Good Free Alternative To MS Access [closed]

Question

Consider the need to develop a lightweight desktop DB application on the Microsoft platforms.

It could be done fairly easily with MS Access but I'd like to be able to distribute it to others and I don't want to pay for a runtime license.

Requirements:

• easy distribution to others
• no runtime licensing issues

Considerations and Candidates:

• Base from the OpenOffice suite. My concerns were around its stability.
• MySQL + writing custom DB code in C++ or Python or whatever seems like a rather heavy-handed solution.

Question: What are the low cost or free database alternatives to MS Access?

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See Also: Open Source Reporting Engines

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@Schnapple

Bruceatk kind of hit on what I'm thinking of; it's not so much the DB engine as I want the other niceties that Access brings to the party. The nice form designer, the nice reporting engine etc. But you do raise a very good point about the installation footprint. I had considered that but I've not made any firm decisions about which way I'm going with this yet anyway. It'll probably be something fairly lightweight anyway and a small installation footprint would definitely be a plus.

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@Remou,

No I was unaware that the MS Access 2007 runtime is free; thanks for pointing that out. The last time I'd bothered to investigate it (I don't remember when it was) I think it was a fairly expensive license for the runtime because I think they were trying to sell it to Corporate IT departments.

And thanks to everyone else who responded as well; I was completely unaware of those other options you all pointed out.

Answer 1

Are you aware that the Access 2007 runtime can be downloaded for free?

Links for newer versions:

• 2010 Runtime
• 2013 Runtime
• 2016 Runtime

Answer 2

Also check out http://www.sagekey.com/installation_access.aspx for great installation scripts for Ms Access. Also if you need to integrate images into your application check out DBPix at ammara.com

Answer 3

When people ask about a replacement for Access, a lot of them only think about the database, but what they are really asking about are all of the other features in Access. They usually don't care what database Access is using.

Some of the functionality provided by Access are: Forms, Query Building, Reports, Macros, Database Management, and some kind of language when you need to go beyond what the wizards provide.

SQLite, MySQL, and FireBird are free database back ends. They do not have those additional Access functions built into them. Any free alternatives to Access require you combining something like SQLite and a development language.

Probably the best free option would be SQLite and Visual Basic 2008 or C# 2008 Express Edition. This would have a heavy runtime dependency, so installing on a bare client could take quite the installer.

There really isn't a non-Access option for free with minimum runtime requirements. I wish there was.

I'll be interested in hearing if anybody knows any good alternatives.

Answer 4

Oracle XE With Application Express.

• Has a nice web based gui,
• Is a "Real" database
• Will scale beyond a single desktop
• Offers a clear scale path beyond a small team
• Applications as web based, easily accessible.
• Can convert Excel spread sheets into Applications

Answer 5

NuBuilder (www.nubuilder.net) might be right.

NuBuilder is a GPLv3-licensed PHP web application that requires MySQL as backend database. Users and programmers both use the web interface.

They promote it as a free, web based MS Access alternative. I'm creating my second NuBuilder application these days. The NuBuilder seems to be very actively developed, and I found it stable and well documented (provided you can stand video tutorials.)

Answer 6

Are you referring to the concept of a free database to distribute with an application, or an Access-like "single file, no installation" database?

As in, things like SQL Server Express Edition require things like runtimes to be installed, databases to be created and mounted, entries on people's Start menus that they won't recognize (my wife asked why SQL Server was on her laptop the other day) whereas an Access database can be run in a single file.

I guess what I'm asking is do you want to think of the database as a document you write to or as an instance of something on someone else's machine?