
Ask HN: Why isn't there a modern MS Access clone? - Norther
HN, this is something that I&#x27;ve always been interested in: Why isn&#x27;t there a modern piece of software akin to Microsoft’s Access? I know there are plenty of issues in scaling these kind of systems, and that these kind of platforms can feel clunky and unwieldy but I still find it surprising that there isn’t a simple platform for creating CRUD apps. It doesn’t seem like an unachievable goal to me: you need the ability to create forms, design database tables, manage user permissions, manage data workflow (ie: send an sms if &lt;condition&gt;, seek approval from &lt;user role&gt; for &lt;action&gt;), and view&#x2F;search data. I’m certain these features would be useful for all kinds of business scenarios where building, maintaining, and hosting a custom solution isn’t worthwhile, or would be unideal compared to using a standardised tool. Are there tools in this space that I’m missing? If not, why isn’t this being pursued? Eagerly looking forward to your thoughts.
======
tyingq
There are quite a few products that attempt to be a web based equivalent of
Access.

The two that seem to be the closest to me are Google's AppMaker
([https://developers.google.com/appmaker/](https://developers.google.com/appmaker/))
and Bubble.is ([https://bubble.is/](https://bubble.is/)). I call these two out
because they both allow for coding when the "default path" runs into a wall,
and both include more than just forms and tables. However, they both still
have warts. Appmaker, for example, has a pricing model problem. It's $10/user
(GSuite), so you can't use it to build anything that involves casual outside
users, like an employment applicant tracking system.

The next tier down are somewhat similar products that have been around longer.
Like Quickbase ([http://www.quickbase.com/](http://www.quickbase.com/)),
Caspio ([https://www.caspio.com/](https://www.caspio.com/)), Airtable
([https://airtable.com/](https://airtable.com/)), Zoho Creator
([https://www.zoho.com/creator/](https://www.zoho.com/creator/)), Rajic
([https://www.ragic.com/](https://www.ragic.com/)), and Knack
([https://www.knack.com/](https://www.knack.com/)). These all work great if
the app you're making fits into their somewhat fixed view of the world, but
hit a hard wall if it doesn't. Some of them also have the same pricing model
problem I mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

The one I really thought was going to emerge as the market leader was
DabbleDB. Sadly, Twitter acquihired them and shut it down. Here's one of the
demo videos:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wZmYMWKLkY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wZmYMWKLkY)
It was very ahead of it's time back in 2007.

~~~
giancarlostoro
I'm sort of surprised LibreOffice hasn't tried to fill this gap, it would be a
nice way for them to earn some income if they do it just right enough. I say
this because Open Source projects need to be funded some way, somehow.

~~~
Bellyache5
LibreOffice Base
([http://www.libreoffice.org/discover/base/](http://www.libreoffice.org/discover/base/))
fills the gap. It's a combination Access-like local database as well as a
ODBC/JDBC client.

~~~
teilo
LibreOffice suffers from it's terrible scripting language. Compared to VBA it
is wordy, non-obvious, and in general a royal PITA to work with.

------
radva42
I'm working on such CRUD app builder, which might be interesting to you. It's
self-hosted and because it's written in Golang the entire server is a single
binary - users can simply download the binary, run it and that's it. The data
is stored in PostgreSQL. The form builder generates JSON, which is stored in
the database and the server builds the resulting app on the fly. I'm building
the first demos as we speak. So far I have an invoicing app with payments
tracking, overdue invoices, etc. and a second app, which is Bill of Materials.
It can calculate manufacturing costs based on recipes with different inputs
like raw materials, processing, other parts and assemblies and so on.

I'll try to put the demos on the site by tomorrow.

It still cannot work with any third-party APIs though, but other than that
virtaully anything can be built in a matter of a few hours (maybe a day or two
for the more complex and large apps).

Also I've implemented implicit workflows, where what happens is defined in the
forms based on what components are inserted into it. There isn't the
traditional "when A happens, do B" kind of workflows. IMO the implicit ones
are much more pwoerful and flexible.

You can check it here (demos coming soon, currently one one basic tutorial):
[https://www.formbolt.com](https://www.formbolt.com)

~~~
schappim
Looks good!

Heads up: Youtube video on
[https://www.formbolt.com/demos/walkthrough/deployed/](https://www.formbolt.com/demos/walkthrough/deployed/)
is broken on Desktop Safari Version 10.1.2 (12603.3.8).

On creating an app (locally), app error-ed, but the app was visible after
refreshing the page, (sorry I couldn't replicate again to get the exact
wording).

Might want to add "chmod +x" to the README for non-technical users.

You might want to link to the apps over at localhost:3000 from the app
blueprints table.

Loved the:

\- single binary deployment \- creation of db using the master pw \- the fact
that the data is stored locally and is kept in the db if I ever decide not to
use the app

Cheers,

Marcus

~~~
radva42
Thanks for the feedback, Marcus. I'll look into the issues you mentioned.

------
candiodari
I figured we need a summary in here. Open source MS access alternatives
(indexed from other comments):

There's MS access of course [https://products.office.com/en-
au/access](https://products.office.com/en-au/access)

Open Source

    
    
      LibreOffice Base https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/base/
      Kexi https://www.kde.org/applications/office/kexi/
      Gnome DB http://www.gnome-db.org/
      Lazarus (better for programming, worse for DB) https://www.lazarus-ide.org/
    

Web based

    
    
      Oracle Apex https://apex.oracle.com/en/
      Google AppMaker https://developers.google.com/appmaker/ ($10/user, only paid users can access app)
      Bubble.is https://bubble.is/
      Quickbase http://www.quickbase.com/
      Caspio https://www.caspio.com/
      Airtable https://airtable.com/
      Zoho Creator https://www.zoho.com/creator/
      Rajic https://www.ragic.com/
      Knack https://www.knack.com/
    

Other desktop apps

    
    
      FileMaker Pro http://www.filemaker.com/products/filemaker-pro/ (predates everything else in this list, beautiful, if somewhat limited, app)
      Embarcadero (Borland) Delphi https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi
      DataFlex http://www.dataaccess.com
    

Really more programming frameworks, but sort-of fit the bill

    
    
      Python Django https://www.djangoproject.com/
      Ruby On Rails http://rubyonrails.org/

~~~
meredydd
I think [https://anvil.works](https://anvil.works) belongs in your "Web based"
category as well.

(Although perhaps with the same note as Lazarus - fundamentally, it's a
[Python!] programming environment with a DB attached, rather than a DB with a
programming environment attached.)

------
kimi
Maybe because writing an Access database still requires a programmer, and you
can get better value by hiring a PHP programmer to write two pages and three
tables.

~~~
snarfy
Yep, this is what always happens with these types of applications. There was a
whole slew of these type of tools in the 90s dubbed '4GL' with the idea they
were a level above traditional programming (3GL) where business people could
drag &drop their way to a new app.

It was a disaster and none of those 4GLs are around anymore. There is no
interface that's as easy as sending an email to a developer saying "I need an
app that does this..."

~~~
Cthulhu_
They are around though. I did a job at a company that had a 4GL app used by
business analysts to generate the APIs, UI and business logic to be used for
e.g. mortgage calculations on websites.

------
scandox
One of the things several colleagues have said to me over the years is that
Access tended to be a dangerous tool in a large organisation: like Excel but
on crack.

You end up with a large number of autonomous, undocumented systems built on an
ad-hoc basis by personnel who were often not even in a technical role.

Personally I think that sounds like a great way to leverage the domain
expertise of lots of different employees...but I guess it can become unwieldy.
I know I saw some amazing things built with Access back in the day...

~~~
exelius
You also end up with a mess of VBScript code that isn't versioned. When
something breaks and someone calls IT, it really helps if IT knows the system
exists.

In a large organization, supporting disjointed business processes (or worse,
fragile amateurish integrations) costs more than the software. At scale,
consistency matters more than performance variance in some areas.

Access is also a nightmare from a security standpoint. AFAIK that's why it was
abandoned; there was no way to keep the functionality and easy defaults that
users liked while making it secure. It scares companies shitless to have
critical financial data sitting in Access databases...

~~~
crispyambulance
Yeah, but these things exist because they started as experiments which did not
warrant getting a team of developers to burn through a million dollars for the
first version.

Its really hard to know, in advance, which internal applications are worthy of
a development team. As for nightmares... there's plenty to go around for
everyone. Some of the worst nightmares are created by large teams of highly
paid and skilled developers.

~~~
scandox
> Some of the worst nightmares are created by large teams of highly paid and
> skilled developers.

Sticking that above my desk

------
jason_slack
I worked for a furniture company that used Access for everything and I mean
everything. HR, Payroll, inventory, ordering, dispatching, security, etc. One
amusing use was having to make an entry that you took a soda from the break
room. Totally on the honor system. You filled out an Access Form that payroll
then billed you for (provided they remembered to actually do it).

My job was to get them y2k compliant and then start modernizing them.

Here is how the modernizing went. I was told to upgrade them from Access 2.0
to Access 2000.

Everyday users sucked down data from Oracle to run queries and processes that
I developed. Users had access to everything, so a user could modify one of my
queries. When it broke, I had to remember what the original query was. I did
this by always housing a copy of the Access database on my local machine.

Every Tuesday Payroll was run at 5pm. Guess what? Every Tuesday I was there
until 11pm as something always went wrong in the process. There were these
misc pieces of compiled code other developers had written that nobody know
what it did or had source for. Example: one developer wrote a piece of code in
QBasic, compiled it and made it part of the process to strip out white space
from data that was read in via a text file. He lost the source. When there
were problems with this step he denied it was his code. Every database used
this piece of code and everything broke.

I digress. I loved Access for what I could do with it. It served a purpose. It
wasn't the best but it is what I had to work with to put food on the table.
Now-a-days, using tools like MySQL Workbench and TOAD give me some of the same
sense of creating views and queries to re-use but obviously these are not
replacements for everything Access allowed you to do.

~~~
scarface74
I'm a developer (officially an "architect" but I refuse to claim the title)
and one thing I've learned, is that hardly any problem in the world makes you
a special snowflake.

Most of the common problems that people try to solve with their own custom
solutions could be better solved by some off the shelf SASS solution.

 _HR, Payroll, inventory, ordering, dispatching, security,_

All of those problems could be better solved with a cheap off the shelf "small
business solution" that would probably cost less and be more maintainable in
the long run

I've been developing professionally for over 20 years and if someone offered
to pay me to write a custom solution for any of it, I would direct them toward
off the shelf solutions. There is no way that I could develop something as
well as a company that specializes in those areas.

------
crispyambulance

        > ... a simple platform for creating CRUD apps. It doesn’t seem like an unachievable goal to me: you need the ability to create forms, design database tables, manage user permissions, manage data workflow (ie: send an sms if <condition>, seek approval from <user role> for <action>), and view/search data. 
    

That's actually a tall order that you're asking for.

For the most basic needs, Excel with macros and connections to data-sources
like csv files is perfectly adequate. But you want multiple users, multiple
forms, data workflows...

In the microsoft ecosystem, the next step up would be using .NET entity-
framework with a database like sql-server express (or even localdb). Your
application would then consist of a C# or VB .NET desktop application using
wpf or forms.

I think you want something in-between Excel and a full blown .NET application.
That's a pretty narrow market.

~~~
le-mark
I'd also add, that there are _a lot_ of "database as a service" services
around now, when coupled with a javascript frontent, essentially fulfill the
role of "front end to a database" that Access was essentially.

------
h0ek
Yeah LibreOffice - Base! Take a look at My Visual Database, VFront, nuBuilder,
Kexi, Brilliant Database, MyTaskHelper and many many more. Each of them has
different uses and there are web technologies as well.

------
jasoncrawford
As others have pointed out, there are lots of products that fit something like
this description. The challenge with Access and other app builders is summed
up in Dietzler’s Law for Access (from
[http://nealford.com/memeagora/2013/01/22/why_everyone_eventu...](http://nealford.com/memeagora/2013/01/22/why_everyone_eventually_hates_maven.html)):

“Every Access project will eventually fail because, while 80% of what the user
wants is fast and easy to create, and the next 10% is possible with
difficulty, ultimately the last 10% is impossible because you can’t get far
enough underneath the built-in abstractions, and users always want 100% of
what they want.”

This is why the product I'm working on, Fieldbook
([https://fieldbook.com](https://fieldbook.com)), avoids the “app builder”
approach and focuses on just being a spreadsheet-like information tool that
supports querying and relational modeling.

------
therealmarv
Borland Delphi was the modern MS Access clone. Ever have seen how fast you can
build an DB app with that? I'm sure the newest version of Delphi is still as
good today as the 2001/2003 version at that time ;) On Mac it is Filemaker or
not?

~~~
bitL
Pricing killed Borland/Delphi. Unattainable to regular developers and small
businesses.

~~~
jetti
Agreed. They finally have an "express" version but even that was $199. I'm
sorry but I'm not going to pay that much money for something that I may never
even use, especially for a stripped down version of it.

------
vram22
Modern XBase clones like Flagship (Clipper clone, sort of), Harbour project
(ditto), and many others come close. You still have to do some programming,
but it is not too difficult for an IT-savvy non-programmer to pick up. Clipper
apps still run many small businesses in India (I know for sure) and likely
many other countries too. Data entry in such apps is extremely fast once the
operator gets used to the app. They did have a few useful features like drop-
down lists, incremental search in that (programmed), etc.

Some of these clones will have a DB CRUD language similar to the original
dBASE, some of them might have SQL support too. I know that some years ago,
many of the dBASE competitors (and dBASE IV or V itself, plus Foxpro) had
somewhat decent SQL support (though not with all the features of a full-
fledged RDBMS).

Some medium to large LOB apps have been built with XBASE tech too, in the
past. I worked on a somewhat big one several years ago, for a switchgear
products company. It was like parts of an ERP. It was in Foxpro for Windows on
Novell Netware, and we used the SQL in it heavily. I remember writing tons of
SQL reports near the end of the project (after the other CRUD work was done),
and getting a bit bored with that at first, until I worked out that there were
some patterns of permutations / combinations in the kinds of reports needed
(by country, by region, by product category, by product accessory, by date, by
order's commercial terms, etc. etc.), and then enjoyed the work a bit more, by
working out how to do it systematically, changing one parameter at a time, so
as to reuse as much of the previous report's SQL code as possible :)

~~~
Multicomp
Company I work at still has their core HR, payroll, security, inventory,
customer service, and other systems in a Visual FoxPro application backended
by a SQL database.

~~~
vram22
Long back, I reverse-engineered the dBASE .DBF data format (with only a few
hints from some mag or book, plus the use of a hex editor (DEBUG.com)), and
then wrote programs in Turbo Pascal to read .DBF files and process them
further, generate reports, etc., for a management / marketing game project
that I worked on for an Indian conglomerate. Did this without Internet access.
That was actually my first freelancing gig and first job. Heh.

------
asadjb
Did you take a look at Libre Office Base [1]? It seems similar to MS Access,
though I haven't used it.

[1]
[http://www.libreoffice.org/discover/base/](http://www.libreoffice.org/discover/base/)

~~~
Norther
Interesting! I was thinking more along the lines of a web application, but
it's nice to see an (actively maintained/developed?) somewhat-literal clone of
Access.

------
CPLX
FileMaker Pro has been around forever and is still supported with new versions
as far as I know.

~~~
igravious
Not that searching is difficult but I'll put the link here anyway:
[http://www.filemaker.com/products/](http://www.filemaker.com/products/)

1) I didn't know that Filemaker was still around.

2) I didn't know that it is an Apple subsidiary.

3) Pity there's no Linux version, I'd use LibreOffice Base if you're in Linux
as someone else here has pointed out.

~~~
russellbeattie
That's incredible - I remember FileMaker from the 1980s. Look at the
functionality of that app and the great design of the site! If that were a
startup run by a bunch of hip Millennials out of San Francisco, it'd be worth
a couple billion dollars, easily. (Instead we get one-off, single purpose
hosted apps like Trello, and FileMaker languishes in obscurity.)

~~~
igravious
It is incredible, isn't it? You have become more cynical with old age like
myself – but I think there is some truth to what you're saying.

------
semperdark
We're doing exactly this at Sonadier
([https://www.sonadier.com](https://www.sonadier.com)). We distill the app-
making process down to a simple form builder, while giving technical users the
ability to write client and server-side JavaScript for extra interactivity.
We're doing a full design refresh in the next few weeks, and that update
includes a visual workflow builder. We do have a pretty in-depth permission
system already built in.

Further down, someone mentioned that a big problem with Access is the
proliferation of "autonomous, undocumented systems" built by different teams.
I think we shine here - since we're web-based you can host all your forms on
one account. In addition, you can share specific create/read/update/destroy
permissions with any other organization on the platform - we want to make data
exchange painless.

------
wila
Not an MS Access clone, but a good 4GL easy database tool I like is called
DataFlex [0]

Very easy to use and you can create basic applications without additional
programming. Although of course it helps if you know how-to write code.

There's an embedded database that you can use out of the box. But you can also
use any of the main SQL Database engines.

For building commercial applications you have to buy a developers license.

For building your own non commercial applications you can use their free
personal license. [1]

Disclaimer: I use the language professionally and run an open source website
that has free tools and code examples in DataFlex.

[0] [http://www.dataaccess.com](http://www.dataaccess.com)

[1] [https://www.dataaccess.com/Resources/Licensing/DataFlex-
Pers...](https://www.dataaccess.com/Resources/Licensing/DataFlex-Personal-
License-980)

~~~
emmelaich
That's crazy, I used DataFlex briefly over 30 years ago.

Had no idea it was still going.

~~~
wila
Yep, but it has changed quite a bit since then.

30 years ago there was only console mode, albeit in different flavors
(unix/DOS). Nowadays the main product is Windows oriented and also has a Web
offering. You can still buy a console mode linux version, but it hasn't had
updates in over a decade. Yes it runs and works on recent Linux versions, no I
would not recommend spending any money on that.

Your 30 years old data files however could still be read. You might need to
migrate it to a newer format if you want to extend and change things, but it
would still work.

------
dustingetz
JOIN tables, sparse tables, deeply nested JOINs - all this is needed to code
link-following in the relational model. So you need an ORM to handle the JOIN
pain for you, but relational db query perf degrades as your joins get deeper,
so the ORM needs to make hard choices around caching and database query round
tips - but the ORM doesn't have enough information about the UI to make these
choices - you end up needing to code the app logic into the ORM via caching
and query optimizations. And now you're writing code, that's not links and
forms anymore.

At ClojureNYC last night I gave a talk about literally this! Here are the
slides:
[https://github.com/hyperfiddle/hypercrud.browser/issues/4](https://github.com/hyperfiddle/hypercrud.browser/issues/4)

~~~
Norther
Dustin, wow. I can see a lot of work went into your talk. I read along for
about 80% and you make some great points. Hyperfiddle looks impressive - I
signed up to the dev mailing list.

As an aside, do you think traditionally built apps should be moving away from
SQL and towards immutable stores like Datomic?

~~~
dustingetz
yes! Data driven UI (which is what this thread is about) will never succeed on
sql.

------
sreenadh
I started off my developer career as a MS Access developer, developed CRUD
applications that helps a business. MS Access is a very versatile tool and I
love it. I even prefer it over Excel. I once made a MS Access application for
a client that wanted a web based application as a upgrade to the existing
excel solution.

Many alternatives were had as a replacement for one of the apps in MS Office.
I did test out LibreOffice's Base. It did not seem to be a proper alternative
for the purpose of making a standalone application. The whole application in 1
file.

Access has flaws too in terms of backing up data. That is the biggest drawback
and in the web era, Access seems like a relic. VB6 has limits in terms of
making a full fledged UI. But it is functional.

The closest successor i think would be a SQLite+electron app. I have not
worked on it to see how it will turn out.

------
Notre1
I wonder if the small business market is just not that profitable. In that
space you are typically dealing with companies and people that are extremely
price sensitive. (This is just a educated guess here, but I would be willing
to bet that small business customers "cost" more in support costs, too.)

Something like Access is, pretty strictly, a small business play. When you
move into the "medium" part of SMB, they are probably going to have complex
enough needs that Access isn't going to cut it.

I'm guessing that you can make the small business market work, when it's an
add-on to the medium-sized business market, but that it doesn't really work
well by itself, at least as far as technology companies go.

Can anyone think of any technology companies that have done well, while
focusing on just small businesses as customers?

------
apapli
Although not an exact replacement to Ms Access the types of products marketed
by big tech to "technical BA's" appeal to that requirement.

Building apps with clicks not code is the utopia these people are seeking, so
the vendors will do everything they can to appeal to that.

There are literally heaps in this category, but one that really started it all
is Salesforce and their force.com product, they are selling the dream like no-
one else.

More frequently coming up now is MS PowerApps and MS Flow coupled with either
SharePoint lists or Microsoft's Common Data Service because they are included
for free in the Enterprise Office 365 SKUs.

Dynamics 365 offers a lot in this space but is more pricey (the $10 team
license is good value though). Zoho Creator is another example too.

------
andriesm
We have created something that combines form builder, process flows, and if-
then trigger rules at taskputty.com - we market it as a "build your own CRM
system" but any crud or data flow style app should be doable.

We value as much feedback as possible. Single user is free, and we are
completely flexible on price - we just would like to see more people using it.

It is loosely inspired by Trello.

------
rgreasons
In addition to everyone's replacement suggestions, I feel like it's worth
noting that Access still exists and is part of some Office365 distributions.

For small-ish companies that aren't very technical, I would think the Office
suite still has a strong attach rate. Regardless of whether or not Access is
the best tool for the job, inertia is powerful.

------
ryanbrunner
I think a lot of the common use case for things like Access were in storing
customer databases - I'd imagine that a lot of applications that previously
would have been done in Access are now done in CRM platforms like Salesforce -
either because Salesforce and / or partner tools directly provide the
functionality, or because you can go a pretty long way defining custom objects
and fields.

------
emmelaich
Try Glom (gnome) or Klexi (qt)

[http://www.glom.org/](http://www.glom.org/)

[http://kexi-project.org/about.html](http://kexi-project.org/about.html)

------
vram22
Somewhat on this topic, does anyone know if Magic (the 4GL-ish software) is
still used, and how it is these days? I had first heard of it when I got to
know that a previous company that I worked at, were using it, commercially,
for their clients. It was a somewhat unusual (AFAIK) software in that it was
supposed to be table/menu-driven, and had maybe (in that early version) only
something like 14 operations, using which, the manufacturers claimed, one
could build pretty much any common business application. I found that
interesting but never got a chance to work on it or try it out.

The company behind Magic was an Israeli one, Magic Enterprises, IIRC.

Update: I googled, this is their site:

magicsoftware.com

and they do have a free/trial version. Will check it out a bit later.

------
hashim-warren
Does Airtable fit? It does for me

~~~
charlieegan3
I think the OP is looking for something more suitable for creating simple crud
apps.

Airtable has forms [https://support.airtable.com/hc/en-
us/articles/206058268-Gui...](https://support.airtable.com/hc/en-
us/articles/206058268-Guide-to-forms) but it doesn't have the same UI form
builder kind of thing.

------
artpar
Try goms ([https://github.com/artpar/goms](https://github.com/artpar/goms))

These type of softwares are now increasingly known as BAAS - Backend as a
service. You can also find other similar products on the github readme.

This is still in development, and I am using this as backend for two of my
other projects. The goals are similar to what you have written, plus more.

~~~
Norther
This is nice! I hadn't heard of this category of services before today. I
particularly like the idea of events in goms. Thank you.

------
SirZimzim
Microsoft makes Dynamics CRM which can do all of this and is extensible with
its own Workflow and business rules engine, form Javascript, and .net plugins
for any more complex server side logic.

Don't let the sales, marketing, and services part distract you.

------
ludicast
fieldbook.com seems to check a lot of your boxes.

it has plenty of rough edges but has a solid relational model and is fun to
use.

my only complaint is that api access is really expensive (making it cost-
prohibitive to most HN readers) but the main product is cheap/free.

~~~
jasoncrawford
Fieldbook co-founder here, thanks for the mention. If anyone has a particular
need for lots of API calls, message us and we might be able to work something
out!

~~~
ludicast
That's great to hear, I'll follow up via email.

Great product.

------
mattmanser
I came across this one recently:

[http://www.matssoft.com/product/](http://www.matssoft.com/product/)

Doing well in the enterprise sector in the UK. Recently acquired, though for
relative peanuts:

[https://www.youinvest.co.uk/articles/stockmarketwire/123954/...](https://www.youinvest.co.uk/articles/stockmarketwire/123954/netcall-
acquires-matssoft)

Then again, I tend to be very skeptical of such tools, having seen them in
action in the 00s, where they were very poor as a medium/long-term solution
that ultimately hindered, not helped.

~~~
tyingq
Looks interesting, but no pricing..."call for demo". Ugh, hate that.

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bluedino
Office is everywhere. Therefore Access is everywhere. Even if there is (or
was) a better piece of software, it wouldn't get any exposure or use (unless
it was web-based, perhaps?).

Every day, some random employee starts tracking items or documents in Access
as a personal tool, and then more people in the organization hear about it,
features get added, and then the company starts running on it, then it begins
to fail and they migrate over to a 'real' ERP system.

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soul_grafitti
4th Dimension (4D): [http://www.4d.com](http://www.4d.com)

Started as a Mac only RDB in the '80s. Now runs on Mac and Win, as a single
user, from a server, or can be compiled as a standalone app. Rich development
environment, includes web server, PHP, SQL and a lot more. There is a small
but vibrant community of developers but is accessible to anyone with some
technical experience.

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dyeje
There are lots of them, they're usually just very tailored to a specific type
of business so you've never heard of them.

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jenkstom
I was never a big fan of Access, it was no so great compared to Delphi,
Paradox and even systems like DBase, Clipper, etc. There is a clone of Delphi
around, based on Free Pascal called Lazarus.

But honestly this whole thing has moved to the web these days. Something like
Django is probably the easiest and fastest way to do a CRUD app these days.

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LarryMade2
One of the most easiest to approach I think was ClarisWorks/AppleWorks
database, simple table DB nice form and report builder. Versatile but
definitely limited so users weren't lulled into a feeling they could do
everything with it, enough to keep it useful.

Pretty much a FileMaker light. (same company)

------
_pmf_
There are thousands (tens of thousands) of ERP/CRM systems that include an
Access clone as a subset.

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ggambetta
May not be exactly what you're looking for, but take a look at
[https://www.genexus.com/products/genexus?en](https://www.genexus.com/products/genexus?en)
[disclaimer: used to work there three lifetimes ago]

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hywel
I'm working on a product like this at the moment to solve exactly those
problems. On Twitter @h_carver if you want to chat more! Or if you want to
wait 6 months and find out why I shouldn't have been pursuing it ;)

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sysdyne
In time SSD will kill SQL and CRUD so there is no need for another RDBMS.

~~~
Norther
Forgive my ignorance, but SSD? Do you mean solid state drives?

~~~
sysdyne
Yeah, I mean solid state drives.

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slimbods
Sharepoint fills the gap in many organisations. CRUD forms pretty quick to
create off a sharepoint list/sql database.

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sharemywin
guide wire is interesting in the insurance industry. it's built using it's own
platform and sold how business users or analysts can write rules using a rules
system. but the rules system is just a bunch of if thens with 2 windows for
the "if/then" parts.

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tmaly
I could remember using FileMaker Pro back in the day for a few systems.

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jorgeleo
i am workibg on exactly this, but not just an access clone but DDD point and
click for the web. Any suggestions?

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drupallover
rbase still exists. [http://rbase.org](http://rbase.org)

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kostarelo
Search no more: [https://www.contentful.com/](https://www.contentful.com/)

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gigatexal
Apple’s FileMaker Pro?

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yipopov
MS Access is just a FileMaker clone, and FileMaker is still going strong, so I
fail to see the problem.

~~~
quickthrower2
FileMaker seems to have a web based solution too.

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lowry
Google Forms!

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trapperkeeper74
LibreOffice Base?

