Glide is the best no-code app builder for turning a spreadsheet into an app your own team uses on their phones, and it is a weaker fit once the users are outside customers or the logic gets complicated. That is the short version of this Glide app builder review. Glide connects to Google Sheets, Excel and other business data, and its AI agent builds a working first version from your tables that you then refine.
Reviews of a tool in isolation tend to praise everything, so this one measures Glide against the product people most often weigh it against: Softr. Both turn business data into apps without code. They make different bets, and the differences tell you which to buy. Prices are from glideapps.com/pricing and softr.io/pricing, checked Oct 2026. No timed builds or invented test results appear here.
Data, sheets in Glide and tables in Softr
Glide treats your spreadsheet as the app's spine. Point it at a Google Sheet or Excel file and, in Glide's words, the agent loads your data and builds a working app for desktop and phone. Edits in the app flow back to the data. Softr leans toward Airtable and its own database, with Google Sheets, Notion, HubSpot and SQL sources also supported. Softr's database caps records by plan, from 5,000 on Free to 1 million on Business.
Winner for a team that already lives in Sheets or Excel: Glide. Winner for a team on Airtable, or one starting fresh with relational data: Softr, narrowly.
On a phone, Glide feels like an app
Glide apps run on desktop and phone browsers and are built with small screens in mind. Lists, photo capture and quick-edit forms feel natural on a small screen, which is why field service, inventory and job tracking are its typical projects. Softr builds web pages that work on phones, and its Business plan adds an installable PWA and push notifications. Neither publishes native apps to the App Store or Google Play.
Winner for staff who work on their feet: Glide, clearly.
Pricing, credits against app users
Here the two products count different things, and that decides the bill more than the headline price.
- Glide counts credits, published apps and team members. Free is $0 with limited credits, 2 team members and 10 projects, but no published apps. Basic is $25 a month for 100 credits, 2 members and 2 published apps. Plus is $50 for 250 credits (tiers up to 10,000), 3 members, 5 published apps and 5 workflows. Pro is $125 starting at 500 credits for 5 members and scaling with the team, with unlimited published apps and workflows. Annual plans are listed as coming soon.
- Softr counts builders and app users. Basic is $25 a month ($19 billed yearly) with 5 team and 5 client users. Pro is $119 ($99 yearly) with 10 team and 50 client users. Business is $395 ($329 yearly) with 30 team and 100 client users. Extra users cost more each month.
The practical result: Glide is cheaper for a small team running several internal apps, and Softr is cheaper for one portal with a few dozen outside clients. If you plan to publish more than five apps, Glide jumps to Pro. If you plan to have more than fifty outside users, Softr starts adding per-user fees. Our Softr pricing guide shows that maths in detail.
AI, an agent that builds against a co-builder
Glide's agent loads your data and builds the first version, and on Basic and up you can choose a light, medium or heavy agent mode, which spends credits at different rates. Pro adds building with your own outside agent over MCP. Glide also lets you add AI features inside your apps, metered by the same credits. Softr's AI co-builder drafts apps from a description with 5 to 100 AI credits a month by plan, and you can keep building by hand when they run out.
Call this one even. Glide's agent is more central to the experience, which is great until your credits run low in a heavy month. Watch usage closely in the first month.
Users outside your company
Glide positions itself for internal business apps, and its plans count team members. Softr is built for the opposite case: clients signing in with Google or a passcode, each seeing only their own records, with branding removed on Pro. If the people opening your app are customers, members or partners, Softr is the better product and our Softr review walks through that build.
What neither does well
Both are hosted platforms with no code to take away, so a move later means a rebuild. Both get awkward when an app needs rules that span many tables, such as a reorder suggestion based on 30 days of sales or a commission split across teams. If that describes your project, a builder that writes real code is worth pricing.
VibeDream is one option. You describe the app, and it builds a React front end with a FastAPI backend in Python where that kind of rule lives as readable code. You can download a ZIP or sync to GitHub. All Access Mini is $49 a month with 60 credits and 3 active projects, and All Access is $97 with 150 credits and 5. Be fair about the gaps: there is no live two-way sheet sync like Glide's, and there is no free plan. Built-in login does work with one tap. For a spreadsheet-backed team app today, Glide is still the faster route.
Which Glide plan to buy
- Free, to try the agent on your real sheet. You cannot publish, so treat it as a demo.
- Basic at $25 a month for one or two small team apps and up to 2 builders.
- Plus at $50 a month once you need up to 5 published apps or a few workflows, and buy a bigger credit tier if the agent runs often.
- Pro at $125 a month for unlimited apps, premium integrations and credits that grow with headcount.
- Enterprise if you must choose your organisation's AI provider or need custom terms.
One tip before you start: tidy the spreadsheet. Clear column names and one row per item give the agent a much better first draft, and a messy sheet produces a messy app no matter which builder you use.