Glide alternative
The Glide alternative for teams tired of pricing surprises
Glide makes beautiful apps. Its users' complaints are about everything around the app: Classic apps were deprecated on 30 June 2025 and can no longer be opened or edited, pricing has been restructured more than once with public backlash on Glide's own forum, and usage is metered in 'updates' that are hard to budget for a fixed-fee client project.
Emberblocks keeps the part people like about Glide, a good-looking app from a table of data, and changes the rest: your data lives in Postgres or Airtable rather than Glide Tables, builders are never charged, and plans are priced by app users instead of metered updates.
Builders are always free. Facts about Glide on this page were last checked on against Glide's own site. Tell us if something is out of date: hello@emberblocks.com.
Why people look for a Glide alternative
Classic apps are gone
Glide retired its original spreadsheet-to-app product on 30 June 2025. Apps built on it stopped being accessible or editable, and the new Glide is a different builder.
Pricing trust
Glide's plan changes in 2023 and 2024 removed low-cost upgrade paths and pushed many makers to a much higher tier. Emberblocks prices by app users and publishes the limits on one page.
Updates metering
Glide counts 'updates' against your plan. Agencies on fixed-fee contracts cannot price that. Emberblocks plans include rows, workflow runs and storage as published monthly allowances.
Your own database
Glide prefers its own tables, and its options for external data are thinner. Emberblocks reads and writes Postgres and Airtable directly, with the built-in database as the default.
Permissions
Roles in Emberblocks control views and individual fields, and app users can come straight from a table in your data.
Publishing
Every publish is a versioned snapshot you can inspect and roll back, with a stable and a latest channel.
Emberblocks vs Glide at a glance
| Capability | Emberblocks | Glide |
|---|---|---|
| Built-in database | Yes | Glide Tables |
| Connect your own Postgres | Yes | Big Tables / SQL, paid |
| Airtable as a source (two-way) | Yes | partial |
| Google Sheets as a live source | No | Yes |
| No code required | Yes | Yes |
| Formula language | Yes | computed columns |
| Field-level permissions | Yes | row owners, visibility |
| Workflows and automations | Yes | Workflows |
| Versioned publishing with rollback | Yes | publish, no rollback |
| Public links without accounts | Yes | public apps |
| Offline edits queued on phones | Yes | limited |
| AI drafts the first version | Yes | Glide AI |
| Builders never pay | Yes | No |
| Paid plans priced by | app users | users and updates |
| Custom domains | not yet | unverified |
| SSO / SAML | not yet | unverified |
Emberblocks cells reflect what ships today. Glide cells were checked against Glide's public pages on the date shown at the top of this page; "unverified" means we could not confirm it and would rather say so than guess.
What you get in Emberblocks
Your data, live
Start on a built-in database, your own Postgres (Supabase, Neon, RDS, anything that speaks Postgres) or an Airtable base. Apps read and write live rows, so there are no exports to keep in sync.
Blocks on a grid
Drag tables, cards, record pages, kanban boards, calendars, maps, timelines, charts, stats, forms, buttons, comments, activity feeds, file viewers, signatures, barcodes and embeds onto a grid and wire them to tables. What you arrange is exactly what your team gets.
Real field types
Fields include text, email, phone, URL, number, boolean, date, date-time, time, duration, select, multi-select, reference, multi-reference, image, file, signature, address and JSON. Barcode scanning and signatures work in the browser without a native app.
Workflows
Workflows run when a row is created, updated or deleted, on a schedule, or from a button; steps update records, send email, call webhooks, branch on conditions and run code.
Roles and permissions
Roles decide which views a user sees and which fields they can read or edit; app users can be loaded from a table in your own data.
Publishing like software
Every publish is a versioned snapshot you can inspect and roll back, with a stable and a latest channel.
Phones and offline
Published apps are responsive, install on a phone's home screen, and queue edits made offline until the connection is back.
AI where it helps
Ember drafts a first version of an app from a plain-language description, and end users can ask questions of the data in plain language when you turn it on.
Where Glide is still the better pick
- Visual polish out of the box. Glide's default components are very good looking; Emberblocks apps look clean and professional but Glide's design layer is more mature.
- Consumer-style directories and mobile-first storefronts. Emberblocks is built for internal tools and portals.
- Live Google Sheets as the source. Emberblocks imports sheets as CSV instead.
- The Glide Experts network: if you want an agency to build for you, Glide's certified channel is larger today.
How to move from Glide
- 1
Bring the data
Connect the Postgres database the data already lives in, point Emberblocks at the Airtable base, or export a CSV and import it into a built-in table. Column types are detected on import.
- 2
Let Ember draft the app
Describe the tool in a sentence or two. Ember proposes tables, views and workflows; you review the plan before anything is created.
- 3
Rebuild the screens you actually use
Most teams find a third of their old views were never opened. Rebuild the ones that matter as blocks on a grid; the table, kanban, calendar and map blocks cover most of them.
- 4
Set roles, then publish
Decide who sees which views and fields, publish a versioned snapshot and send the link. Roll back in one click if something is off.
Questions
- Can I import a Glide app into Emberblocks?
- Not automatically. Glide has no app-definition export the way AppSheet does. Export each Glide table as CSV, import them into built-in tables, and rebuild the screens as blocks. Ember can draft the first version from a description of the app.
- Does Emberblocks meter updates or edits?
- No. Plans include a number of app users, rows, workflow runs and storage per month. Editing a record is not a billable event.
- How is Emberblocks priced?
- Builders are always free. Paid plans are priced by the number of people who sign in to your published apps: Starter $29, Pro $79 and Business $199 a month billed yearly. Every new workspace starts with a 14-day Pro trial, no card needed, and there is a free plan after that. Full details on the pricing page.
- Where does my data live?
- Wherever you want it. Use the built-in database, connect your own Postgres so rows never leave your server, or point an app at an Airtable base. Airtable bases are mirrored into Postgres and kept in sync both ways.
- What does Emberblocks not do yet?
- Custom domains, SSO and an Enterprise plan are not available yet. There is no live Google Sheets connector (import the sheet as CSV instead). Apps run in the browser and install to the home screen; there are no App Store or Play Store builds.
Try it on your own data.
Every workspace starts with a 14-day Pro trial without a card. You can also open a template in the editor first and sign up only when you want to keep it.