Free Microsoft Access alternatives

Processing data is an important part of business life. Whether it’s a customer register, your private address book, accounting, or inventory: with digitalisation ever increasing, it is becoming more and more important to organise and manage records as quickly, flexibly, and clearly as possible. This is achieved using database management systems (DBMS) that organise data and display it (e.g., a list of contacts’ locations sorted by postcode).

Microsoft Access (also known as MS Access) is a popular DBMS. The programme is used in many small to medium-sized companies as well as by private users. The advantage over other DBMS: programming skills are not required to operate Microsoft Access. In addition to MS Access, there are other tried and tested database management systems that enable you to work in a similar way — some of them are also compatible with other operating systems such as macOS or GNU/Linux. There are even some free alternatives to Microsoft Access. We provide you with three of the best Microsoft Access alternatives that you can download for free.

But why would you need to look for an alternative to Microsoft Access? Its popularity would suggest that it’s a very capable and well-developed DBMS. In fact, MS Access does a fair amount of advantages — it is suitable for beginners as well as those who have more experience dealing with databases. However, it is only available for Windows and comes at a cost.

The software is particularly suited to beginners in database management: you don’t need any programming skills for producing simple databases since this is also relatively easy using the graphical user interface. Various assistants and templates (e.g., for contact administration, project tasks, etc.) make everything a lot easier. However, it is possible to freely define the data fields and to adapt the data model’s characteristics to specific requirements. Data sets or tables can be created, edited, and linked with each other quickly and easily in MS Access. If you want to use the programme to implement extensive applications, there’s no way you can get around programming with VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) — although the effort required is usually less than with other database management systems. Using macros, you can also automate various tasks relatively easily.

It’s not only creating or administrating data sets that is often easier with MS Access than with other database management systems, but it’s also easier to analyse them. With the help of various assistance functions, it’s possible to analyse databases that have already been created, request databases according to certain characteristics, and also create reports without further ado.

By saving an MS Access database in a single file, you can easily share it with other people or transfer it to other devices. If you want to use the database in another DBMS (or you want to open other database files in MS Access), there are many interfaces at your disposal. In addition to other MS Office file formats (like Excel), you can import and export various other formats, e.g., ODBC databases (MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, etc.), HTML documents, XML files as well as Dbase files. You can easily move tables and forms from one programme to another.

The software’s simplicity also has its downside. Microsoft Access’ database system is far less powerful compared to a server database system: MS Access is more suitable for implementing lean databases, which don’t have several hundred thousand entries (a server DBMS is used for this). Processing large amounts of data takes a lot of juice with MS Access - hence the long loading times. This is the downside of a file-based database: the database is searched for the complete file, meaning that the larger it is, the longer it will take. The programme is also limited in capacity, depending on the size of the database: the maximum file size is 2GB. However, as long as you don’t store large amounts of images, this limitation shouldn’t be a problem. There are also significantly fewer functions available compared to an average server DBMS. In addition, there are shortcomings when several people are using the programme at once, compared to a DBMS based completely on SQL: on the one hand, the SQL standard works with a much more differentiated authorisation concept than MS Access, but on the other hand, the Microsoft programme encounters performance problems quite quickly when a database is being used simultaneously by more than one or two people. Even with just a handful of users, Microsoft Access will start to run noticeably slower. At around ten users, the programme has often reached its limit. MS Access is only available for Windows operating systems and was an integral part of the Microsoft Office Suite in the past. After introducing the Cloud version of the Office Suite, it started to be released in various Microsoft 365 plans. In addition, you can also purchase the programme individually. Fortunately, users who still have a classic version of MS Office installed on their Windows computer (as opposed to the Cloud version of Microsoft 365) can still install this programme. This is because Microsoft hasn’t made any major changes to the programme for a long time. The current MS Access 2016, as well as the 2010 and 2013 versions, are best suited for typical database tasks.

Microsoft Access as a desktop DBMS doesn’t provide the same opportunities that server database management systems do. But MS Access isn’t aiming to compete with programmes like these: it’s because the server DBMS is on another scale among database management systems and conforms to a different target group (the operation and setup of the connected server both require SQL knowledge). Microsoft (with the MS SQL server) offers independent software in this class of database management systems while acknowledging MS Access is a product for users who are less tech savvy.

If you are looking for Microsoft Access alternatives, you have to compare the DBMS with other desktop database management systems. One of the most widely used alternative programmes is FileMaker, which operates on Windows, macOS and even iOS. However, FileMaker is paid software and, therefore, not a free Microsoft Access alternative. The following programmes can be used free of charge and without any prior SQL knowledge. This, in turn, distinguishes them from open source systems such as MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL. All three database management systems — just like MS Access – are not designed to work with very large chunks of data since the database is saved in a single file.

The bottom line is that there is only really one free alternative to Microsoft Access in database management that offers roughly the same possibilities: LibreOffice/OpenOffice Base. But even with Base, you have to accept that there will be a few drawbacks compared to MS Access, especially regarding the database’s request possibilities and the general functional range. In addition, MS Access appears to be more stable and reliable: the programme crashes very rarely and doesn’t need fixing often.

Glom and for the most part, Kexi, are more likely to use the database frontend concept, which additionally requires a database management system to be installed or at least collaborated with. This is useful because it solves some common problems associated with classic desktop database systems and provides a stable and multi-user database. However, the range of functions and the possibilities of the two database management systems are really quite limited, meaning that the two programmes are only really suitable for a small number of tasks.

The advantage that MS Access has over the free, file-based database management systems is, among other things, the long development period that the programme has already undergone as part of the MS Office Suite. Even though only a few new features have been introduced in recent versions, the software has been constantly improved since its release in the early 1990s and any errors encountered have been fixed. FileMaker is the only (fee-based) programme that has a longer development history than the desktop database management system from Microsoft. If you are looking for a fully developed desktop DBMS with a great variety of functions, you should consider purchasing Microsoft Access (or the FileMaker software for macOS).

It could be that the other programmes are right for you; it just depends on your requirements and your operating system. Base from LibreOffice and OpenOffice has the largest range of features out of all the free alternatives to Microsoft Access, followed by Kexi. On the other hand, Glom has the clearest frontend and is the easiest to use, thanks to its minimalistic layout. The type of software you go for can be dependent on how many user interfaces to other database systems are available or whether full multi-user features are included. The final overview presents all the important features of the three desktop database management systems that have been introduced in this article.