SWAMP
BetaFree, and open source

The shared database your team can actually use

Import a spreadsheet and get a real database — linked tables, roles, comments and share links, live in the browser.

One tool, all of this

How it works

Three steps, and you never write a schema

Put the data in first; the structure comes out the other side.

  1. 01

    Drop in a file

    CSV, XLSX, or JSON. Every column gets a type from its values — a zip code stays 02134, not 2134, which is how most importers quietly wreck a column.

  2. 02

    Give it a shape

    Rename a column, change its type, point one table at another and the link runs both ways. Nothing rewrites a row, so you can change your mind and change it straight back.

  3. 03

    Hand it to someone

    Invite them by email at the role you choose, or send a read-only link to a view. No account needed, and hidden columns stay hidden.

Collaboration

The part that breaks when a second person shows up

A spreadsheet is fine until someone else opens it — then you're emailing versions around and one wrong paste is gone for good. SWAMP built this part first.

Five roles, and they mean something

Viewer, commenter, editor, creator, owner. The one that trips people up: an editor changes data and views, a creator changes the tables and fields themselves. SWAMP spells it out.

Comment without being able to break anything

For the person who should be able to say “this looks off” without touching the data. You can edit your own comment; nobody else can, at any role.

History, field by field

It records “Alice changed Stage from Open to Won,” not “someone updated this record.” The log is append-only — nobody rewrites it, the owner included.

Their edit shows up in your grid

No refresh button, and no tug-of-war over your cursor mid-word in a cell.

Send a link, not a copy

Share a view publicly, with a password if you want. A hidden column can't be filtered or searched by a visitor, so nobody infers a salary from the row count.

Forms that write straight into a table

Conditional questions, a fixed set of options, a redirect when done. Whatever the form doesn't show, nobody can make it write.

Views

One table. However you need to look at it.

A view is a lens, not a copy. Change a value in one and it changes in all of them, because a single set of records sits underneath. Filters, sorts and widths are saved per view, so yours doesn't move someone else's.

  • Grid

    Arrow keys, Tab, Enter to edit, ⌘C/⌘V as TSV that round-trips with Excel. A fill handle that continues a series. ⌘Z through all of it.

  • Kanban

    Stacks from a single-select. Drag a card between them and the value changes.

  • Gallery

    Cards with a cover image. Click one to open the record.

  • Calendar

    Anything with a date, laid on a month. Drag to re-date it.

  • Form

    A public page that writes into the table. No account needed to fill it in.

For the developer on the team

There's an API, and it isn't an afterthought

The same query engine the app uses, exposed. Scoped tokens, keyset pagination, a filter tree, and records keyed by a stable field key. Rename a column in the UI and your nightly script keeps working.

Webhooks fire on a condition you write like a filter. Every delivery is signed, retried, and logged.

A token can never do more than the person who made it. Permissions are recomputed on every call, so demoting someone stops their integration on the next request.

bash
# every deal over $10k, biggest first
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  "$API/tables/$T/records?sort=fld_total:desc"

{
  "records": [
    { "id": "rec_…", "fields": {
      "fld_company": "Globex",
      "fld_total": 91750
    } }
  ],
  "cursor": "eyJrZXlz…"
}

Questions people actually ask

It solves the same problem: a spreadsheet a team has outgrown. You get tables that link to each other, several ways to look at the same records, roles, comments, share links, and forms. SWAMP is much younger, and Airtable has features it doesn't. Everything described on this page is built and working.

Put a spreadsheet in. See what comes out.

It takes about a minute, and you don't have to decide anything first.