Glide vs Softr: Credits, Users and Spreadsheet Portals Compared

Glide (glideapps.com) and Softr both turn table-shaped business data into internal tools and client portals without code but meter different things. Glide sells two separate products: GlideOS, the AI app builder for new sign-ups, billed per organization in credits and monthly only, and Glide Classic, the original builder, billed per team in users and updates on a yearly or monthly term. Softr bills per workspace by builders and app users, on either term. Pick Softr when you want Airtable or Google Sheets synced both ways from the free plan, yearly billing or a nonprofit discount. Pick GlideOS when you want an agent to build the app from a sheet or a prompt. Glide Classic Maker and up suit two-way Sheets sync with many personal-email users; company-domain staff need Glide Classic Business.

At the entry step, GlideOS Basic costs $25 per month for 100 credits, billed monthly, since Glide says annual plans are coming soon.^[1] Glide Classic Explorer costs $19 per month billed yearly or $25 per month billed monthly.^[2] Softr's Basic plan is $19 per month billed annually or $25 per month billed monthly, per workspace. The sticker prices nearly match. What they buy does not, and that gap drives every section below.

Organization, team or workspace: what each invoice counts

GlideOS prices the organization, and the plan covers its team members: two on Basic, three on Plus, five on Pro. GlideOS Pro costs $125 per month with 5 members and 500 credits, plus $10 per additional member per month up to 100 members. GlideOS Plus is a credit menu: $50 per month buys 250 credits, and the top option is $1,025 per month for 10,000 credits. Every GlideOS figure is a monthly charge. No yearly option exists yet, so nothing on that side carries a discount.

Glide Classic prices the team, with two meters. Glide Classic Maker costs $49 per month billed yearly or $60 billed monthly; Glide Classic Business costs $199 per month billed yearly or $249 billed monthly with 30 users included, then $5 per additional user per month billed annually or $6 billed monthly. Included updates run 250, 500 and 5,000 a month on Explorer, Maker and Business, and each extra update costs 2¢ once the team turns on unlimited updates. Glide Classic's toggle says Save 20%, but by our arithmetic the real saving is 24% on Explorer, about 18.3% on Maker and about 20.1% on Business.

Softr prices the workspace, with builders and app users included. Softr Pro costs $119 per month billed monthly or $99 per month billed annually ($1,188 a year), and Softr Business costs $395 or $329 ($3,948 a year). Extra Softr builders cost, per builder per month, $6 billed monthly or $5 billed annually on Basic, $12 or $10 on Pro, and $24 or $20 on Business. Every added editor raises that bill directly, which matters for teams where several people maintain the portal.

The billing-unit row matters more than the prices. One side of the grid moves with credits, updates and seats; the other moves with builders and with how many app users a portal needs. Read the usage row as three separate currencies that never convert into one another, because a credit, an update and an AI credit each measure different work. Budget each on its own terms.

What the AI side spends

The GlideOS Glide Agent builds the app, its data and its workflows from a prompt, a spreadsheet, a PDF or a screenshot, and it shows a mockup first. Credits pay for that building, for AI features inside finished apps, for workflow steps (0.1 credits each for the first 100 steps of a run) and for integration calls at 0.01 credits each. Glide's docs put Balanced mode at about three times the credits of Light, and Heavy at about five times. When monthly credits run out, new AI requests stop until the reset or a purchase of extra credits, whose price Glide does not publish.

Glide Classic has no credit meter. Its Glide AI columns and actions spend updates, as do integrations and syncs, and at the update limit AI, workflows, third-party actions and external syncs stop unless the team turns on unlimited updates, which then bills 2¢ per update past the plan's monthly allowance. So the Classic meter counts data work, not AI tokens. Our GlideOS and Glide Classic pricing breakdown walks through both meters.

Softr's AI Co-Builder assembles Softr's own blocks and database rather than writing code. Monthly AI credits are 5 on Free, 10 on Basic, 50 on Pro and 100 on Business, in one pool per workspace, and AI-credit add-ons are monthly subscriptions at $10 per 100 credits a month on every Softr plan, in either billing term. At zero, Softr's AI features pause without a charge while the no-code editor keeps working. GlideOS builds through its agent, so there new AI requests, building included, stop until credits reset or extra credits are bought.

Google Sheets, Airtable and row ceilings

Spreadsheet behavior splits three ways. Glide Classic syncs Google Sheets in both directions from Maker upward, while Free and Explorer only import a sheet; Airtable and Excel sync arrive on Glide Classic Business, which checks Airtable for changes about every three minutes while the app is in use. Each app takes one Google spreadsheet. Syncs spend updates, whereas edits made in the app to Glide Tables and Big Tables do not (changes through the Glide API or server-side workflows still do). Glide Classic allows 25,000 spreadsheet-source rows on every plan, and Big Tables hold 25,000, 25,000, 50,000 and 100,000 rows on Free, Explorer, Maker and Business.

GlideOS copies a connected Google Sheet into a table in its own database, and later edits stay in GlideOS. Nothing flows back. It also builds tables from uploaded Excel, CSV or ODS files, exports any table to CSV and publishes no row limit. Our guide to Glide data sources covers the sync rules plan by plan.

Softr connects Airtable and Google Sheets both ways from its Free plan, alongside Notion, SmartSuite, Zoho CRM and a read-only REST API. Its built-in Softr Databases hold 5,000 records per workspace on Free, 50,000 on Basic, 500K on Pro and 1M on Business. A team that wants the sheet to stay the system of record has the easier start on Softr or on Glide Classic Maker, though Maker admits only personal-email app users and staff on a company email domain need Glide Classic Business.

Clients, guests and who counts as a user

Portals expose the sharpest difference. In GlideOS, guests are outsiders who use published apps, see only the apps shared with them and take no seat. The GlideOS pricing table lists unlimited guests on Basic, Plus and Pro, but admins can invite only 10 new guests every 30 days (3 per member on Pro and Enterprise).^[3] Public apps where anyone can sign up start on GlideOS Plus. Data in a public app is open to anyone holding the link, and search engines index those apps.

Glide Classic counts users per team, only when they were active in the billing period. Explorer includes 100 personal users and the pricing page lists unlimited personal users on Maker, meaning people who sign in with Gmail-type or .edu addresses. Business-domain users need Glide Classic Business. Row Owners, enforced on the server on every Glide Classic plan, keep each client to their own records; filters and visibility conditions do not protect data.

Softr splits app users into Team users, who share a builder's business email domain, and Client users, everyone else including Gmail. Basic includes 5 of each, Pro 10 Team and 50 Client, and Business 30 Team and 100 Client. Extra app users exist only on Softr Pro and Business, billed monthly even on annual plans, so Free and Basic workspaces hit a hard ceiling. A portal for dozens of outside clients therefore lands on Softr Pro at minimum, while GlideOS charges nothing per guest and paces invitations instead.

Free plans, trials, refunds and discounts

Neither Glide product publishes from its free plan. GlideOS Free gives a limited, unpublished number of credits that do not renew, two team members, ten projects, one integration, and no published apps or running workflows. Glide Classic Free builds and tests inside the editor only. Softr's Free plan includes 5 AI credits, 5 app users in total and up to 3 builders. For trials, Glide Classic offers a 14-day Business trial that needs a card, one per team, and renews into paid Business unless canceled. Softr runs a free trial at sign-up with no card. GlideOS publishes no paid-plan trial.

Refund rules are three different promises. Glide Classic gives a full refund within 14 days of the first subscription payment. GlideOS's Terms (July 2026) say fees and credits are non-refundable except where the law requires. Softr refunds only within the first-payment window: 14 days on monthly plans, 30 days on yearly ones. On discounts, Softr gives nonprofits and education institutions 50% off through a form. Glide Classic says it offers no nonprofit discount, and GlideOS publishes none.

Gates, security, phones and Glide's own comparison

Single sign-on is an Enterprise matter everywhere: GlideOS Enterprise, a paid add-on on Glide Classic Enterprise, and Softr Enterprise with SCIM. Custom domains arrive on any paid GlideOS plan, on Glide Classic Maker and on Softr Basic. Softr removes its branding from Pro, and Glide Classic drops its watermark on paid plans. GlideOS gates org-level roles and invite-only projects to Pro.

Glide says Glide Classic is SOC 2 Type 2 certified and SOC 2 Type 1 for GlideOS is in progress (as read in November 2026). Both Glide products prohibit HIPAA-protected health information in apps, and Glide says it hosts in the United States with no EU servers. Neither vendor publishes your apps to the App Store or Google Play: Glide Classic says store publishing is not supported, and none is documented for GlideOS. Glide Classic apps are PWAs whose native push was deprecated in December 2024; GlideOS shows a QR code to add an app to the home screen; Softr's PWA and push need Softr Business, and that PWA does not work offline.

Glide's comparison page is a competitor's pitch.^[4] It says Softr has simplistic design options and workflow limitations, and that Glide apps get self-designing layouts for phone, tablet and desktop by default. Parts of what it says about Softr's data sources and mobile plans do not match Softr's own documentation. Weigh it accordingly. For Softr's side in full, read our Softr review.

Ratings need care here. G2 keeps separate listings for Glide Classic and GlideOS, and most of those reviews are about Glide Classic; our sentiment axis weights both listings by their review count. Trustpilot complaints about Glide mention support, account access and billing, and that listing also collects reviews meant for an unrelated real-estate company. Treat them as a map of complaints.

The bottom line

Choose by unit before price. Softr fits a portal built on Airtable or Google Sheets that must stay in sync, where the number of outside users is known, yearly billing helps and a nonprofit discount counts. GlideOS fits a team that wants an agent to draft the tool from its spreadsheet, can live with monthly billing and credit budgeting, and accepts that the sheet is copied rather than synced. Glide Classic Maker and up remain the choice for two-way Sheets sync with personal-email users on a flat team price, while staff on a company email domain need Glide Classic Business; either way Glide Classic is a separate account with no path into GlideOS.