How to Self-Host Teable — Airtable Alternative 2026

TL;DR

Teable is a next-generation open source Airtable alternative built on PostgreSQL — unlike Airtable's proprietary database, Teable stores your data in standard SQL tables you can query directly. It supports real-time collaborative editing, 20+ field types, multiple views (grid, gallery, form, calendar, Gantt), automations, REST API, and an impressive performance profile that handles millions of rows without the pagination walls Airtable imposes. Self-hosting requires Docker Compose and a VPS with 2GB RAM. Airtable charges $20/user/month for features Teable provides free.

Key Takeaways

Teable: 15K+ GitHub stars, TypeScript/NestJS backend, built on PostgreSQL — data is in real SQL tables
Performance: handles 1M+ rows in a single table smoothly; Airtable limits free tier to 1,200 rows and caps paid tiers at 100K-500K rows
Views: Grid, Gallery, Form, Calendar, Kanban — all with real-time sync
API: REST API auto-generated per table, compatible with most Airtable API clients
Automations: trigger-action workflows (record created/updated → send webhook, create record, etc.)
Alternatives: NocoDB (more mature, 50K+ stars), Baserow (also open source, more polished UI), Grist (spreadsheet-focused)

Why Teable Over NocoDB or Baserow?

The open source Airtable space is crowded — NocoDB, Baserow, and Grist all exist. Teable's differentiators:

Native PostgreSQL: data lives in real PostgreSQL tables with standard column types. You can JOIN your Teable data with your app database, run analytics with any BI tool, or access it via psql directly.
Performance: built for large datasets from the ground up. NocoDB and Baserow struggle beyond 100K rows; Teable handles millions.
Modern UI: closest in feel to Airtable's UX — smooth, fast, drag-and-drop column ordering, inline editing
Newer: less battle-tested than NocoDB (launched 2023 vs NocoDB 2018), but actively developed with frequent releases

Choose NocoDB if you need maximum maturity and a larger community. Choose Teable if performance and data portability are priorities.

Prerequisites

Docker + Docker Compose
2GB RAM minimum (4GB recommended for comfortable use)
Domain with SSL for production (Teable's real-time features require HTTPS)
VPS: Hetzner CX22 (€4.15/mo) works for personal/team use

Docker Compose Setup

Create /opt/teable/docker-compose.yml:

version: '3.8'

services:
  teable-db:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: teable
      POSTGRES_USER: teable
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
    volumes:
      - ./postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U teable -d teable"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5

  teable-db-migrate:
    image: ghcr.io/teableio/teable:latest
    depends_on:
      teable-db:
        condition: service_healthy
    environment:
      PRISMA_DATABASE_URL: postgresql://teable:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@teable-db:5432/teable
    command: sh -c "node ./dist/prisma/migrate-prod.js"
    restart: on-failure

  teable:
    image: ghcr.io/teableio/teable:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:3000:3000"
    depends_on:
      teable-db-migrate:
        condition: service_completed_successfully
    environment:
      # App
      PUBLIC_ORIGIN: https://teable.example.com
      BACKEND_JWT_SECRET: ${JWT_SECRET}
      BACKEND_SESSION_SECRET: ${SESSION_SECRET}
      # Database
      PRISMA_DATABASE_URL: postgresql://teable:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@teable-db:5432/teable
      # Email
      BACKEND_MAIL_HOST: smtp.resend.com
      BACKEND_MAIL_PORT: 587
      BACKEND_MAIL_USER: resend
      BACKEND_MAIL_PASS: ${SMTP_PASSWORD}
      BACKEND_MAIL_FROM: teable@example.com
      # Storage (local or S3)
      BACKEND_STORAGE_PROVIDER: local
      # For S3:
      # BACKEND_STORAGE_PROVIDER: s3
      # BACKEND_STORAGE_S3_REGION: us-east-1
      # BACKEND_STORAGE_S3_BUCKET: teable-files
      # BACKEND_STORAGE_S3_ACCESS_KEY: ${S3_KEY}
      # BACKEND_STORAGE_S3_SECRET_KEY: ${S3_SECRET}
    volumes:
      - ./uploads:/app/.teable

volumes:
  postgres:

Create .env:

POSTGRES_PASSWORD=strong-postgres-password

# Generate: node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('hex'))"
JWT_SECRET=your-jwt-secret
SESSION_SECRET=your-session-secret

SMTP_PASSWORD=your-smtp-key

docker compose up -d
# Migrations run automatically via teable-db-migrate service
# Access at http://localhost:3000

On first access, register the first user — this account automatically gets admin privileges. Navigate to:

Create a Space — equivalent to an Airtable workspace
Create a Base — a collection of related tables (equivalent to Airtable base)
Add a Table — name it, add fields

Available Field Types

Teable supports 20+ field types matching Airtable's:

Category	Fields
Basic	Single line text, Long text, Number, Checkbox, Date
Link	Link to another record, Lookup, Rollup
Select	Single select, Multiple select
Media	Attachment
User	User, Created by, Last modified by
Auto	Auto number, Created time, Last modified time, Formula
Reference	Link (relates tables), Count

REST API

Every Teable table gets an auto-generated REST API:

// Get records with filtering and sorting
const response = await fetch(
  'https://teable.example.com/api/table/tblXXXXXXX/record?' + new URLSearchParams({
    'filter': JSON.stringify({
      'conjunction': 'and',
      'filterSet': [
        { 'fieldId': 'fldStatus', 'operator': 'is', 'value': 'Active' },
        { 'fieldId': 'fldCreatedTime', 'operator': 'isAfter', 'value': '2026-01-01' },
      ],
    }),
    'orderBy': JSON.stringify([{ 'fieldId': 'fldCreatedTime', 'order': 'desc' }]),
    'take': '20',
    'skip': '0',
  }),
  {
    headers: {
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.TEABLE_API_TOKEN}`,
    },
  }
)

const { records, total } = await response.json()

// Create a record
await fetch('https://teable.example.com/api/table/tblXXXXXXX/record', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.TEABLE_API_TOKEN}`,
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    records: [{
      fields: {
        Name: 'New Customer',
        Email: 'customer@example.com',
        Status: 'Active',
        'Signup Date': new Date().toISOString(),
      },
    }],
  }),
})

Get your API token from Account Settings → API Token. Table IDs (tbl...) and field IDs (fld...) are visible in the URL when viewing a table.

Views and Collaboration

Every Teable table supports multiple views — each with its own filters, sorts, hidden fields, and grouping. Views are non-destructive overlays on the same data:

Available views:

Grid: Spreadsheet-style, column resize, row height, frozen columns
Gallery: Card-based layout, ideal for photo/image collections
Form: Public intake form, submit records from outside users without Teable accounts
Calendar: Date-field-based calendar layout with drag-and-drop scheduling
Kanban: Card-based status board (requires a single-select field as the grouping column)

Sharing and embedding: Each view can be shared via a public URL (read-only or with form submission). Embed a form view on your website:

<!-- Embed a Teable form -->
<iframe
  src="https://teable.example.com/share/shrlinkid/view?theme=light"
  width="100%"
  height="600"
  frameborder="0"
  title="Contact Form"
></iframe>

Shared views support password protection and can be restricted to specific IP ranges for internal use. Toggle sharing in the view menu → Share View.

Real-time collaboration: Multiple team members can edit the same table simultaneously. Changes appear in real time without page refresh — cursor positions and active cell highlights show who's editing what, similar to Google Sheets. This is powered by Teable's SSE (Server-Sent Events) connection, which requires the proxy_read_timeout 3600 in the Nginx config.

Migrating from Airtable

Teable provides a CSV import that handles Airtable exports:

In Airtable: Base → Download CSV (exports current view data)
In Teable: Table → Import → CSV
Map Airtable column types to Teable field types
Import — Teable handles up to 100K rows per import batch

For larger migrations or automated sync:

// Airtable to Teable migration script
import Airtable from 'airtable'

const airtable = new Airtable({ apiKey: process.env.AIRTABLE_TOKEN })
const base = airtable.base('appYourBaseId')

// Fetch all records from Airtable
const records = await base('Contacts').select({ view: 'Grid view' }).all()

// Batch insert into Teable API
const BATCH_SIZE = 100
for (let i = 0; i < records.length; i += BATCH_SIZE) {
  const batch = records.slice(i, i + BATCH_SIZE)
  await fetch('https://teable.example.com/api/table/tblXXXXXXX/record', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.TEABLE_TOKEN}`,
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      records: batch.map(record => ({
        fields: {
          Name: record.get('Name'),
          Email: record.get('Email'),
          Status: record.get('Status'),
        },
      })),
    }),
  })
  console.log(`Migrated ${Math.min(i + BATCH_SIZE, records.length)}/${records.length}`)
}

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Real-time sync not working:

Verify Nginx has proxy_read_timeout 3600 set — without this, SSE connections time out after 60 seconds
Check that PUBLIC_ORIGIN in .env matches your actual domain exactly (including https://)
Test the SSE endpoint: curl -N https://teable.example.com/api/sse

Migration service fails on startup:

docker compose logs teable-db-migrate
# If postgres isn't ready: increase the healthcheck interval
# If schema conflicts: check if a prior migration left partial state
docker compose exec teable-db psql -U teable -d teable -c "\dt _prisma_migrations"

File uploads failing: Ensure the uploads volume is writable:

docker compose exec teable ls -la /app/.teable
# If permission denied:
docker compose exec teable chown -R node:node /app/.teable

Large table performance: For tables with 500K+ rows, add PostgreSQL indexes on commonly filtered fields. Teable table IDs are in the format tblXXXXXXX — find the exact table name with \dt tbl* in psql, then:

-- Add index for a status field
CREATE INDEX idx_teable_status ON "tblAbc123"("fldStatus");
-- Analyze to update query planner
ANALYZE "tblAbc123";

Direct Database Access

Since Teable uses PostgreSQL, you can query your data directly — a huge advantage over Airtable:

# Connect to Teable's database
docker compose exec teable-db psql -U teable -d teable

# Find your table (Teable creates tables named by their ID)
\dt tbl*
# Lists: tblAbc123, tblXyz789, etc.

# Query directly
SELECT * FROM "tblAbc123" WHERE "fldStatus" = 'Active' LIMIT 10;

# JOIN with your application database
-- (if connected to the same PostgreSQL instance)
SELECT t.*, u.plan_tier
FROM "tblAbc123" t
JOIN app.users u ON t."fldUserId" = u.id::text
WHERE u.plan_tier = 'enterprise';

This direct SQL access unlocks use cases Airtable can't support: complex analytics, BI tool integration (Metabase, Superset), data pipelines, and automated data maintenance.

Automations

Teable's automation builder (Settings → Automations within a base) supports trigger-action workflows:

Triggers:

Record created
Record updated (any field or specific field)
Record deleted
Form submitted
Scheduled (hourly, daily, weekly)

Actions:

Send webhook (HTTP POST to any URL)
Send email notification
Create a record
Update a record
Find records

Example: Slack notification for new form submissions:

Trigger: Record created in Contact Submissions table
Action: Send webhook to Slack webhook URL
Body: {"text": "New submission from {{Name}}: {{Email}}"}

Nginx Configuration

server {
  listen 443 ssl http2;
  server_name teable.example.com;

  ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/teable.example.com/fullchain.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/teable.example.com/privkey.pem;

  client_max_body_size 100m;

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    proxy_read_timeout 3600;  # long timeout for real-time connections
  }
}

The proxy_read_timeout 3600 is important — Teable uses long-polling/SSE for real-time updates.

Backup and Upgrading

# Backup
DATE=$(date +%Y%m%d)
docker compose exec -T teable-db pg_dump -U teable teable | gzip > "/opt/backups/teable-$DATE.sql.gz"

# Upgrade
docker compose pull teable
docker compose up -d --force-recreate teable-db-migrate  # run migrations first
docker compose up -d --force-recreate teable
docker compose logs teable | grep -i "started\|error"

Cost vs Airtable

Plan	Airtable	Teable Self-Hosted
1-5 users	$0 (1,200 rows limit)	Free (unlimited)
Team (5 users)	$100/month	~€5/month VPS
Business (25 users)	$500/month	~€10/month VPS
Row limit	100K-500K rows	Unlimited (PostgreSQL)
API calls/month	100K (paid)	Unlimited

Methodology

Teable documentation: help.teable.io
GitHub: github.com/teableio/teable (15K+ stars)
Tested with Teable latest, PostgreSQL 16, Docker Compose v2

Why Self-Host Teable — Airtable Alternative?

The case for self-hosting Teable — Airtable Alternative comes down to three practical factors: data ownership, cost at scale, and operational control.

Data ownership is the fundamental argument. When you use a SaaS version of any tool, your data lives on someone else's infrastructure subject to their terms of service, their security practices, and their business continuity. If the vendor raises prices, gets acquired, changes API limits, or shuts down, you're left scrambling. Self-hosting Teable — Airtable Alternative means your data and configuration stay on infrastructure you control — whether that's a VPS, a bare metal server, or a home lab.

Cost at scale matters once you move beyond individual use. Most SaaS equivalents charge per user or per data volume. A self-hosted instance on a $10-20/month VPS typically costs less than per-user SaaS pricing for teams of five or more — and the cost doesn't scale linearly with usage. One well-configured server handles dozens of users for a flat monthly fee.

Operational control is the third factor. The Docker Compose configuration above exposes every setting that commercial equivalents often hide behind enterprise plans: custom networking, environment variables, storage backends, and authentication integrations. You decide when to update, how to configure backups, and what access controls to apply.

The honest tradeoff: you're responsible for updates, backups, and availability. For teams running any production workloads, this is familiar territory. For individuals, the learning curve is real but the tooling (Docker, Caddy, automated backups) is well-documented and widely supported.

Server Requirements and Sizing

Before deploying Teable — Airtable Alternative, assess your server capacity against expected workload.

Minimum viable setup: A 1 vCPU, 1GB RAM VPS with 20GB SSD is sufficient for personal use or small teams. Most consumer VPS providers — Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr — offer machines in this range for $5-10/month. Hetzner offers excellent price-to-performance for European and US regions.

Recommended production setup: 2 vCPUs with 4GB RAM and 40GB SSD handles most medium deployments without resource contention. This gives Teable — Airtable Alternative headroom for background tasks, caching, and concurrent users while leaving capacity for other services on the same host.

Storage planning: The Docker volumes in this docker-compose.yml store all persistent Teable — Airtable Alternative data. Estimate your storage growth rate early — for data-intensive tools, budget for 3-5x your initial estimate. Hetzner Cloud and Vultr both support online volume resizing without stopping your instance.

Operating system: Any modern 64-bit Linux distribution works. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Debian 12 are the most commonly tested configurations. Ensure Docker Engine 24.0+ and Docker Compose v2 are installed — verify with docker --version and docker compose version. Avoid Docker Desktop on production Linux servers; it adds virtualization overhead and behaves differently from Docker Engine in ways that cause subtle networking issues.

Network: Only ports 80 and 443 need to be publicly accessible when running behind a reverse proxy. Internal service ports should be bound to localhost only. A minimal UFW firewall that blocks all inbound traffic except SSH, HTTP, and HTTPS is the single most effective security measure for a self-hosted server.

Backup and Disaster Recovery

Running Teable — Airtable Alternative without a tested backup strategy is an unacceptable availability risk. Docker volumes are not automatically backed up — if you delete a volume or the host fails, data is gone with no recovery path.

What to back up: The named Docker volumes containing Teable — Airtable Alternative's data (database files, user uploads, application state), your docker-compose.yml and any customized configuration files, and .env files containing secrets.

Backup approach: For simple setups, stop the container, archive the volume contents, then restart. For production environments where stopping causes disruption, use filesystem snapshots or database dump commands (PostgreSQL pg_dump, SQLite .backup, MySQL mysqldump) that produce consistent backups without downtime.

For a complete automated backup workflow that ships snapshots to S3-compatible object storage, see the Restic + Rclone backup guide. Restic handles deduplication and encryption; Rclone handles multi-destination uploads. The same setup works for any Docker volume.

Backup cadence: Daily backups to remote storage are a reasonable baseline for actively used tools. Use a 30-day retention window minimum — long enough to recover from mistakes discovered weeks later. For critical data, extend to 90 days and use a secondary destination.

Restore testing: A backup that has never been restored is a backup you cannot trust. Once a month, restore your Teable — Airtable Alternative backup to a separate Docker Compose stack on different ports and verify the data is intact. This catches silent backup failures, script errors, and volume permission issues before they matter in a real recovery.

Security Hardening

Self-hosting means you are responsible for Teable — Airtable Alternative's security posture. The Docker Compose setup provides a functional base; production deployments need additional hardening.

Always use a reverse proxy: Never expose Teable — Airtable Alternative's internal port directly to the internet. The docker-compose.yml binds to localhost; Caddy or Nginx provides HTTPS termination. Direct HTTP access transmits credentials in plaintext. A reverse proxy also centralizes TLS management, rate limiting, and access logging.

Strong credentials: Change default passwords immediately after first login. For secrets in docker-compose environment variables, generate random values with openssl rand -base64 32 rather than reusing existing passwords.

Firewall configuration:

ufw default deny incoming
ufw allow 22/tcp
ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp
ufw enable

Internal service ports (databases, admin panels, internal APIs) should only be reachable from localhost or the Docker network, never directly from the internet.

Network isolation: Docker Compose named networks keep Teable — Airtable Alternative's services isolated from other containers on the same host. Database containers should not share networks with containers that don't need direct database access.

VPN access for sensitive services: For internal-only tools, restricting access to a VPN adds a strong second layer. Headscale is an open source Tailscale control server that puts your self-hosted stack behind a WireGuard mesh, eliminating public internet exposure for internal tools.

Update discipline: Subscribe to Teable — Airtable Alternative's GitHub releases page to receive security advisory notifications. Schedule a monthly maintenance window to pull updated images. Running outdated container images is the most common cause of self-hosted service compromises.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Container exits immediately or won't start

Check logs first — they almost always explain the failure:

docker compose logs -f teable

Common causes: a missing required environment variable, a port already in use, or a volume permission error. Port conflicts appear as bind: address already in use. Find the conflicting process with ss -tlpn | grep PORT and either stop it or change Teable — Airtable Alternative's port mapping in docker-compose.yml.

Cannot reach the web interface

Work through this checklist:

Confirm the container is running: docker compose ps
Test locally on the server: curl -I http://localhost:PORT
If local access works but external doesn't, check your firewall: ufw status
If using a reverse proxy, verify it's running and the config is valid: caddy validate --config /etc/caddy/Caddyfile

Permission errors on volume mounts

Some containers run as a non-root user. If the Docker volume is owned by root, the container process cannot write to it. Find the volume's host path with docker volume inspect VOLUME_NAME, check the tool's documentation for its expected UID, and apply correct ownership:

chown -R 1000:1000 /var/lib/docker/volumes/your_volume/_data

High resource usage over time

Memory or CPU growing continuously usually indicates unconfigured log rotation, an unbound cache, or accumulated data needing pruning. Check current usage with docker stats teable. Add resource limits in docker-compose.yml to prevent one container from starving others. For ongoing visibility into resource trends, deploy Prometheus + Grafana or Netdata.

Data disappears after container restart

Data stored in the container's writable layer — rather than a named volume — is lost when the container is removed or recreated. This happens when the volume mount path in docker-compose.yml doesn't match where the application writes data. Verify mount paths against the tool's documentation and correct the mapping. Named volumes persist across container removal; only docker compose down -v deletes them.

Keeping Teable — Airtable Alternative Updated

Teable — Airtable Alternative follows a regular release cadence. Staying current matters for security patches and compatibility. The update process with Docker Compose is straightforward:

docker compose pull          # Download updated images
docker compose up -d         # Restart with new images
docker image prune -f        # Remove old image layers (optional)

Read the changelog before major version updates. Some releases include database migrations or breaking configuration changes. For major version bumps, test in a staging environment first — run a copy of the service on different ports with the same volume data to validate the migration before touching production.

Version pinning: For stability, pin to a specific image tag in docker-compose.yml instead of latest. Update deliberately after reviewing the changelog. This trades automatic patch delivery for predictable behavior — the right call for business-critical services.

Post-update verification: After updating, confirm Teable — Airtable Alternative is functioning correctly. Most services expose a /health endpoint that returns HTTP 200 — curl it from the server or monitor it with your uptime tool.

Browse open source alternatives to Airtable on OSSAlt.

See open source alternatives to Airtable on OSSAlt.

The SaaS-to-Self-Hosted Migration Guide (Free PDF)