Ask HN: What's the Modern Equivalent of MS Access?

4 points by cimmanom 7y ago ↗ HN

If you want to write a simple database-driven application for internal use, and don't want to have to develop the UI, what would you use?

My goal is to be able to define the fairly complex) relational data model, then define a few queries that will allow users to view and edit data in a spreadsheet-style UI.

Yes, this could be done with a custom web app, but that's a lot more work than just defining a DB scheme and some queries. And the underlying data model is too complex to use actual spreadsheets (Excel or Google Sheets) for.

Any suggestions?

3 comments

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mindcrime 7y ago ↗

Maybe something like Orbeon Forms?

https://www.orbeon.com/

geeio 7y ago ↗

Maybe airtable.com?

Not sure if you are ok with a hosted solution

cimmanom 7y ago ↗

Airtable is pretty close. It's not clear to me, though, whether it supports complex relational queries -- even after digging through the docs.

Edited: yikes, it looks like conditionals use Excel-like formulas? That's part of what I'm trying to get away from.