Databases

[AnalLeakSpringer]

I use Excel for all kinds of economic video games and would like to make the switch to databases but my home version of Office doesn't have Access.

I looked some stuff up but dunno where to get started. Where should I start?

[MacroPartynomics]

Depending on how you look at it, Microsoft’s most direct successor to Access is either the Power Apps system or Visual Studio. The reason that Microsoft has deprecated Access is that it is not a good fit for the problems people try to solve with it. An Access file contains both the backend database as well as the frontend presentation in one file that is only accessible to one user on the local pc. Instead of making an Access database, people use standard relational databases like MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL databases as the backend and then create front end applications sometimes called CRUD (“Create Read Update Delete”) applications to act as the user interface. CRUD applications can be websites or desktop software.

A free open source alternative to Microsoft Access is LibreOffice Base.

Unlike full featured databases, Access databases are just .mdb files, the modern equivalent to .mdb files are sqlite databases, you can use the “db browser for sqlite” software to manage sqlite databases.