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

Of the Free Software alternatives these haven't been mentioned yet:

• Bond
• Rekall (not sure about the status of the Windows version currently though)
• Glom (Windows version under development)

I'd also keep an eye on what DB RAD tools the Flex/Air community is coming up with, since with those tools it's possible to get unified desktop and web interfaces.

Answer 2

The issue is finding an alternative to MS Access that includes a visual, drag and drop development environment with a "reasonable" database where the whole kit and caboodle can be deployed free of charge.

My first suggestion would be to look at this very complete list of MS Access alternatives (many of which are free), followed by a gander at this list of open source database development tools on osalt.com.

My second suggestion would be to check out WaveMaker, which is sort of an open source PowerBuilder for the cloud (disclaimer: I work there so should not be considered to be an unbiased source of information ;-)

WaveMaker combines a drag and drop IDE with an open source Java back end. It is licensed under the Apache license and boasts a 15,000-strong developer community.

Answer 3

What you appear to be looking for is not just a database program, but a database with forms, reports, etc (basically an IDE of sorts). I would recommend trying OpenOffice.org Base, which comes with the office suite. It's free and open source. It's nowhere near as polished as access, but it does pretty much the same things.

Plus, if you know access, it will be at least somewhat familiar.

http://www.openoffice.org/

EDIT: Sorry, failed to read that you are considering OpenOffice.org. With regard to stability, I've had it crash and do some "odd" things when I played with it, but Access has done the same thing. The best way to find out is to play with it a bit and see if it suits you.

Answer 4

Much in line with Aurelio's answer, I now work in Ruby on Rails on some applications that I might formerly have done in MS Access. The back end database for a Rails App. is usually, MySql (works well enough and is available on most shared Web hosting) or PostgreSQL (the better choice when possible).