SaaS vs self-hosted
Pay per seat, or run it yourself
Each page here puts a hosted SaaS against the open-source tool that replaces it, and prices both properly: the licence, the server, and the hours it takes to keep alive.
Airtable Team$1,200
$240 a seat a year, server includedBaserow, self-hosted$632
$72 server + 14 h × $40Running it yourself is cheaper while your hour is worth less than $80.
Read the comparisonThe ledger
Every comparison on the site, with the year-one figure that decides it. Red is the lower cash outlay, before your own hours.
| Comparison | One side | The other | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| SeaTable vs NotionHead to head · DatabasesNo self-hosted Notion at any price. SeaTable runs on your server, at 8 GB of RAM. | Notion Plus, 5 users$600 | SeaTable, self-hosted~$576 + 14 h | Oct 2026 |
| Baserow vs NocoDBHead to head · DatabasesMIT with paid features against a fair-code licence that is free until you resell. | Baserow + Kanban, 5 users~$684 + 14 h | NocoDB, self-hosted~$60 + 14 h | Sep 2026 |
| Baserow self-hostedDeep dive · DatabasesNo row cap, no user cap. The limits are licence gates and the RAM under your formulas. | Baserow cloud, 5 users$600 | Baserow OSE~$72 + 14 h | Sep 2026 |
| Airtable vs BaserowHead to head · DatabasesAirtable has no self-hosted plan, Enterprise included. Baserow ships one under MIT. | Airtable Team, 5 users$1,200 | Baserow, self-hosted~$72 + 14 h | Aug 2026 |
| Airtable vs SeaTableHead to head · DatabasesTen times the free rows. Above three users SeaTable stops publishing a price. | Airtable Team, 3 users$720 | SeaTable Server~$576 + 14 h | Aug 2026 |
| UptimeRobot vs Uptime KumaHead to head · MonitoringThe pair where self-hosting saves least: your monitor dies with the box it watches. | UptimeRobot Solo~$117 | Uptime Kuma~$72 + 14 h | Aug 2026 |
| Zapier alternativesThree-way · AutomationMake changes the unit you pay for. n8n changes who owns the server. | Zapier Professional$240 | n8n, self-hosted~$72 + 14 h | Aug 2026 |
| Zapier vs MakeHead to head · AutomationBoth hosted. The units differ, and that is where the money goes. | Zapier, entry$19.99/mo | Make, entry$9/mo | Aug 2026 |
What you are actually charged for
Every automation platform meters steps that run, not workflows you build. Budget by the wrong one and the plan runs out weeks early.
3 tasks per run × 12 runs a month = 36 tasks
Common questions
Is Zapier actually free?
There's a genuine free plan, capped at 100 tasks a month, and one trigger plus one action per Zap. It's enough to test whether automation solves your problem, not enough to run a business process on.
What counts as a Zapier "task"?
Each action step that runs counts as one task. A Zap with three action steps that fires once uses three tasks, not one, which catches a lot of people budgeting by "number of Zaps" instead of steps times runs.
Is vcusers.org affiliated with any of these tools?
No. No affiliate links, no sponsored placement, no vendor relationships. Every price and limit is read off the vendor's own public pages and dated on the page it appears on, so you can check it or catch it going stale.