Nine Reasons NOT To Use MS Access To Power A DB-Driven Website

14 Comments

• Geez if price is the issue, use MySQL, which does have a Windows version. It's free and it's a real database. (Otoh, I used to have a hosted site with SQL-Server for $60/mo, which might not be the cheapest hosting in the world but it ain't bad.)
  

• Yes Dennis you're right but sadly MySQL GUI is a bit poor and difficult.
  
  But yes sure it's a good alternative.
  

• MSDE, the free version is pretty good too - basically SQL Server only with limited connections - which is less of a problem than you may imagine, check how many connections your app actually has open concurrently, probably won't be that many!
  

• But Scott I don't think you can deploy MSDE on a hosting company platfor, right no ?
  

• Well, here's 1 reason *to* use it, one of my sites "ShowUsYourCode.com" has been running off of an Access backend for nearly 4 years without needing to be compacted. It's never gone down, it's never failed me (yet!) :-)
  

• Agree Darren, I have some sites too running Access without any issues.
  
  What's but Visual Foxpro ? Never find somebody using it with hosters?
  

• Scott you are so lucky in US ;-) Prices are not so cheap here on this side of the Atlantic !
  

• Umm, I'm in Scotland, which is on the same side as you, nothing stopping you from using a cheap US host...they're just as fast as European ones...
  

• Yes Scott you're right, but here in Ireland some companies are quite 'protectionist', they want their hosting close to their hearts !
  
  And here in Ireland the prices are really going top of the roof !
  
  Try to convince an Irish bloke to have his site hosted by a British chap ;-)
  

• Ah...I think we may have found the reason for the high prices - captive market ;-)
  

• Sure it is, it's like irish domain names, no competition, one company only, expensive of course and a lot of proof to be sure that you are really the owner behind.
  
  Of course this has some positive aspects, but we are supposed here to be top notch in ICT. LOL ;-)
  

• Hi.
  
  
  
  For people on a budget the difference between Microsoft Windows and free/cheap SQL and Microsoft Windows and expensive SQL is irrelevant, because the Linux/BSD solution will always be better.
  
  
  
  This comes from a .NET programmer. .NET is great for medium projects. But for small personal sites, PHP & MySql walks all over .NET & SQL server. All the worthwhile forum packages are built for PHP (and some perl) and MySQL (although admittedly they will support MS SQL, although it's really the equivalent of putting a Pentium 4 in a wristwatch), and for beginners PHP & MySQL is easier to get into (start with a text editor and a download, versus start with 700mb of download (free trial)).
  
  
  
  It's no coincidence that the entry-level web jobs (that are now paying minimum wage or have been exported to india) are all php & mysql. It's easy to do it!
  
  
  
  Yes MS Access does suck; if you are using .NET & Access I think you are wasting your time. If you can't afford a decent database, the project could probably run on PHP & MySql, because runnign with a flaky single-user database like Access is about the same as programming with a quick & easy untyped language such as PHP.
  

• Bukit you forget the pair ASP+Access ;-)
  
  
  
  It's still cheap and it works well.
  
  
  
  And no I am not going to enter in a Linux/Windows debate, that's not the subject here ;-)
  

• If you want really cheap web hosting with asp.net and sqlserver go to: www.dotnetpark.com, less than $7 per month! Great service and no they don't pay me to say this.