AppSheet vs Glide: Which Is Better?

AppSheet and Glide both promise to turn non-developers into app builders, but they target different buyers at very different price points — AppSheet leans on deep Google Workspace integration and per-user pricing, while Glide offers a more polished consumer-facing design experience with flat-rate team plans.

Quick Comparison

	AppSheet	Glide
Starting price	Free (up to 10 users)	Free tier available
Paid plans	$10/user/month (Core)	$199/month (Business, 30 users)
Public apps	$50/app/month (Publisher Pro)	Included in plans
AI assistant	Gemini	Glide AI
Native database	AppSheet Database	Glide Tables / Big Tables
Best data source	Google Sheets, SQL	Google Sheets, Airtable, SQL
Offline support	Yes	Limited
Google Workspace tie-in	Deep (included in most paid plans)	Minimal
SOC 2 certified	Yes	Yes (Type 2)

AppSheet

AppSheet is a Google product, which shapes everything about it — its strengths, its pricing model, and who it's really for. If your organization runs on Google Workspace, AppSheet is already available to you: it's included in most paid Google Workspace plans at no extra charge.

Building and data

AppSheet's data capture capabilities are unusually rich for a no-code tool. Apps can collect barcodes, GPS locations, signatures, and photos — making it genuinely useful for field teams, not just office workflows. The platform connects to Google Sheets (naturally), but also to Office 365, Dropbox, Salesforce, BigQuery, SQL databases, REST APIs, and Apigee. For organizations that aren't Google-exclusive, this breadth matters.

Workflow logic is handled through triggers, conditions, and branches, and AppSheet can call Google Apps Script functions directly — a significant advantage if your team already uses Apps Script for automation. It also incorporates OCR (optical character recognition) and intelligent document processing, which sets it apart from most no-code competitors.

AI features

AppSheet uses Gemini as its AI layer. You can describe what you want your app to do and let Gemini generate a starting point. AI is also embedded into running apps for smarter data handling and document processing.

Pricing

AppSheet's pricing model is per-user, which is a double-edged sword:

• Free: Up to 10 test users, full platform access — genuinely useful for prototyping
• Core: $10/user/month — advanced features, security controls, email support
• Publisher Pro: $50/app/month — for public-facing apps with unlimited users (no sign-in or security filters)
• Enterprise: Custom pricing for larger organizations

For small teams, per-user pricing is affordable. For larger deployments, costs scale linearly and can get expensive. The Publisher Pro model is interesting for public apps where you can't predict user volume, but the lack of security filters limits what you can build with it.

Governance and security

AppSheet has notably strong governance controls — app policies, role-based access, Zero Trust security, and explicit data ownership: your data isn't controlled by AppSheet. This makes it viable in regulated industries and enterprise IT environments.

Glide

Glide positions itself as the fastest path from spreadsheet to polished app, with an emphasis on visual design quality and modern UI. Where AppSheet feels like a power tool, Glide feels like a product.

Building and data

Glide's layout editor produces apps that look noticeably better out of the box than most no-code alternatives. Professionally designed themes, responsive layouts, and a growing component library (forms, calendars, charts) mean you spend less time fighting with design and more time building logic.

Data sources include Google Sheets, Airtable, Excel, SQL databases, and Glide's own Tables. Big Tables supports up to 10 million rows per project — a meaningful ceiling for data-heavy applications. Real-time sync keeps everything current without manual refreshes.

Workflow automation handles triggers via email, webhooks, and schedules. Conditional logic with loops and nested conditions covers fairly complex business processes. Integrations include HubSpot, Stripe, QuickBooks, Intercom, PostgreSQL, and 100+ sources via API.

AI features

Glide AI can generate apps from a description and create AI agents that handle tasks like drafting emails, extracting data from documents, and converting between formats. The agent angle is genuinely useful for automating repetitive knowledge work, not just data entry.

Pricing

Glide uses flat-rate team pricing, which inverts AppSheet's model:

• Free: Basic features, limited updates and rows
• Business: $199/month (billed annually) — includes 30 users, 5,000 updates/month, up to 100k rows, unlimited apps; additional users at $5/month each
• Enterprise: Custom — SSO, data backups, enterprise integrations, SLA, SOC 2 Type 2

The Business plan's $199/month price tag looks steep compared to AppSheet's $10/user, but for a team of 30 it works out to about $6.63/user/month and includes unlimited apps. The update-based billing (5,000 updates, then $0.02 each) is worth watching — high-automation workflows can exceed this limit quickly.

Limitations

Glide is less suited for offline use and lacks AppSheet's field-data capture features (barcodes, signatures, native GPS). It's also less tightly integrated with Google Workspace, which is either a non-issue or a dealbreaker depending on your stack.

When to Choose AppSheet

• Your organization uses Google Workspace and wants an included app platform
• You need field-ready apps: barcode scanning, photo capture, GPS, signatures
• You're building internal tools for a variable or large user base and want per-user cost control
• You need deep database connectivity (BigQuery, SQL, REST APIs, Salesforce)
• Compliance and data governance are priorities — AppSheet's Zero Trust controls and explicit data ownership matter
• You want offline-capable apps for teams without reliable internet

When to Choose Glide

• Design quality matters and you want apps that look professional without custom CSS
• Your team is under 30 people and the flat Business plan rate makes sense
• You're building customer-facing portals or external tools where UI polish is a differentiator
• You work primarily with spreadsheets and want the fastest path to a functional app
• You want to use AI agents to automate knowledge work, not just data collection
• You're connecting to Airtable, Stripe, HubSpot, or QuickBooks natively

Bottom Line

AppSheet is the better choice for Google Workspace shops, field operations, and anyone who needs fine-grained governance or complex data connectivity. Its per-user pricing is competitive for small teams, and the free tier is legitimately useful for evaluation. The depth of integrations — BigQuery, SQL, Salesforce, Apps Script — makes it the more powerful platform overall.

Glide wins on design and developer experience. If you're building customer portals, internal dashboards, or anything where the end product needs to look like real software rather than a spreadsheet, Glide's component library and layout system get you there faster. The flat-rate pricing works well for stable teams; just watch the update limits if you're building automation-heavy workflows.

Neither tool is definitively "better" — AppSheet is a data platform with an app layer on top, while Glide is an app platform with a data layer underneath. That distinction usually points to the right answer for your use case.