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Endearist vs Airtable
A fair, specific comparison — written so you'd be comfortable if a Airtable engineer read it.
Fairness pledge
Airtable is the most powerful DIY option in this comparison — it's not a personal CRM at all, but a flexible database that thousands of people have shaped into one. If you enjoy building systems, the free tier (1,000 records per base, 100 automation runs/month) is genuinely enough for a personal contact base, and no purpose-built CRM matches the freedom of designing your own fields, views, formulas, and automations. The honest trade: you become the product manager of your own CRM forever. Every reminder, every view, every 'when did I last talk to them' rollup is something you build and maintain — and Airtable's record limits, per-seat pricing, and cloud-only architecture were designed for teams, not for a private address book.
Where your data lives
Airtable: cloud-only — your bases live on Airtable's servers (US infrastructure); there is no offline-first mode and no way to keep the data on your machine. Endearist: your device first — sync optional via your own cloud (Google Drive, iCloud, WebDAV) or Endearist Cloud (EU-hosted).
How AI is accessed
Airtable AI is a paid add-on at $6/seat/month on the Team plan (included in Business at $45/seat/month) — summaries, content generation, and AI automation steps, metered in credits and processed on Airtable's servers. Endearist's AI is opt-in and bundled: bring your own key (on-device), or Pro Cloud Light (~250 EU-routed actions/mo, €4.99) or Pro Cloud (~600 actions/mo + voice, €9.99). The app fully works offline without AI.
3-year total cost
Airtable Free: €0 — genuinely workable for a personal base under 1,000 records. Airtable Team: $20/month (annual billing) → ~$720 / ~€660 over 3 years; with the AI add-on ~$26/month → ~€860. Endearist Pro Lifetime: €69 once. Endearist Pro Cloud Light: €4.99/month → ~€180 over 3 years.
What we don't do
We don't have formulas, custom views, automations, interfaces, an API, or a build-anything schema — Endearist's fields are opinionated and relationship-shaped on purpose. If you want to model anything beyond people (projects, inventory, editorial calendars) or wire your contacts into Zapier-style workflows, Airtable does that and we never will.
Feature matrix
Side-by-side.
| Feature | Endearist | Airtable |
|---|---|---|
| Local-first data storage | Yes — your device is the primary store. | No — cloud-only; bases live on Airtable's servers. |
| End-to-end encrypted sync | Yes — AES-256-GCM, you hold the key. | Server-side encryption; Airtable holds the keys. |
| Mobile native apps (iOS / Android) | iOS, Android (native Flutter). | iOS and Android apps — fine for viewing and quick edits; building bases is a desktop-web activity. |
| Desktop native apps | macOS, Windows, Linux (native). | Web app + macOS/Windows desktop wrapper; no Linux app, no offline mode. |
| AI features | Opt-in: bring your own key (on-device) or Pro Cloud Light (~250 EU-routed actions/mo) or Pro Cloud (~600 actions/mo + voice). | Airtable AI add-on, $6/seat/mo on Team (included in Business) — summaries and AI automations, credit-metered on Airtable's servers. |
| Self-host option | Not currently — the desktop app is the local store. | No — SaaS only. |
| Pricing | Free up to 25 contacts. Pro Lifetime €69 once, Pro Cloud Light €4.99/mo, or Pro Cloud €9.99/mo. | Free (1,000 records/base, 100 automation runs/mo). Team $20/seat/mo annual ($24 monthly). No lifetime. |
| Open source code | Source-release pledge on shutdown/acquisition. | No — proprietary. |
| Plain-Markdown export | Yes — readable without any app. | CSV per table via the view menu; attachments and linked records need extra handling. No Markdown. |
| Voice-note transcription | Yes — on Pro Cloud (60 min/mo) or your own key. | No. |
| Family / multi-vault share | Family share on Pro Cloud (2 seats). Multi-vault on the roadmap. | Up to 5 editors per free workspace — sharing a base with a partner works, but it's team collaboration, not a private vault. |
| Journal / reflection | Built-in journal + weekly ritual + appreciation prompts. | No — you can build a notes table, but there's no journal surface, prompts, or ritual. |
| Relationship depth (how-we-met, pets) | How-we-met, pets, custom pronouns, life events, debts, attachments. | Any field you can imagine — but zero defaults. You design and maintain the entire schema yourself. |
| Reach-out reminders | Per-person cadence reminders — gentle, no streaks — plus weekly reach-out suggestions on Pro Cloud. | Buildable with automations (date fields + scheduled runs), capped at 100 runs/mo on Free — you write and debug the logic. |
When to pick Airtable
When Airtable is the better fit.
If you genuinely enjoy building tools — and many people do — a hand-rolled Airtable base is the most flexible personal CRM that will ever exist, because it's exactly what you make it. Pick Airtable if your contact list doubles as a project tracker, you want formulas and rollups over your relationships, or you need the same data feeding other workflows via the API. The free tier is real and sufficient for most personal bases. We're the opposite bet: an opinionated, ready-made relationship practice that works on day one and never asks you to maintain a schema.
Switching
Coming from Airtable?
In Airtable, open each table you use for people, switch to a grid view, and choose the view menu (⋯) → 'Download CSV'. Import the contacts table into Endearist via Settings → Import → CSV — names, emails, birthdays, and note columns map to Endearist fields during import. If you split interactions into a second table, export it too and paste the entries into the matching contacts' journals; linked-record columns export as plain names, so do this while your base is still open for reference. Attachments aren't included in CSV exports — download any that matter and re-attach them in Endearist.
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Prices and positioning verified 2026-06-10.
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