Though they’re already laying the groundwork for “premium” features like admin tools, role based permissions, kanban and calendar views which would be paid subscriptions for self-hosted options too.

I always worry that essential features for tools like these will get bumped into one of those paid tiers.

The benefit of having the self hosted always free option is your data isn’t locked into the service.

Price is important, but data sovereignty more so imho. If a vendor is no longer meeting your needs, or the deal becomes less fair (you know the whole “raising prices once your business relies on them”), you can export and bounce.

More of this chef kiss

Right... That's why the vast majority of people using self hosted open source don't pay for it. It's about the money for most people.

You can export and bounce from airtable too, you know.

Even when the service itself does not provide easy export there's often a free third party tool or browser extension to enable data export.

exactly. I get the point that corporations tend to "extort" users by offering supposedly-core features only under premium, but on the other hand this one is a startup and gotta make ends meet somehow. so far I'm fine with that

In their defense, their upcoming 'premium' features are clearly labelled on the Feature Roadmap. I really like that.

Great job OP!