Good Free Alternative To MS Access [closed]
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.
Schnapple asks:
Are you referring to the concept of a free database to distribute with an application, or an Access-like "single file, no installation" database?
Er, nobody who has any competence with Access application development would ever distribute a single MDB/ACCDB as application/data store. Any non-trivial Access application needs to be split into a front end with the forms/queries/reports (i.e., UI objects) and a back end (data tables only).
It's clear that what is needed here is a database application development tool like Access. None of the database-only answers are in any way responsive to that.
Please learn about Access before answering Access questions:
Access is a database applicationdevelopment tool that ships with adefault database engine called Jet.
But an Access application can bebuilt to work with data in almostany back end database, as long asthere's an ISAM, or an ODBC or OLEDBdriver for that database engine.
Microsoft itself has done a good job of obfuscating the difference between Access (development tool) and Jet (database engine), so it's not surprising that many people don't recognize the difference. But developers ought to use precise language, and when you mean the database engine, use "Jet", and when you mean the front-end development platform, use "Access".