# dBase

21 Hacker News commenters recommended dBase and 7 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a historic, approachable database tool for building business apps quickly. Critics say index corruption, repair needs and multi-user strain were common problems.

## Why people recommend it

- Strong productivity for building business apps (4 comments): "it is quite remarkable the productivity that xBase offered" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47046056)) "You could really get stuff done in those environments." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48690155)) "Great productivity tool, garbage collected, compiled" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48091259))
- Fond memories of Clipper-era apps (4 comments): "I have nothing but rose-colored affinity for the dBase III, FoxPro and CA Clipper apps that I used to work on." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48687305)) "Everytime someone mentions Clipper (or dBase or FoxPro, or even FoxBase, but Clipper the most)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47320915)) "I had a very similar path starting with dBASE III Plus." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47046947))
- Gold standard tool of its era (3 comments): "Early tools like Lotus 1-2-3 and dbase were mind-blowing because they were so generalized and available on consumer appliances." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47382021)) "dBase was the gold standard for this back in the 80s, early 90s. Great tool." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47082791)) "it was far superior to MS foxpro or Access" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47067507))
- Easy enough for non-programmers and kids (3 comments): "The beauty of xBase was that even a highschooler could whip out a decent business application if the requirements were modest." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46197810)) "FoxPro/dBase (that has some of the same ideas) are more approachable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47138742)) "they were surprisingly accessible to even kids" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49809637))

## What people warn about

- Index corruption and repair needed (2 comments): "The typical troubleshooting path with the b-tree system almost inevitably, and very quickly, led to a "rebuild the indexes" process which no one enjoyed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48097977)) "the database constantly needing repair was an issue" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48093730))
- Struggled with multi-user access (2 comments): "systems such as dBase, FoxPro, and Paradox were starting to show the strain of implementing multi-user access" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48098886)) "As a way of working those dbms systems were a dead end." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48091857))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [PostgreSQL](https://hackerapproved.com/p/postgresql.md): 816 recommend
- [MySQL](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mysql.md): 124 recommend
- [Microsoft SQL Server](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-sql-server.md): 73 recommend
- [Microsoft Access](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-access.md): 62 recommend
- [Turso](https://hackerapproved.com/p/turso.md): 53 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "dBase", https://hackerapproved.com/p/dbase/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).