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I see some serious red flags on their homepage: * "Partners" just seem to be logo-hijacking potential hosting platforms (not actual partnerships) * Most of th

I see some serious red flags on their homepage: * "Partners" just seem to be logo-hijacking potential hosting platforms (not actual partnerships) * Most of the links in the footer don't work * The testimonials use fake names + stock art * API keys checked into a public repo * Seems to be built by (or somehow associated with) this company (hhttps://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/312911-47 https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/312911-47), but with no links back Please be careful using this product. Not trying to be insulting; but if you're going to use it I'd make sure you install it locally. That being said, I love this as a concept. Airtable is so so nice as a backend/DB for simple sites, and I'm intrigued by an open source competitor!

cppshane 4y ago
Apparently they're scraping emails from people that starred Bitwarden and then sending out misleading emails that appear to be from Bitwarden... https://dev.to/cppshane/shady-marketing-apitable-is-scraping-emails-from-github-stars-3o5l https://dev.to/cppshane/shady-marketing-apitable-is-scraping...
fnord123 4y ago
> Airtable is so so nice as a backend/DB for simple sites, and I'm intrigued by an open source competitor! https://baserow.io/ https://baserow.io/
- darkteflon 4y ago
  Looks interesting but it’s only open-core: loads of important features locked behind subscription pricing, plus you lose the ability to self-host: https://baserow.io/pricing https://baserow.io/pricing
  - esperent 4y ago
    It's kind of hard to compare the long lists on mobile but I couldn't see any features removed when you self host. What did I miss?
    - pbronez 4y ago
      Yeah not easy to see on mobile. Their 5/user/mo “premium” plan adds Features: - XML and JSON export (vs just CSV) - Row comments - Row coloring - Public logo removal Views: - Kanban - Survey - Calendar (WIP) - Gantt (WIP) 10k rows, 5Gb storage per group. The “Advanced” $20/user/mo plan adds: Feature: Role-based Permissions Support 100k rows, 20GB storage per group
      - petr25102018 4y ago
        You will not lose any features by self-hosting. Quite the opposite, some enterprise features like SSO are only possible for self-hosted instances. Source: I work for Baserow.
jahewson 4y ago
It’s also AGPL licensed but has incompatibly-licensed dependencies.
- Xylakant 4y ago
  Can you point to any specific incompatibility? Most OS licensed code can be used as a dependency in AGPL code.
christmaspizza 4y ago
Is there an ongoing trend of sketchy "OSS" product offerings using this same website layout and similar fake quotes from users? I feel like I'm seeing this a lot recently. edit: through "product hunt"? further edit: looks like this isn't new: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29864157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29864157 maybe it's just gotten worse and I've noticed it or its "products" in my feeds recently
wellthisisgreat 4y ago
wow yeah this is as strong of an AVOID signal as it gets.
PurpleRamen 4y ago
Initial commit was in August and there are only 5 contributors, yet it's calling itself the "the best Airtable alternative" and filled their side with all kind of fancy screenshots? Makes it even more sketchy. Unless they ported the whole project from a previous project, there would be no way to barf out a high quality competition in such a short time with such a small team. Without the screenshots and partner-claims I would think they are just overly enthusiastic. But the whole highly professional sales vibes for such a fresh project makes it just untrustable.
chepy 4y ago
These keys are revoked in earlier time. They are samples. The official team have remove secrets, tokens and keys.
Shindi 4y ago
> * The testimonials use fake names + stock art Wtf this is true. Reverse google image search the testimonials and you'll see the same. This blows my mind how sketchy it is. Just get your friends to put testimonials. If you have 3 users that you begged to use your product, get them to review. Fake reviews is beyond scummy. That said, anyone know what template they use for their landing page? It's nice.
throwaway4good 4y ago
(A bit sad with the dubious marketing; hopefully they can get around to remove it or finish it with real testimonials as it obviously generates a negative reaction that completely overshadows the actual fairly impressive product.) Did anyone get the "Gitpod Online Demo" to work? https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/apitable/apitable https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/apitable/apitable Takes well over 2 minutes to start up and then asks for a username/password which is written under installation: admin@apitable.com / Apitable2022 As far as I can see it is a somewhat buggy but interesting and comprehensive product. Instead of relying on Gitpod for demo, I would buy some dedicated, faster hosting and make a demo that didn't require a login.

cppshane 4y ago

Apparently they're scraping emails from people that starred Bitwarden and then sending out misleading emails that appear to be from Bitwarden... https://dev.to/cppshane/shady-marketing-apitable-is-scraping-emails-from-github-stars-3o5l https://dev.to/cppshane/shady-marketing-apitable-is-scraping...

fnord123 4y ago

> Airtable is so so nice as a backend/DB for simple sites, and I'm intrigued by an open source competitor! https://baserow.io/ https://baserow.io/

darkteflon 4y ago
Looks interesting but it’s only open-core: loads of important features locked behind subscription pricing, plus you lose the ability to self-host: https://baserow.io/pricing https://baserow.io/pricing
- esperent 4y ago
  It's kind of hard to compare the long lists on mobile but I couldn't see any features removed when you self host. What did I miss?
  - pbronez 4y ago
    Yeah not easy to see on mobile. Their 5/user/mo “premium” plan adds Features: - XML and JSON export (vs just CSV) - Row comments - Row coloring - Public logo removal Views: - Kanban - Survey - Calendar (WIP) - Gantt (WIP) 10k rows, 5Gb storage per group. The “Advanced” $20/user/mo plan adds: Feature: Role-based Permissions Support 100k rows, 20GB storage per group
    - petr25102018 4y ago
      You will not lose any features by self-hosting. Quite the opposite, some enterprise features like SSO are only possible for self-hosted instances. Source: I work for Baserow.

jahewson 4y ago

It’s also AGPL licensed but has incompatibly-licensed dependencies.

Xylakant 4y ago
Can you point to any specific incompatibility? Most OS licensed code can be used as a dependency in AGPL code.

christmaspizza 4y ago

Is there an ongoing trend of sketchy "OSS" product offerings using this same website layout and similar fake quotes from users? I feel like I'm seeing this a lot recently. edit: through "product hunt"? further edit: looks like this isn't new: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29864157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29864157 maybe it's just gotten worse and I've noticed it or its "products" in my feeds recently

wellthisisgreat 4y ago

wow yeah this is as strong of an AVOID signal as it gets.

PurpleRamen 4y ago

Initial commit was in August and there are only 5 contributors, yet it's calling itself the "the best Airtable alternative" and filled their side with all kind of fancy screenshots? Makes it even more sketchy. Unless they ported the whole project from a previous project, there would be no way to barf out a high quality competition in such a short time with such a small team. Without the screenshots and partner-claims I would think they are just overly enthusiastic. But the whole highly professional sales vibes for such a fresh project makes it just untrustable.

chepy 4y ago

These keys are revoked in earlier time. They are samples. The official team have remove secrets, tokens and keys.

Shindi 4y ago

> * The testimonials use fake names + stock art Wtf this is true. Reverse google image search the testimonials and you'll see the same. This blows my mind how sketchy it is. Just get your friends to put testimonials. If you have 3 users that you begged to use your product, get them to review. Fake reviews is beyond scummy. That said, anyone know what template they use for their landing page? It's nice.

throwaway4good 4y ago

(A bit sad with the dubious marketing; hopefully they can get around to remove it or finish it with real testimonials as it obviously generates a negative reaction that completely overshadows the actual fairly impressive product.) Did anyone get the "Gitpod Online Demo" to work? https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/apitable/apitable https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/apitable/apitable Takes well over 2 minutes to start up and then asks for a username/password which is written under installation: admin@apitable.com / Apitable2022 As far as I can see it is a somewhat buggy but interesting and comprehensive product. Instead of relying on Gitpod for demo, I would buy some dedicated, faster hosting and make a demo that didn't require a login.