October 2026 I went through Airtable's help center and pricing page, Trello's pricing page and Atlassian's Trello help, and both US App Store listings. For the question of connecting the two I read the Airtable and Trello pages of Zapier and Make. Where a page says nothing about a feature, I say so instead of guessing.

The short answer

Pick Airtable if your work is records you want to sort, filter and link, like leads, stock or a content plan, and you will design the table yourself. Pick Trello if your work moves through stages and a board of cards is enough. Trello costs far less per person. Airtable's Free plan stops at 1,000 records per base.

A table of records or a board of cards

Airtable calls itself "the easy way to create your own connected apps" in the App Store. You make a base, the base holds tables, and each table holds records with the fields you choose. Its help center says links can be made between records in two different tables or within the same table. A to-do list in Airtable is a table you set up.

Trello starts from a board, which its guide describes as "a place to keep track of information". Lists sit on the board and group cards by stage. A card is, in Trello's words, "the smallest, but most detailed unit of a board". You move it between lists by dragging it. The App Store listing says the app is built on boards, cards and checklists.

That is the whole choice. In Airtable you define what a record is, and you get freedom and upkeep. In Trello a card is a card, and what you decide is the stages.

Seeing the work: views

Airtable lists eight view types: grid, which is the default, form, calendar, gallery, kanban, timeline, list and gantt. The help article says it applies to all plan types and names no view that needs a paid plan. It does say personal and locked views, view sections and favorite views are only on paid plans. So a kanban view of an Airtable table gives you a Trello-like board over data that can also be a grid or a calendar.

Trello's main view is the board. Its help lists Calendar, Dashboard, Table, Timeline and Map views, each showing the cards of a single board, and the pricing page puts them on Premium. Free and Standard list none of them. Custom fields, which add your own data to a card, start on Standard.

Forms and automation

Airtable has forms: each submission becomes a new record in the table. The help article says forms do not natively update records. Trello's pages I read describe no form that creates cards.

Airtable's automations start from a trigger, such as a record created, a record entering a view or a form submitted, and run actions such as creating or updating records and sending email. Run limits per workspace per month are 100 on Free, 25,000 on Team and 100,000 on Business. Failed runs count too.

Trello's pricing page counts automation as Workspace command runs a month: 250 on Free, 1,000 on Standard, unlimited on Premium. I couldn't load Trello's automation help pages, so I can't tell you what a rule or a button can do beyond that.

Using Airtable and Trello together

Part of the demand for this comparison is people who want both: cards on a board that feed a table, or records that become cards. I found no built-in link. Trello's pricing page doesn't mention Airtable. Airtable's integrations page doesn't mention Trello, and its automation help lists no Trello action. I couldn't load Trello's Power-Up directory, so I can't say whether an Airtable Power-Up exists.

The route the pages do describe is an automation tool. Zapier lists two Airtable triggers, New Record and New or Updated Record, and Trello actions such as Create Card and Move Card to List. It also lists Trello triggers such as New Card and Card Moved to List, and Airtable actions such as Create Record and Update Record. Make has a template that turns new or changed Airtable records into Trello cards. Neither page gives a price for the connection, so check the plan of the tool you pick.

Price and free-plan limits

Airtable's Free plan allows 1,000 records per base, 1 GB of attachments per base and 100 automation runs per workspace per month. It limits editors and creators to five, and extensions aren't supported. Team is $20 per user per month billed annually and allows 50,000 records per base and 20 GB of attachments. Business is $45 per user per month billed annually and allows 125,000 records and 100 GB, and adds two-way sync. The pricing page lists no monthly price for either. Airtable charges only for people who can edit at least one base. Read-only collaborators, form submissions and share links cost nothing.

Trello's Free plan has up to 10 boards per Workspace, 250 command runs a month, 10MB per file and up to 10 collaborators per Workspace. Standard is $5 per user a month billed annually, or $6 billed monthly, with unlimited boards, 1,000 runs, 250MB files and custom fields. Premium is $10 billed annually, or $12.50 billed monthly, and adds the views and unlimited runs. Enterprise is $17.50 per user a month.

For a team of five that all edit, that is $100 a month on Airtable Team, $25 on Trello Standard and $50 on Trello Premium, all billed annually. Trello's Free plan caps boards and runs, not records.

On an iPhone

Both apps are free to download in the US App Store. Airtable needs iOS 17 or later and also runs on iPad and Apple Vision. Trello needs iOS 18.6 or later and runs on iPad and Apple Vision too. Neither listing shows a Mac or Apple Watch app. Trello's listing mentions paid subscriptions that unlock AI features. Airtable's listing shows no in-app purchases.

In Airtable's iPhone app, the help page says calendar, gallery, grid and kanban views work, and gantt, list and timeline don't. You can't create or view a base form in the app, so you open its share link in a browser. Automations and extensions can't be created in the mobile app either, and builder tools such as sharing links are desktop only. The listing adds an Omni assistant you can type or speak to.

Trello's listing describes a home-screen widget for quick adds, an Inbox for capturing tasks, notes, photos and emails, calendar sync with Google and Outlook, and offline capture that syncs when you reconnect. Atlassian's help adds that you can say "Add [card name] to Trello" to Siri, and forward an email to your Inbox address from the email address on your Trello account.

Everything else, side by side

The rest, checked against Airtable's and Trello's own pages and App Store listings in October 2026.

Which one I'd pick

If the thing you track has its own columns, use Airtable. A customer list, a stock sheet or a content calendar fits a table better than a to-do. Check the record limit on the plan you start with, and remember that a table you design is a table you maintain.

If the work has stages and a few people look at the same board every day, use Trello. Standard costs a quarter of Airtable Team per person on the annual plans, and the Free plan covers ten boards. Pay for Standard when you hit the file or run limits, and for Premium only if you want the calendar or the timeline.

If neither is a plain personal list, I looked at those in the best to-do list apps for iPhone. Whichever you choose, it only works if things actually get into it.

Capture into the one you picked, in one step

Into Trello: on your iPhone, use Quick add on the home screen, or the Inbox in the navigation bar. Say "Add [card name] to Trello" to Siri, or forward an email to your Inbox address. Cards in the Inbox sit apart from your boards until you drag them to a list.

Into Airtable: open the app, find the base and the table, and add a record by hand. Forms can take input from anyone, but on an iPhone a base form opens in a browser.

With Driftto, you open it to a capture field with the keyboard already up, type or speak the thought, and tap where it goes: Trello into the board and list you chose at setup, or Airtable into the table you picked. One capture can go to both. In Trello a one-line note becomes the card name, and a longer note keeps its first line as the name and lands whole in the description. In Airtable the note becomes a new record, written into the table's first column, the one Airtable shows as a record's title. No photo goes to either. Driftto only adds new items. It never reads or changes what is already there.

Driftto asks for the base and the table once, at setup. It leaves out tables whose first column can't hold text, such as a formula or a number, because a note would be refused there. It does not build the link between the two apps that this page described: it adds a new item to each, and does not keep them in step. You can also say "Hey Siri, new capture in Driftto" and it goes to the destination you picked for Siri.

Questions

Driftto is in the App Store now.