If you are looking for a self-hosted, open-source alternative to Airtable, Fibery, Notion databases, or ClickUp, there are several good ones. This page is about where weave fits among them — and where it does not.
Licenses and packaging as of August 2026. Every project here moves; check each repository for current terms.
| weave | NocoDB | Baserow | Grist | Teable | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | Sustainable Use License (since v0.301.0) | MIT core, paid tiers separate | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 core |
| Install | git clone + Node |
Docker + a database | Docker Compose + Postgres | Docker or Node | Docker + Postgres |
| Storage | One SQLite file per workspace | Your MySQL/Postgres/SQLite | Postgres | SQLite | Postgres |
| Runtime dependencies | None | Many | Many | Many | Many |
| Users & permissions | None | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Hosted option | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server built in | Yes (23 tools) | Check upstream | Check upstream | Check upstream | Check upstream |
| Markdown documents per record | Yes, any number, as .md/.html/.pdf URLs |
No | No | No | No |
| Formulas | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (Python, spreadsheet-grade) | Yes |
| Relations, lookups, rollups | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
NocoDB puts a smart-spreadsheet interface on a database you already have. If your data lives in MySQL or Postgres and you want a no-code UI over it without migrating, this is the one. Note the license change in v0.301.0 — self-hosting for internal use is fine, but offering it as a service to third parties needs a commercial license.
Baserow is the closest thing to a full open-source Airtable product: permissions, a plugin architecture, form views, a hosted tier, and compliance paperwork. If you are replacing Airtable for a team and need it to behave like a product, start here.
Grist is the most serious about the spreadsheet half. Python formulas, real data analysis, interactive widgets, and a thoughtful approach to collaboration. If your workload is analytical rather than operational, Grist is the strongest fit on this list.
Teable targets Postgres-native scale with an Airtable-shaped UI — the option when you expect a lot of rows and want a real database underneath.
weave is the small one. It optimizes for three things the others do not center: agents as first-class users (an MCP server exposing schema design, not just CRUD, alongside REST and a CLI), documents attached to records (many markdown documents per entity, each a real URL rendering to Markdown, HTML, or PDF), and disappearing into a repo (no container, no database server, no dependency tree — one Node process and one file you can commit next to the project it describes).
Pick Baserow, NocoDB, Grist, or Teable if you need any of: multi-user permissions, a hosted option, a plugin ecosystem, a mobile app, or the confidence that comes from a large install base. These are mature projects and weave is not competing with them on maturity.
Pick weave if you are one person or a small trusted group, you want the data in a file you own with no infrastructure around it, your records want documents attached to them, and you want an agent to be able to design and drive the workspace as capably as a human can.
Read what weave is not before you commit — the absence of authentication is the deciding factor for most teams, and it is a design position rather than a roadmap gap.