Base Captain and Quickbase
Written by Base Captain's founder. Checked on .
We build Base Captain, so we are not neutral. Every fact about Quickbase below is from its own pages, linked, on the date above; write to us if one is wrong.
In short
Quickbase is an app platform built for companies whose IT department wants control, and Pave is its AI app builder for smaller teams, with drafts you publish when ready. Base Captain builds the software from what you tell it and changes it when you ask.
The difference that matters most: in Base Captain, going back to an earlier version brings the data back with it.
What Quickbase does well
Pave
- Drafts before publishing.
- In Pave “everything happens in draft mode, so nothing goes live until you choose to publish,” and you can roll back to an earlier version. Pave’s page
- Connectors.
- More than 350 connectors to other systems. Pave’s page
Quickbase
- Permissions.
- Roles with rules for which records and which fields each role may see. Quickbase’s page
- An AI that asks first.
- Quickbase AI “always asks for confirmation before taking action in your apps.” Quickbase’s page
- Automations and connectors.
- Pipelines with conditions, loops, approvals and notifications by email, Slack, Teams or text message. Quickbase’s page
- Compliance.
- SOC 1, SOC 2 and SOC 3 reports, among other attestations. Quickbase’s page
Where Base Captain differs
- Going back includes your data.
- Before each change to how a base works, a copy of its data is saved. Within an hour the base can go back to it, data and all; later, a new change undoes it and keeps the records entered since.
- Rules the database enforces.
- Which records each role sees is enforced by the base’s own database, and a field hidden from a role, or one it may not change, stays that way everywhere: on the screens, in downloads, search and totals, and for the assistant and every agent.
- A history you can undo.
- Every change is recorded with who made it and how. A change can be undone from the history, and a deleted record restored.
- Work that moves itself.
- Workflows take a record from step to step, and agents, in Base Captain or on your own machine, do the steps you give them, with an approval wherever a person should decide.
- No code to read.
- Base Captain writes code for your base where a change needs it, and tries it before you apply it. Nobody on your team writes it or has to read it, even when something goes wrong; it is one click away on the change, and in its place in the base, for whoever wants to read or change it.
- Everything out at once.
- Every list downloads as an Excel or CSV file, and a builder downloads all of the base’s data in one zip file, with its files, whenever they like.
- Changes before they go live
- Quickbase: Drafts you publish (Pave); a confirmation (Quickbase AI)
- Base Captain: A card you apply, then a version you can go back to
Prices
Pave
- Free
- $0
- 1 app, 1 builder, up to 3 users, 100 credits
- Team
- $20 a month
- 2 apps, 1 builder, up to 10 users, 120 credits a month
- Department
- $300 a month
- About 10 apps, 3 builders, up to 50 users, 1,800 credits a month
- Enterprise
- On request
- Set with Quickbase
Credits pay for AI building, agents, automations and analysis; entering data and viewing dashboards use none.
Pave’s pricing page, checked on .
Quickbase
- Team
- From $35 per user a month, priced annually
- Each user, with a platform minimum fee
- Business
- From $55 per user a month, priced annually
- Each user, with a platform minimum fee
- Enterprise
- On request
- Set with Quickbase
Quickbase’s pricing page, checked on .
Choose Quickbase if…
- Your IT department needs its governance, single sign-on and compliance reports.
- You need hundreds of connectors to other systems. Base Captain connects to other tools through webhooks, in and out, and through the MCP servers of services such as Notion, Linear or Stripe, which you or the assistant set up, and takes payments through Stripe and PayPal.
Moving over
- Out of Quickbase.
- Export each table to a CSV file from More, Import/Export; attached files are not exported. Their page
- Into Base Captain.
- Put each table on a sheet of one workbook and give it to the assistant: it proposes the lists and the links between them, then brings the rows in.
- What stays behind.
- Forms, reports, pipelines and roles; ask the assistant for the ones you need.