Zapier Tables isn’t an Airtable replacement. It is a workflow data layer inside Zapier’s automation engine. The decisive difference: records written to Zapier Tables consume zero Zapier tasks. The same operations via Airtable-Zapier integration consume tasks at full rate. For teams bleeding task budget on Airtable data operations, migrating that layer to Tables eliminates the overage without changing plan tier. Airtable still wins on relational data, views, and collaboration depth.