Alternative for MS Access

Question

1.67/5 (3 votes)

See more:

Hi all,

I've an application with a database and my plan is to use MS Access. But there can be people without installed MS Access on there computers. To handle such cases what's the best option to take in .Net/C#.

Thanks in advance.

Posted 26-Feb-15 6:32am

CodingLover

Add a Solution

Comments

[no name] 26-Feb-15 12:38pm

Installed MS-Access isn't required, you just need to install the Access runtime components along with your applications (I did this with an very old version of Access and I don't have a resource link for you at hand - you should be able to find it with Google)

CodingLover 26-Feb-15 23:36pm

So in that case I need to install the runtime components with my application. I'll search on that more.

ibrahim_ragab 26-Feb-15 20:36pm

You can use sql compact 4.0

5 solutions

Solution 3

If you just need something for a single user app, SQL Compact should work. The only downside is it doesn't support views like Access, but of course there are workarounds for that.

Posted 26-Feb-15 7:07am

kmoorevs

Solution 4

Don't focus on one database, use a database layer. You'll spend the same time writing code for one single database than for a bunch of it.

Posted 26-Feb-15 22:18pm

Joan Magnet

Solution 2

I would suggest SQLite, which is a powerful database. I have been using this for years in desktop applications.
Using SQLite in your C# Application[^]

Posted 26-Feb-15 6:42am

Anand Seniyar

Comments

CodingLover 26-Feb-15 23:39pm

If I have thousands of records, is it better than Access. Or which one is the best? Is there an editor work on with SQLite? Sorry that I haven't work with it before.

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

Maciej Los · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-26T22:31:00

Client computers does not need Access to be installed. .Net libraries support many database providers. See: .NET Framework Data Providers[^]
To be able to use MS Access as a database, you need to use OLEDB drivers. That's all.

Note: please, carefully read Sergey's answer. There is a lot of usefull information. You should know that Access database has several limits, such as database size (2GB). You have many alternatives: PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server Express edition, etc. Choose the best one for you (depending on your/application needs/requirements).

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-26T06:39:00

Solution 1

It depends on what you want to achieve. But you hardly can find (or would need to find) anything equivalent to Access, by one simple reason: it's easy to find something much better (open-source, light weight, decent functionality), but hard to find something as bad as Access, which is not even trivial client-server. As this should not be a practical problem, just consider this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_relational_database_management_systems[^],
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_object-relational_database_management_systems[^].

—SA

Posted 26-Feb-15 6:39am

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

Comments

CodingLover 26-Feb-15 23:44pm

I may want to access the database in multi-threaded applications across multiple process. It seems to me that Access is much better, may be than the SQLite. My concern is that prerequisites dependencies to the user and the size of the installer.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 27-Feb-15 8:34am

It's all up to you. :-)
—SA

Maciej Los 27-Feb-15 4:25am

Agree, it depends on many factors, such as client requirements, framework, etc.
+5!

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 27-Feb-15 8:34am

Thank you, Maciej.
—SA

Alternative for MS Access

5 solutions

Solution 5

Solution 1

Solution 3

Solution 4

Solution 2

Add your solution here

Preview 0

Existing Members

...or Join us