APITable vs Mathesar
APITable and Mathesar are both no-code database software. APITable is open source under AGPL-3.0, with 16k GitHub stars. Mathesar is open source under GPL-3.0, with 5.2k GitHub stars.
Which to pick
- Pick APITable when
- You want a self-hosted Airtable alternative with an API on every table and can run a Java plus Node stack.
- Pick Mathesar when
- Non-technical colleagues need to work with data in an existing Postgres database and you want them to use the real tables, not a copy.
Side by side
An Airtable-style collaborative database with spreadsheet views, cross-table links, forms, row and column permissions and a full API.
A spreadsheet-like web interface for viewing, editing and querying data directly in PostgreSQL, using Postgres roles for access control.
AGPL license, releases are still marked beta, and the vendor now steers new users to its hosted AITable product.
Still pre-1.0, and it only works with PostgreSQL.
Usable (both)
Self-hosted server and cloud service (both)
TypeScript, Java, Spring, NestJS, Next.js and React
Python, Django, Svelte, TypeScript and PostgreSQL
Open source, AGPL-3.0 (network copyleft)
Open source, GPL-3.0 (strong copyleft)
Use inside your business is unrestricted. If you change it and let customers use it over the internet, you must publish your changes.
Use inside your business is unrestricted, but anything you distribute that includes it must be released under the same license.
16k GitHub stars
5.2k GitHub stars
Established: started 4 years ago, latest release v1.14.0-beta.
Established: started 5 years ago, latest release 0.12.0.
Other comparisons
More no-code databases and spreadsheet-database apps
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from each project's README and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.