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by jtwaleson·10y ago·view on hn ↗
I don't -want- to be negative, but how relevant is this (* nix only, runs on single machine) in a world ruled by browsers?

My gut feeling says the Access world is dying rapidly, and if that is true, a * nix version playing catch-up does not have a bright future.

3 comments
Actually, genuinely curious here, does anyone know of a solid (popular) equivalent of MS Access, but web-based? The feature I'd put emphasis on is rapid point-and-click form creation, not the database and tables part (for that of course there are plenty).

I've developped a few web applications and forms along the years, but never could I get something together as quick as I did when I decided to try MS Access, for a prototype app. E.g. I've used Django, yes I can create forms pretty quick, but with Access with _no programming_ and 2-3 hours of familiarization I could put up forms with create/edit/delete functionality in something like 30 minutes, along with the underlying schema.

I haven't touched it since I created that prototype, but I was left wondering what's the equivalent in the webapp world, for the basic CRUD use-case.

For some reason, people don't think of it in this context a lot, but this is EXACTLY what Salesforce.com does. In addition to the usual "Sales Cloud" licenses, there is a much cheaper "Force.com Platform" license that doesn't have any of the core sales features but gives you the database to play with.

100% point-and-click creation of new objects, relationships, forms, etc... Easy baked in reporting, import, and export. Workflow automation totally configurable without code. Thousands of apps on the AppExchange to add interesting features. And of course, when you need to add code, it's very easy to get started if you know OOP.

If you frequently have to create quick web-based systems that would have been MS Access, go check out https://developer.salesforce.com/trailhead, grab a free SFDC org, and build something cool.

My employer was looking for a business process integration platform. We looked at Salesforce, MS Dyanics, Oracle. We decided to go with Django + Posgres. We're in the process of converting 100's Access apps and management spreadsheets at a fraction of the cost £170 per user per month. We where looking at over £200K PA before we started talking about systems integration. Similar costs from other suppliers. The management just wasn't interested in spending that kind of cash before we had anything to show for it.
Fieldbook (my project) has a pretty solid version of tables including a form view (detail page) for each record. It doesn't have a form builder yet, but we're definitely planning on it. We have had people switch from Access with good results. Beta invite for you: https://fieldbook.com/?bc=HN0818
Mendix is one such tool (or platform as it also includes a Cloud offering for hosting the applications). It has rapid application development for web/mobile apps. At its core, it has data schema creation, form building and visual application logic modelling. This is all included in one IDE which allows for integrity checks across the board (forms, logic and database). Competitors include OutSystems, Kony, etc.

It is proprietary and mostly focused on large companies.

Full disclosure: I work for Mendix

Maybe the problem when I was searching was that actually MS Access is a narrow tool (centered around the database), whereas platforms that replaced it (RAD for mobile/web) offer a wider range of features, so searching for an "MS Access replacement" is searching with the wrong keyword given how these tools have evolved.

Still if I look at your site (Mendix) and my mindset is "I just want a few tables and a few simple forms", my guess is that if I were a non-developer I could be a bit overwhelmed. But as you say Mendix targets large companies.

There's Airtable, and although the form feature is rudimentary, it is point and click: https://airtable.com.
Thanks, very nice, bookmarked as usual at https://community.kde.org/Kexi/Links#Competition
Not open souce but FileMaker can be accessed by http too: http://www.filemaker.com/
I wouldn't recommend it though - as a long time FileMaker user and developer, I couldn't be happier to finally get out of this platform by learning a real web framework (Rails for me, Phoenix is on the horizon though).

FileMaker has its strengths, but the web isn't one of them. The results are subpar in my opinion and will always feel like a rapidly converted and FileMaker-branded, bloated and slow webapp. Just look at the generated HTML - it's an endless tree of nested divs.

I had a job working on Oracle Application Express.

On an awfulness scale from one to ten, it ranks as cthulu.

It's proprietary, but has a long history as an MS-Access (and other DBs) app maker : http://www.alphasoftware.com/ms-access-mobile.asp
Thanks for the pointer. I searched a bit at the time (2 years ago) and found a few platforms for rapid app development. I guess I didn't search hard enough, or I simply gave up because there was no obvious choice, like MS Access used to be. The person I developed the prototype for was also very wary of smaller platforms due to lock-in, risk of the company going bust, etc.

But Alpha Anywhere seems to have a long history and some traction, that's good to know.

You can try our Point and Click platform (http://MyDataOrganizer.com) for building custom business applications as per your workflow requirements. Out of the box team based security can be immediately used and custom security with encryption for sensitive data is also available in addition to basic CRUD.
nuBuilderPro is PHP/MySQL OpenSource alternative to MS Access: https://www.nubuilder.net
> I don't -want- to be negative, but how relevant is this (* nix only, runs on single machine) in a world ruled by browsers?

Ruled by what now? Sounds like a HN pipe dream.

Sure, I'm biased. Genuinely curious, do you know many applications being created in Access (or Kexi for that matter)? I haven't seen a new Access app in years.
Nope, not my area. But then the initial statement seemed more general.
I don't know about "dying rapidly". Access seems to be in maintenance mode since 2010 when they added web application support. It's going to be dying slowly as end users migrate to other technologies (proprietary applications and the like).

It's a bit clunky but you can run Access applications in a browser [1]. So Access is no longer synonymous with "shitty little data entry desktop application".

[1] http://www.brighthub.com/computing/windows-platform/articles...

Regarding Access-type of apps: IMHO they are as needed as spreadsheets, just less frequently. Like cars for 6 person families are needed too even if for cars for 4 are more popular.

It's not complaining but: if the percentage of people using such apps isn't increasing this is maybe also because of average level of technical education among computer users decreasing. Average user wouldn't operate at this level of specialization. Even scientists... those I know don't reject using simple spreadsheets risking numeric inaccuracies. Weak and prototype tools become the standard for them.

So simple spreadsheet apps (excel-like) that got very feature-laden over the years (statistical stuff, etc.) that clearly introduce on a concept of a strict matrix structure are very popular and they don't get replaced by web interfaces. Conversely, the web interfaces try to emulate the original UX with more or less success (Google Sheets, MS Office online).

Simplistic explanation of Access type of apps could be that they introduce data types and more on top of what's know in spreadsheets. There's always market for that but the demand needs to be realized (created?).

Ideally the database type of apps could learn some agility from the spreadsheets world. Newer MS Accesses offer implicit adding of fields in a 'spreadsheet' way in the data view and altering form/report design in the data view as well. I'd like to have that in Kexi too. Maybe even the app should welcome the user with an empty sheet of cells by default?

We have a place for discussions on the forums https://forum.kde.org/kexi and also mailing lists if someone is interested.

If it is legacy application built on Access and does not require much maintenance then it can continue running.

If it requires switching to other platform then it requires effort (1)to find new platform (2)migration to new platform and results in dying slowly.

You're probably right. I think that the number of new applications created with Access is decreasing pretty fast, but the number of active existing applications will decline slowly.