Glide AI – Brutally Honest Review: Vibe Coding From a Google Sheet?

Glide AI remains the fastest way to create functional, attractive business apps and internal tools from a Google Sheet—but don’t expect “AI magic” to replace thoughtful UI/UX design or solve every automation need in 2025. Glide excels at getting you from spreadsheet data to a usable web/mobile app in minutes, now with deeper AI and automation available through Glide Workflows and managed AI models. However, its AI features are more like productivity accelerators and workflow enhancements, not fully agentic AI coding wizards. For business intelligence tools, light CRM, and quick MVPs, Glide is a leader; for bespoke UIs and complex logic, its ease-of-use quickly exposes real limitations.

Let’s break down what Glide AI actually delivers, its real-world strengths, and the main issues you will encounter.

What Glide AI Actually Is (and Isn’t)

The Pitch: Glide AI lets non-coders turn spreadsheets into deployable mobile/web apps, with new “AI-powered” features like automated text analysis, sentiment extraction, GPT-powered summaries, and workflow automations built in.

The Reality: Glide is a robust no-code app builder glued to a data source—usually Google Sheets or a managed Glide Table. The new AI tools make data manipulation and user features (text extraction, summarization, recommendations) much faster, but most ‘AI magic’ is about smart automations, not agentic code generation.

What You Get:

• Live sync from Google Sheets, Excel, or Airtable
• Drag-and-drop app builder (web, tablet, phone breakpoints)
• Managed database (“Glide Tables”) for high scale
• Dozens of pre-built templates (CRMs, inventory, invoice, etc)
• Built-in workflow logic & branching actions
• AI columns for text/image generation, analysis, and natural language queries
• Secure login/auth, QR code support, role-based permissions
• API integrations with 100+ business tools (Zapier, Slack, Salesforce, OpenAI)

What You DON’T Get:

• Code export or offline ownership (Glide = platform lock-in)
• Pixel-perfect design (style customizations are somewhat restricted)
• Complex relational logic (deeply nested data relationships can get tricky)
• Fine control over app performance (Glide’s front-end optimization is fully managed—little to no custom optimization possible)

Core AI & Data Features (2025)

1. AI Columns:
Add a column to your data that auto-generates text from GPT, e.g., product summaries, sentiment of reviews, or keyword extraction. These columns update live per new record and cost per “AI call”—tied to your monthly plan quota.

Strength:
Automates 80% of the “intelligent text” use cases you’d script with OpenAI’s API. Just a few clicks—no prompt engineering or glue code.

Limitation:
Customization is basic. You can’t fine-tune prompts deeply, combine with conditional logic, or chain multiple steps as in full-agentic platforms. Response times are sometimes slow with large data loads.

2. Workflows & Automation:
Visual flowcharts allow you to move/copy data, trigger emails or Slack messages, update rows, or run AI analysis based on app events (button taps, new records, etc).

Strength:
Empowers business admins and makers to automate repetitive tasks. Nice for onboarding flows, auto-tagging leads, or alerting based on filters.

Limitation:
Still requires frequent manual triggers or simple user actions; true “scheduled” or deeply conditional automations are limited. You’ll need Zapier/Make if you want more.

3. Managed AI Integrations:
For enterprise, Glide auto-manages the “best model” (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Llama) behind the scenes and claims to optimize cost/performance.
Strength:
No code or API wrestling required—AI smarts ‘just work’ by adding columns and configuring options. Output is consistent, updates in real-time, billing is clear.

Limitation:
If you want full control of AI provider, creative prompting, custom API chains, or AI agent workflows, look elsewhere. Glide favors business reliability over AI hacking.

4. Human-in-the-Loop Publishing:
For AI content generation, final publishing is always reviewed and requires human approval (Publish button is greyed out for unreviewed content).​

Strength:
Prevents AI hallucinations and accidental spam/publication issues.
Limitation:
In high-speed content needs, the extra click slows “set it and forget it” publishing.

Performance, Scalability, and Integration

• Performance:
  For business-internal or low-moderate traffic tools (100–1000 daily users), Glide is usually smooth. Regular complaints arise with slow lists when sync exceeds 10,000+ rows or if your app pulls heavy computed columns with AI on every screen.​
• Scalability:
  Glide Tables support up to 10 million rows, but complex queries or many concurrent users still hit lag/timeout thresholds. Google Sheets backends start struggling above 20k rows—Glide prompts users to migrate to its managed DB at that point.​
• Integration:
  Zapier, Make, webhooks, and a new HTTP API let Glide apps talk to Salesforce, Notion, HubSpot, hundreds more.

Honest Pros and Cons

Pricing Reality (2025)

• Free: 2 apps, 1000 rows/app, basic AI, Glide branding
• Maker ($60/month): 10 apps, 50k rows, more AI/API, custom domain
• Pro ($125/month): Unlimited apps, up to 10M rows, priority AI, advanced automations, white label, extra support

Notes:

• AI usage is capped even in Pro plans; extra AI calls cost extra.
• Adding workflow automations and higher AI columns quickly escalates monthly bills, especially for data-heavy use.

Who Should (and Shouldn’t) Use Glide AI

Glide AI is great for:

• Non-technical founders or business ops teams needing functional business apps/internals
• Businesses automating workflow and dashboards, not building public SaaS
• MVPs, event trackers, custom CRMs, small data-driven apps

Glide AI is NOT for:

• Developers needing code export/complex backend logic
• SaaS companies with 10k+ concurrent users or unique UX
• Anyone needing deep AI chain/agent workflows or pushing GPT to its creative limits

Quote Box 1 (see below table):

“Glide isn’t a silver bullet for every app idea, but in 2025, it stands out as a leader in the AI-powered no-code space. For businesses looking to empower ops and build fast, it’s miles ahead of old Google AppSheet or Airtable-based tools. Just don’t expect magic: scaling and deep customization are still real barriers.”​

Glide AI vs. Adalo vs. Bubble (2025 snapshot)

“Glide is the easiest onramp for spreadsheet-driven apps—period. But unlike Bubble or FlutterFlow, it’s not a playground for coders or creatives. It’s a business workhorse, and the perfect tool… for the right jobs.”​

Final Verdict (Brutal Honesty)

Glide AI deserves a strong 7/10 as the best AI-powered, spreadsheet-driven app builder for business/internals and some MVPs in 2025, but not more.

Strengths:

• Fastest time from idea to internal business app
• AI-powered text/image tools save hours
• No technical debt, perfect for operations teams
• Professional workflows, cloud sync, solid permissions

Weaknesses:

• AI is smart augmentation, not a true coding agent
• Price/performance hits walls at scale
• Platform lock-in (no code export)
• Deep custom logic and design require big workarounds
• Multi-user SaaS/product apps often outgrow Glide

Recommendation:
Go with Glide AI for internal tools, dashboards, and admin apps—especially if your team lives in Google Sheets or Excel. Outgrowing Glide is a good problem (means your app is a real business!), but expect a migration project if your ambitions go global or you want code flexibility.

For startups needing public SaaS, complex logic, or design freedom, Bubble or FlutterFlow are still stronger choices.