title: Good Free Alternative To MS Access
body: <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="noreferrer">Base from the OpenOffice suite</a>. My concerns were around its stability. </li>
  <li><a href="http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/" rel="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>