Access has run small businesses for decades: the stock list, the customer file, the job book, built by someone in the office who was good with computers. Plenty of those databases still work.
They fail in familiar ways. Several people open the file at once and it corrupts. Remote staff reach it over a VPN and it crawls. Or the person who built it leaves, and nobody dares touch the VBA. The worry under all three is the same: the business runs only as long as the file and the one person who understands it both hold up.
This guide is for a small business with one Access database that several people depend on.
Do you need to move at all?
Maybe not. Access isn't being retired. It is part of Microsoft 365 and still gets monthly fixes and new features. What ended is support for the one-time-purchase versions: Access 2019 on 14 October 2025 and Access 2021 on 13 October 2026. Access 2024 is supported until 9 October 2029. If you are on 2019 or 2021, you may need a supported version of Access, not a new tool.
If one or two people use the database on one computer and it does what you need, keep it. Make a backup routine you trust, and export the tables to Excel now and then, so the data is readable without Access.
Move when one of these is true:
- Several people need to change records at the same time, from different computers.
- Staff need it from home or another site.
- The person who built it has left, or will.
- An Office update has already broken a macro or some VBA code.
If only the first is true, try the standard Access fix before anything else. Split the database: the tables go into a back-end file on a shared drive or into SQL Server Express, and each person gets their own front-end file with the forms and reports. Microsoft documents how in its support article on splitting a database.
What to look for in a replacement
People leaving Access ask for the same things again and again:
- Several people editing without locks or corruption.
- Forms for entering data and printed reports.
- Real relationships between tables: an order has lines, a customer has orders.
- Permissions finer than "can open the file", such as staff who record payments without seeing balances.
- No price per user that grows with every hire.
- Data you can still read if the vendor disappears.
- Something more than one person can change.
No tool scores well on all of them. The table shows where each one stands.
| Several users | Forms and reports | Works without internet | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Access, split, with SQL Server Express | Yes, on the office network | Yes | Yes | Your Access licence; SQL Server Express is free |
| Power Apps | Yes | Yes, built as apps | Partly | $20 a user a month, billed yearly |
| Airtable | Yes | Forms yes, printed reports limited | No | Free for 5 editors and 1,000 records; Team $20 a seat a month, billed yearly |
| Grist | Yes | Forms yes, print layouts limited | Grist Desktop, yes | Free up to 5,000 records per document; Pro $8 a user a month, billed yearly; free to self-host |
| FileMaker | Yes | Yes | Yes | From US$17.50 a user a month self-hosted, 5 users minimum; FileMaker Pro alone US$625 |
| LibreOffice Base | One at a time, unless you add a database server | Yes | Yes | Free |
Power Apps
Microsoft's own tool for business apps today. You build screens on top of Dataverse or another data source, and staff use them in a browser or on a phone. If your company already pays for Microsoft 365 and has someone willing to learn it, this is the path Microsoft wants you on.
Power Apps Premium costs $20 per user a month, billed yearly. Microsoft is also retiring a cheaper route: from 15 November 2026 no new Dataverse for Teams environments can be created, and existing ones are decommissioned on 30 October 2027 unless they are upgraded.
Watch for: the price per user, and a learning curve closer to a developer tool than to Access.
Airtable
A shared, hosted database that looks like a spreadsheet. Linked records replace Access relationships, forms collect data, and Interfaces give each person a simpler screen. It is the easiest move for a team that mostly needed one shared list.
Watch for: the price per editor. Team is $20 a seat a month billed yearly and Business $45. Each base holds up to 50,000 records on Team and 125,000 on Business; the Free plan stops at 1,000 records and 5 editors.
Grist
Grist is the closest in spirit to Access. It is a relational database that looks like a spreadsheet, with linked tables, formulas in Python, forms, and access rules that hide rows or columns per person. It is open source under Apache-2.0, and Grist Desktop runs on one computer without the internet, as Access did.
The free cloud plan holds up to 5,000 records per document. Pro is $8 per user a month billed yearly, or $10 monthly, and the self-hosted Community edition is free.
Watch for: print layouts are limited next to Access reports, and you design the tables and forms yourself.
FileMaker
Claris FileMaker is the other classic desktop database, with strong layouts for forms and printed reports, and FileMaker Server or Claris's cloud for several users. It suits a business that wants an Access-style tool from a vendor that still invests in it.
Claris sells FileMaker Cloud from US$22 per user a month billed yearly (Starter, 5 to 10 users) and self-hosted FileMaker Server from US$17.50 per user a month, also with at least 5 users. A single FileMaker Pro 2026 licence costs US$625.
Watch for: the 5-user minimum on team plans, and licence terms, which FileMaker users complain about often.
LibreOffice Base
Free and open source, part of LibreOffice. Base gives you tables, queries, forms and reports on one computer, much like Access did in the 2000s. New databases use the built-in HSQLDB engine, which needs Java installed, and LibreOffice's own guide says such a database is "accessible by only one user at a time". Several users need a separate database server. It is a fair choice for one person; for several people at once, look elsewhere.
Getting your data out of Access
Do this before you choose, because it shows how big the job is.
- Document the structure. On the Database Tools tab, Database Documenter prints every table, its fields and the relationships. Keep that printout.
- Export every table. On the External Data tab, export each table to Excel. Every tool above imports Excel or CSV.
- List what the database does. Queries, macros and VBA don't move. For each one, write a plain example: "When an order is marked shipped, stock goes down by the quantity on each line." Those examples are what you rebuild, in any tool.