LearningFlow LearningFlow vs Airtable
Airtable is a relational database with interfaces, automations and AI agents on top, and at that job it beats us. The difference is how an app gets at the data. An Airtable integration reads a base directly. One you publish here runs under a contract naming the tables, the columns and the rows it may touch.
Data · Sources last read 13 September 2026
Choose Airtable if
The real problem is the institution's own operational data, and there is a lot of it.
- An admissions pipeline of 200,000 applicant records that four teams filter every day
- Accreditation or grant evidence pulled from a Snowflake warehouse through HyperDB
- One base with six interfaces, each department seeing only the view it was given
Choose LearningFlow if
The base exists so that the apps you publish can read it under rules you can take back.
- A consent form and a staff console reading two named columns of the same table
- A nightly scheduler whose access expires on a set date, suspended without touching the rest
- Year 7 pupils with their own accounts, joining by a code and working through the assignments set for them
Where the two are built differently.
The account holds the work.
Someone has to ask her to hand it over, or it goes with her.
The work was made on a personal login, so recovering it is a favour rather than a setting. Schools discover this in August, when the person who built the scheme of work no longer answers email.
The organisation holds the work.
Ms Okafor's key is revoked. The work has not moved.
People hold keys, not possessions. Removing someone removes their key. Whoever teaches 6C next September opens the same library and the same base, on their first morning, without asking anyone for a copy.
What each one does.
Written from each product's own documentation. Where something is true only on a higher tier, the row says so.
| Airtable | LearningFlow | |
|---|---|---|
| Records per base | 125,000 records per base on Business, 500,000 on Enterprise Scale, and up to 100M rows through HyperDB. | Bases are shared spreadsheet-style tables for class and department data. We publish no figure at that scale. |
| Giving an app access | A personal access token or OAuth integration is scoped to named bases, with read, write and schema scopes. Interface collaborators hold Editor, Commenter or Read-only. | Each app carries a contract naming tables, named columns and a row filter, with seven separate permissions. |
| Taking access back | Change or remove a collaborator's role, or revoke outright the access token or OAuth integration an app is using. | Suspend or revoke one app's contract. Each grant also carries an expiry date set when it is issued. |
| Features per member | Feature toggles in the admin panel apply organisation-wide, or per org unit on Enterprise Hub, rather than to one named member. | Seven capabilities switch per member, among them base, solution-designer and work-with-ai. |
| Files out of the data | CSV download from a view, the Web API and attachment links. The Page Designer extension lays records out for printing through the browser. | Work with AI returns an .xlsx with working formulas, a .docx or a .pptx, built on a real Linux machine. |
| What you pay for | $20 per editor per month on Team billed annually, $45 on Business, with pooled AI credits on top. | Credits rather than seats, with no seat count and no subscription. Personal, organisation and enterprise wallets stay separate. |
| Student accounts | No learner account type. Everyone is a collaborator on a workspace, and the free student plan is for individuals at an accredited institution. | Students are a user type of their own, with join codes and assignments. |
| AI at the education price | The 50% education discount covers the Team plan only, which is Airtable's lowest paid tier. | Model choice is not gated by plan. Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, Grok and DeepSeek among others. |
What comes with it here.
Your own code runs a flow
POST /task/:taskId with an API key returns the result, and published apps take signed webhooks and a cron schedule.
The app never holds a secret
A published app sends Gmail or WhatsApp, crawls a page or parses a document, with credentials injected server-side.
59 tools already in the gallery
Lesson plans, marking rubrics, quizzes, worksheets, report comments and questions from a YouTube link, ready to run.
Learning records where you keep them
Take in an xAPI package, use the built-in SQL learning record store, or point statements at your own LRS.
Where Airtable is the better choice
If the problem is the institution's own operational data, Airtable is the better buy, and we would say so in the room. A registrar tracking 200,000 applications, or an estates team scheduling rooms across ten sites, gets a database we do not match. Enterprise Scale holds 500,000 records in one base, HyperDB reads a Snowflake warehouse, and one base carries many interfaces, so each department sees only its own. As a spreadsheet-database for a team it is also more capable and more polished than ours. Buy it for the operations work and keep us for the teaching.
The whole stack against Airtable.
The table above compares the two at the job they share. This one runs every capability past both, because what a school is choosing between is usually a tool that does one job and a workspace that does many. Hover any mark to see what it means, and a partial one to see exactly what is limited.
| LearningFlow | Airtable | |
|---|---|---|
| Ask and read | ||
| Chat with AI | ||
| Research the web and write it up | ||
| Read text off an image or a scan | ||
| Agent browses the live web | ||
| Make | ||
| PowerPoint deck | ||
| Spreadsheet with working formulas | ||
| Word document | ||
| Image generation | ||
| Video generation | ||
| Narrated whiteboard video, corrected scene by scene | ||
| Voice-over | ||
| Song generation | ||
| Interactive web page | ||
| Edit what it made, online | ||
| Slide and design templates | ||
| Presenter on camera, from a photo you supply | ||
| Teach | ||
| Ready-made teacher tools | ||
| Build your own tool, no code | ||
| Lesson that branches on the answer | ||
| Hears them read aloud, checks pronunciation | ||
| Assign to a class with a join code | ||
| Assignments and submissions | ||
| Student accounts | ||
| LTI link from your LMS | ||
| Learning records to your own LRS | ||
| SCORM 1.2 package out | ||
| Build | ||
| Working app | ||
| Full working platform templates | ||
| Several apps over one database, rights each | ||
| App sends email or WhatsApp | ||
| App runs on a schedule | ||
| App accepts webhooks | ||
| Generate real-time apps | ||
| Generate AI-driven apps | ||
| Shared database | ||
| Revoke one app's access, not the others | ||
| Run | ||
| Run any tool from your own software | ||
| Choose the AI model, on every plan | ||
| Switch a feature off per group | ||
| Organisation keeps the work when staff leave | ||
| We do not do this | ||
| Transcribe a video or audio file | ||
| Custom domain for a published app | ||
Before they decide.
Can we run Airtable and LearningFlow together?
Yes, and many schools should. Airtable keeps the applicant lists and the room bookings. Your own script calls a flow over the API, so rows you already pull from Airtable can be posted into it. Nothing here reads an Airtable base on its own.
How hard is it to move a base across?
It comes across as rows, not as a package. Airtable's documented export routes are a manual CSV download from a view and the Web API, with attachments downloaded separately. Nothing in Airtable bundles a base for another product, so start with one table rather than a full migration.
If a teacher leaves in July, who can open the base in September?
In Airtable that depends on the plan. Business and Enterprise Scale admins reassign workspace ownership from the admin panel without her; on Free and Team there is no admin route, so she logs back in or IT takes over her email. The 50% education discount covers Team only, which is the plan with no admin route. Here the organisation id is stamped at creation and never moves, so removing her deletes the membership row and not the work.
Can an app be given two columns and nothing else?
Yes. The contract names the tables, the columns and a row filter, and carries seven permissions: read, insert, update, delete, create table, alter schema and drop. Every grant includes read, so there is no write-only app, and a public app gets a read-only contract.
What does this cost against $20 a seat?
Airtable bills every user who can edit: $20 a month on Team billed annually, $24 billed monthly, and $45 on Business billed annually. Here there are no seats, and work is charged as it runs, so a department that uses nothing costs nothing.
Where this came from. Read on 13 September 2026. Airtable changes its product and its prices without telling us, so check anything that decides a purchase.
- Airtable Pricing (plans, per-seat rates, billing FAQ) ↗
- Airtable plans — records, storage, API calls and AI credits by plan ↗
- Applying for non-profit, education and student Airtable plans ↗
- Transferring workspace, base and interface ownership before leaving an organization ↗
- Settings — Airtable admin panel (org-wide feature toggles and export controls) ↗
Try it on your own work.
Teachers get credits every month, free. No card, no seat count.