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POGood Free Alternative To MS Access
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  1. POGood Free Alternative To MS Access
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    copied!<p>Consider the need to develop a lightweight desktop DB application on the Microsoft platforms.</p> <p>It could be done fairly easily with MS Access but I'd like to be able to distribute it to others and I don't want to pay for a runtime license. </p> <p>Requirements:</p> <ul> <li>easy distribution to others</li> <li>no runtime licensing issues</li> </ul> <p>Considerations and Candidates:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org_Base" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Base from the OpenOffice suite</a>. My concerns were around its stability. </li> <li><a href="http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">MySQL</a> + writing custom DB code in C++ or Python or whatever seems like a rather heavy-handed solution. </li> </ul> <p><strong>Question</strong>: What are the low cost or free database alternatives to MS Access?</p> <hr> <p><strong>See Also:</strong> <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/126622/open-source-reporting-engines">Open Source Reporting Engines</a></p> <hr> <hr> <p>@Schnapple</p> <p>Bruceatk kind of hit on what I'm thinking of; it's not so much the DB engine as I want the other niceties that Access brings to the party. The nice form designer, the nice reporting engine etc. But you do raise a very good point about the installation footprint. I had considered that but I've not made any firm decisions about which way I'm going with this yet anyway. It'll probably be something fairly lightweight anyway and a small installation footprint would definitely be a plus.</p> <hr> <p>@Remou,</p> <p>No I was unaware that the MS Access 2007 runtime is free; thanks for pointing that out. The last time I'd bothered to investigate it (I don't remember when it was) I think it was a fairly expensive license for the runtime because I think they were trying to sell it to Corporate IT departments.</p> <p>And thanks to everyone else who responded as well; I was completely unaware of those other options you all pointed out.</p>
 

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