Microsoft Access
Ranked 4 of 22 databases by recommenders
Lets non-developers build working database apps with forms and VBA quickly. Common caveat: it does not scale well and its apps become hard to maintain.
Lets non-developers build working database apps with forms and VBA quickly. Common caveat: it does not scale well and its apps become hard to maintain.
101 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 62
- criticize it
- 39
- approval share
- 61%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 62 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Easy drag-and-drop building for non-developers
“you can create table, get a navigable (and perhaps other features), and a CRUD detail screen in just a few minutes of drag and drop”
Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Decker” “it was a simple drag-and-drop editor that almost anyone could use to build simple apps that could power decent-sized businesses”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “Programming peaked” “designing a table, form and report in Microsoft Access in 30 minutes without requiring 5 engineers”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Choosing Learning over Autopilot” - Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “France dumps Zoom and Teams as Europe seeks digital autonomy from the US”
- Comment from 1 Nov 2025 on Hacker News
- Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “CSS sucks because we don't bother learning it (2022)”
Fast prototypes with business logic
“If you can spin up a working prototype with Microsoft Access and VBA then you can get investors and others to help build your market release.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Worst of Breed Software” “with Access he could model a business with tables, and wire it together with VBA business logic, as easily as you and I breathe”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “The recurring dream of replacing developers” “Ever since I've marvelled at how easy it was to build something highly functional that could incorporate complex business logic”
Comment from 4 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Craftplan – I built my wife a production management tool for her bakery” - Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform”
- Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “Databases Were Not Designed for This”
Ran real business systems cheaply
“abominations from a technical point of view - but they got the job done without having to spend a load of money”
Comment from 14 May 2026 in “Claude for Small Business” “I single-handedly produced more actual tangible business value with Microsoft Access than anything else since.”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Leave Me Behind” “produced more actual tangible business value with Microsoft Access than anything else”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Leave Me Behind” - Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “RIP Low-Code 2014-2025”
Nothing has filled its niche
“it's disgraceful that we still don't have anything with the ease of use / accessibility of Access and Visual Basic”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “It used to be hard” “Access / FileMaker / 4D were all great solutions for low-contention, low-user count low / no code CRUD apps.”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “After 15 years, I use Outlook as my build pipeline” “MS Access, FileMaker and HyperCard were more advanced in some ways than anything today”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “So, You've Hit an Age Gate. What Now?” - Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Prof. Software Developers Don't Vibe, They Control: AI Agent Coding Use in 2025”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Shadow IT that is hard to maintain
“overabusing Access for management (or worse, to handle Covid cases in a shitty XLS table) it's a nightmare.”
Comment from 21 Dec 2025 in “Ireland’s Diarmuid Early wins world Microsoft Excel title” “This "shadow IT DBA" issue has always been a classic problem with Access databases, too.”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format” Poor scaling with many connections
“The problem with access was that it tried to support network applications as a backend but supported a punishingly low number of connections.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Programming peaked” “MS Access was a great product with some scalability ceilings that took engineering to work past.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “The Codex app is cool, and it illustrates the shift left of IDEs and coding GUIs” Dated desktop app with unclear future
“you can get a bit more done a bit more easily with Notes over MS Access, but that's another application that didn't get a clear path to modern usage”
Comment from 19 Mar 2026 in “LotusNotes” “Access is a desktop app, and in 2026 it is pretty unusual to use a desktop app for business applications”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “Microsoft killed FoxPro in 2007. Anyway, here's FoxPro revived” Technically messy and poorly understood
“abominations from a technical point of view - but they got the job done without having to spend a load of money”
Comment from 14 May 2026 in “Claude for Small Business” “Users don't seem to know about Normal Forms when they begin to create tables in Access.”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “So where are all the AI apps?” “I blame it on Microsoft making such a mess of access that people didn't understand it”
Comment from 5 Dec 2025 in “Why we can’t quit Excel”
Other databases people recommend
The four most recommended other databases, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PostgreSQL | 816 | 233 | 78% | 13 | 10 yrs42 owners | Approved |
| MySQL | 124 | 107 | 54% | 12 | — | — |
| Microsoft SQL Server | 73 | 59 | 55% | 12 | 20 yrs6 owners | — |
| Microsoft AccessThis page | 62 | 39 | 61% | 12 | — | — |
| Turso | 53 | 55 | 49% | 10 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 117 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Access had no heritage like that to hold it back, and was a better citizen in the VB/Office/OLE/COM world.”
“Microsoft Access is still fully supported and bundled into Microsoft 365 Enterprise subscriptions”
“Access is a desktop app, and in 2026 it is pretty unusual to use a desktop app for business applications”
“I kinda loathe access for any number of reasons, but appreciate the dev tools it put into the hands of non-developers.”
“Access is so good. I can't believe there's no universal equivalent for Linux and Mac.”
“ended up being a pain in the butt for IT departments, but also covered a need within some department with limited resources”
“you can create table, get a navigable (and perhaps other features), and a CRUD detail screen in just a few minutes of drag and drop”
“it's disgraceful that we still don't have anything with the ease of use / accessibility of Access and Visual Basic”
“produced more actual tangible business value with Microsoft Access than anything else”
“I single-handedly produced more actual tangible business value with Microsoft Access than anything else since.”
“Access is/ws one of he by far underrated products from Microsoft Office in the last 30 years.”
“abominations from a technical point of view - but they got the job done without having to spend a load of money”
“But I think something was lost, not everything is a database, but ever since Microsoft started ignored MS Access, nothing is a database.”
“This "shadow IT DBA" issue has always been a classic problem with Access databases, too.”
“they /get business done/ and often serve as v0 before a real app can be properly conceived of”
“Users don't seem to know about Normal Forms when they begin to create tables in Access.”
“you can get a bit more done a bit more easily with Notes over MS Access, but that's another application that didn't get a clear path to modern usage”
“for quick-and-dirty custom applications it's still the easiest platform out there”
“MS Access was a great product with some scalability ceilings that took engineering to work past.”
“It was easier than building something ny prompting an llm.I made a good living just rewriting those things for them when they fell apart.”
“MS Access makes for incredibly powerful and incredibly hard to maintain "shadow IT"”
“Access biggest advantage by far was that you could share the file on a network drive and having multiple people accessing it”
“Ever since I've marvelled at how easy it was to build something highly functional that could incorporate complex business logic”
“I still think MS Access was awesome. In the small companies I worked it was used successfully by moderately tech savvy directors and support employees”
“a business user not a software engineer -- craft a Form and voila, easy onboarding”
“It ran a 50 seat ERP system that managed over 1000 suppliers and 500 customers”
“with Access he could model a business with tables, and wire it together with VBA business logic, as easily as you and I breathe”
“MS Access, FileMaker and HyperCard were more advanced in some ways than anything today”
“designing a table, form and report in Microsoft Access in 30 minutes without requiring 5 engineers”
“This is a reasonable idea if the users maintaining the system aren't technical AT ALL”
“If you can spin up a working prototype with Microsoft Access and VBA then you can get investors and others to help build your market release.”
“VB6 apps from 1998 talking to Access databases still running small businesses today.”
“designing and wiring them up was far easier than what I typically see today”
“despite having a lot of flaws, it seems like nothing has risen to fill its niche”
“overabusing Access for management (or worse, to handle Covid cases in a shitty XLS table) it's a nightmare.”
“The problem with access was that it tried to support network applications as a backend but supported a punishingly low number of connections.”
“I blame it on Microsoft making such a mess of access that people didn't understand it”
“it was a simple drag-and-drop editor that almost anyone could use to build simple apps that could power decent-sized businesses”
“Access / FileMaker / 4D were all great solutions for low-contention, low-user count low / no code CRUD apps.”
“they are rapid because they are visual-based, drag-and-drop, object-oriented”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.