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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/) and 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/), Caspio (https://www.caspio.com/), Airtable (https://airtable.com/), Zoho Creator (https://www.zoho.com/creator/), Rajic (https://www.ragic.com/), and Knack (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 It was very ahead of it's time back in 2007.




Dabble was pretty neat, and it was written in Smalltalk, too. I think each user got their own Smalltalk image, and their data was saved directly to the image.

I can't remember if I learned that in a video or a post somewhere by Avi Bryant, though. I was really interested in Smalltalk in 2009/2010 and I remember seeing Dabble DB coming up a lot.


Probably this interview: https://www.infoq.com/interviews/bryant-smalltalk-dabbledb

There's a button to view the transcript of the video too.


You missed somehow 3 the most powerfull alternatives, Outsystems, Filemaker and Oracle Apex.


My list is products that were web based, offered as a service, and with up front pricing. That said, I'm sure I missed others as well.


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.


LibreOffice 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.


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.


You mean with a web based database? I thought LibreOffice did have a local Access equivalent called "Base".


It's not that great of an experience out of the box. Non-tech savvy users can make use of MS Access.


Is this Twitter's business model? Buy every company they can and shut them down?


It seems to have slowed some lately, but the whole "Acquihire + Shutdown the Product" model was popular with other SV firms too.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-so-many-startups-are-bein...


More money than sense




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