A lot of you have been asking what the
difference between softer and stacker is. I get this question more than any
other question over the last six months, which one should I use for my business? Which one is better stacker
or softer in this video, we are jumping into the details
to answer that very question. So if that's of interest stick
around and let's get into it, Hey, welcome back to the
channel. If you're new here, my name is Gareth and we help you to
organize and automate your business using no code tools. So if that's an interest
and you want to learn more about that, do check out the links below, be
sure to subscribe to this channel. And if you want a crash course, webinar on exactly how I use
automation to save up to 20 hours of my time every week. There's
a little bonus for you below. You can check out the link. It's Gareth
pronovost.com/webinar-registration, and it is a live webinar.
I do it once a week. I'm going to show you exactly the steps
you need to implement in order to really leverage powerful automation for
you without knowing how to code. All right? None of all that let's
get into the heart of this video. We've got to talk about stacker
versus softer. Now, quick time out, full transparency here I've worked
with and continue to work with both stacker and softer. I think both
of the platforms are incredible. I've done numerous videos on both of
these platforms and yet people continue to ask, you know, what is
the difference? What, why would I pick one over the other?
Which one should I use for my business? Which one's best. Now, if you're
looking for me to just come out and say, straight up, this software is better.
You are going to be disappointed. And that is because I think that
both of the software choices are really created for two
specific different clients. So let's talk about really what they do, how they're different and therefore help
you to decide which one of them is a better fit for you. Now, I knew we
would be doing this video at some point. So a couple of months ago, I posted a question on my YouTube channel
and I just sent this out to all of our followers. And I said, Hey, what matters the most to you when you're
building a front end for your database? So I guess we should start by defining
the fact that softer and stacker are both helping you to build a more
intuitive front end for your data that lives usually in air table. Now usually is a little asterisk and
we're going to come back to that. But for me, and probably
for most of their users, we started working in air
table as the back end. That's where we created our
data structure. And then
we ran into a roadblock, specifically the roadblock of not
being able to share the right data with the right people in an intuitive
way, right? Air table of course, allows you to share your
views, but views are read only. And so if you want to do
anything more interactive, or if you just want to build a really
great UI where people are seeing very specific things, depending on who they are and what
they've been assigned to well, then suddenly air table alone is
no longer a complete solution for you. You need that front end UI
user interface element in order to interact with, with that backend data. Now I should point out
before we go any further, there are other options out there. pori.io have a great option
that allows you to build a front end for your database.
Also many extensions.com, very cool platform. They have all kinds of fun tools that
you can use to really further enhance the data that you store in air table.
But for the purpose of this video, we are talking about software and stacker, and we're going to deep
dive on these three things. Now going into my poll that I
sent out several months ago. Now I was curious about this.
What matters most to you, folks who are building things
in these different tools? Is it the price? Do you want an inexpensive solution
so that you can get that enhanced customization without having to
pay a lot? Or is it functionality? Do you want to have a really robust
set of features so that your users can do a lot more with that app
or software that you build? Or is it customization? Do you want to have a high level of
customization so that you can place things in your interface exactly where you
want them and have them really the sky's the limit in terms of
how you develop your app or software? Well, the numbers don't lie, a small majority of 39%
decided that customization was actually the most important
thing for them. Now, I find this to be interesting
and surprising, frankly,
because for me, for me, my personal use case here, I need high
level of functionality. I absolutely, we have to be able to do the task. I really don't care all that much about
what the customization looks like. If there's a, a bell in the upper right corner or
this text is emboldened or any of that stuff, that is always secondary
to me to pure functionality, but again, different users are
going to need different things. So let's talk about each one of
these in more detail. All right. So the really cool thing about
Softr is that you get a very high level of customization
inside of the software. You can add blocks and blocks allow for
a number of different types of things. So you have your hero section or
your call to action, or, you know, partner listings or testimonials, but really what it comes down to at a
certain point is building that interface with your data. All of these
other pieces are really cool, but they're really only helpful in the
sense of building a web app, right? And getting the page to look like the
way you need it to the functionality down in the list. And this is where you're connecting to
your air table data and displaying it on your web app on any number of
pages that you build in that app. Now, by contrast, in my opinion, stacker doesn't have the
same level of customization. You don't have the ability to add
blocks in quite the same way that you do inside of softer. So when
working inside of stacker, and if you're editing your layout,
sure you can change your header, which is the section up at the top. You can change how your
records are displayed, but ultimately every single page
inside of your app for stacker is going to be a representation of
the underlying data that lives somewhere. Yeah. Usually
air table. But again, we're coming back to that asterisk
at a moment in the future. So from my perspective, if we're
speaking specifically to customization, I think that softer has an edge over
stacker. In this particular category, you get to customize the layout of
your interface with a higher degree of detail inside of softer, as
opposed to goes to stacker. Now, let's talk about functionality. We want
to pull in data from many tools. Well, which is the better fit for that. Looking at softer and
looking at the data options. When we go to bring data in it is
simply an option to connect to air table. So your data must live in air
table in order to be displayed in, in your Softr app. Now, on the other hand, if we're looking at
adding another in stacker, we get prompted to either
access data in air table or in Google sheets. I think this is a bigger
deal than people give it credit for, for the simple reason that if air table
decided to build a front end of their own someday, how would these software's both
softer and stacker? How would they, they continue to operate? Would they be made obsolete or
would they have continuing staying power as front end portals
or interfaces to build in the no-code environment at present? If air table were to take that step today, I think that Softr might be in
a little bit of trouble, right? All of their data connections
are currently through air table. So if air table built
their own front end UI, I don't know why somebody would
necessarily go and pay for Softr. If they could just get the same
functionality in air table. I just don't know how much staying
power a company would have if they only focused on one data source. And this is why when stacker recently
announced that they were connecting to multiple data sources and Google sheets,
as proof of that here on my screen, as soon as that announcement was made, I thought that that added additional
staying power to stackers potential in the longterm for being
a portal or front end tool for no code. Again, this is going to come down
to where's your data stored. And do you want to always keep your
data there at the end of the day? It doesn't matter so much if they connect
to multiple different tools or not, if all of your data is in one place. So this is very much a personal decision
on your part to determine which is the better fit for you. So in short, my personal preference is a front
end that connects to multiple data sources. And so for me personally, I think that stacker comes
out a winner in this category. Now let's talk about the third
category I threw out, which is price. Obviously these tools have
very different pricing, so we should discuss exactly what that is, so that you can make the
best decision for you. Software's pricing listed
on their website at present. They have a freemium model.
So they do have a free option. I'll switch over to the monthly option
so that you can see as most people tend to pay monthly, you're looking
at $30 a month for the starter, 79 a month for the
professional and 1 99 per month for the business. This obviously has an increased
amount of accessibility and permissions that come along with it. But if you were to take the
middle tier of prices and say $79, and kind of compare that to
stacker over on stacker side, also looking at the monthly payment, they're starting out at $79
a month up to 1 79 in their middle tier and then 3
49 for their higher tier. So obviously again, it's not an apples to apples comparison
because there are different things offered in each tier. So I would definitely recommend
that you go to check that out, but if we just take the two middle tiers, $79 a month for Softr and 1 79 a month for stacker, obviously softer is
on the less expensive side. Although I don't know that you're going
to get the right functionality at every stage of that game. So again, make sure to jump in for
yourself and look at the pricing, make sure that whatever features you need
are within the price tiers that you're comparing. So that is how this software stacks
up in these three categories. I think that these are three
important categories to consider, but it's not the whole
picture. Ultimately, I think we need to consider what
the software is best designed to accomplish. So let's talk
about that in general, stacker was specifically created
for teams to build no code tools and create portals to their data. Now they have done that
incredibly well. And with that, they have helped a large number of
customers who are incredibly loyal to them and they continue to grow and
grow. They are, in my opinion, the go-to solution for
building an online portal. Yes, they're a little pricier, but they have a lot of features
and that no one else on the market really offers in such a
complete package. Now specifically, I'm thinking about the fact that
as a user inside of stacker, I can edit an existing air
table record within my portal. Now this is not currently something
that softer allows for now. I have it on good authority that it will
be here with us within a few weeks of this recording. But if it's my intent as a developer
to build a custom portal for internal purposes, I absolutely must have edit
capability for my users. I can't imagine an example where I would
build an internal portal and not want to edit existing data and instead
be confined to only create new records. So for me, this is why stacker is the clear winner
when it comes to building an internal portal as their current features
of both software are considered. Now on the other hand, where
does that leave? Softr? Well, Softr is an incredible tool for
building web apps and membership sites. These are two things that
stacker can't do whatsoever. The stacker you eye is more rigid, and it doesn't allow for
that level of flexibility, but inside of the softer interface,
which is much more flexible, you can build a lot more of these
different types of ancillary tools, membership sites, for example, or web pages slash web apps. The sky is really the limit when it
comes to the flexibility that Softr has allowed you as a developer. So if you're looking to build
a membership site or a website, Softr is the clear winner
in this heads up match. I hope you got a ton of value from
this video. And if nothing else, I hope that it helped to get the wheels
turning and point you in the direction of a software that's going to help
you build the front end that you need. Anyway, that's it for this video.
Thanks so much for checking it out. If you have any questions or comments,
I would love to hear them below. Even if you disagree with
something I said here, and I will see you in
the next video as always. I hope you found that to be
extremely helpful if you did. And you'd like to learn more swing by
our website and see how we can help. We offer a free air table crash course
that will help you level up in air table quickly. And we also
have some paid services, including hourly consultations
with our experts. We have some online courses
and a group coaching program. And for advanced needs, we can build a
bespoke solution for you from scratch. So swing on by, and I look forward
to connecting with you soon. Yeah.
