grist-core

Grist is a spreadsheet-database hybrid. Rows are records, columns are typed fields, and formulas are Python. You get the layout flexibility of a spreadsheet with the structure of a relational database, without the proprietary lock-in of Airtable. Apache-licensed, free to self-host.

Docker single-container deployment. It runs comfortably on a small VPS. The Python formula language is genuinely powerful. Access rules let you share specific views of data with external users or clients without exposing everything.

Teams that outgrew Excel but find Airtable too restrictive or too expensive for their use case should evaluate Grist. The Python formula support is the differentiator: real computation, not just cell references.

The catch: the UI is less polished than Airtable and the mobile experience is limited. It looks and feels like productivity software from 2018. The underlying data model is excellent; the surface needs work.