The first AppSheet app I saw running in a real business was a warehouse inventory tracker built on a single Google Sheet.
It worked beautifully, right up until that sheet crossed a few thousand rows and every screen started to lag.
That’s the AppSheet story in miniature. It’s a quick way to turn a spreadsheet into a working app, and for plenty of teams that’s enough to get through a year or two.
Then you hit a ceiling and start hunting for the best AppSheet alternatives that won’t box you in the same way. The good news is the no-code space is crowded with strong options now, from Glide to Airtable to AI builders like Zite.
Which one is right depends on what you’re actually trying to build.
Why teams move off AppSheet
AppSheet earned its place. It made app-building feel approachable for people who lived in spreadsheets. A few things tend to push teams toward something else.
The Google tether. AppSheet leans hard on Google’s ecosystem, and that’s great until your data and workflows want to live somewhere more flexible.
Per-user pricing. Costs scale with every person you add, which gets uncomfortable once an app catches on internally.
The spreadsheet backend. A Google Sheet is a fine starting point and a shaky foundation. Performance and data integrity get wobbly as records pile up.
The interface ceiling. Lists, tables, forms, and kanban cover the basics, but teams that want a polished, modern app often feel limited.
None of this makes AppSheet a bad tool. It just means a lot of teams eventually want more room to grow.
The best AppSheet alternatives, by what you’re building
There’s no single replacement, because “an AppSheet app” can mean a field-data tool, an internal dashboard, or a customer-facing portal. Here’s how I match the tool to the job.
Glide
Best for: teams who want a clean, mobile-first app fast.
Glide is the closest thing to AppSheet’s spirit, with a much nicer finish. It turns your data into a responsive app that looks genuinely modern on a phone, and non-technical builders get there quickly.
The tradeoff is depth. Glide shines for lightweight operational and directory-style apps, but heavy back-office logic and large datasets push against its limits, and its usage-based pricing can surprise you as adoption grows.
Power Apps
Best for: organizations already living inside Microsoft 365.
If your company runs on Microsoft, Power Apps is the natural fit. It connects deeply to Teams, SharePoint, and the rest of the stack, and IT departments tend to trust it.
The catch is complexity. Licensing, connectors, and the learning curve are real, and if you’re not already a Microsoft shop, the overhead rarely pays off.
Airtable
Best for: teams whose AppSheet data deserved a real database.
A lot of AppSheet pain traces back to that spreadsheet backend. Airtable replaces it with a proper relational database that still feels like a spreadsheet, plus interfaces and views that cover a surprising amount of app territory.
It’s per-seat, so the bill climbs with your team, and its app-building layer is lighter than a dedicated builder’s. As a data foundation, though, it’s hard to beat.
Softr
Best for: client portals and internal apps on top of existing data.
When the goal is a portal sitting on data you already keep in Airtable, Softr gets you there in an afternoon. Permissions, member logins, and clean layouts come standard.
You do need a data source underneath it, and custom logic is limited, so Softr fits presentation-layer apps better than anything with complex business rules.
Quickbase
Best for: operations teams running serious workflows at scale.
Quickbase is built for the heavier end: multi-step approvals, audit trails, and apps that real departments depend on daily. It handles complexity that would crush a spreadsheet-backed tool.
It’s priced for the enterprise and looks the part, which means it’s more than a small team needs and the interface feels more utilitarian than slick.
FlutterFlow
Best for: teams that need true native mobile apps.
AppSheet’s mobile experience is functional and rarely impressive. FlutterFlow builds genuine iOS and Android apps you can ship to the app stores, with far more design control.
It sits closer to actual development, so the learning curve is steeper and it’s overkill for a simple internal tracker. For a real product, though, it’s in a different league.
Zite
Best for: production-grade business apps without learning a builder.
Zite takes a different path from everything above. Instead of dragging components onto a canvas, you describe the app you need in plain language and it builds a working tool on a real, built-in database. You can open up the logic visually and fix it yourself, which beats wrestling with a template that almost does what you want.
Pricing is flat at $19 a month with unlimited users, so the per-user math that nudges people off AppSheet doesn’t follow you here. It’s a younger platform, so the template library is still growing, AI credits are capped on lower tiers, and there’s no native mobile app export yet.
How to actually choose
Start with the shape of the app, not the brand.
If it’s mobile and simple, look at Glide.
If you’re a Microsoft shop, Power Apps.
If the real problem was a weak database, Airtable.
If you need a portal on existing data, Softr.
If it’s heavy operational workflow, Quickbase. If you need a native mobile product, FlutterFlow.
And if you want a full business app without learning a builder at all, that’s where Zite fits.
One habit saves a lot of regret: rebuild your single most important app first, and run it for two weeks before migrating anything else. The tool that survives your real workload is the one worth committing to.
What AppSheet got right, and what comes next
AppSheet proved that the person closest to the problem should be able to build the app, not file a ticket and wait a quarter. That idea isn’t going anywhere.
What’s changing is the foundation underneath.
The apps that age badly are the ones built on a backend that was never meant to be a database, which is exactly why so many AppSheet projects stall.
The next wave of no-code is being judged on two things: whether there’s a real database under the hood, and whether you can see and fix the logic when something breaks. Pick for those two, and your next app will outlast this one.