Access is, however, a complex and powerful program and can pose a steep learning curve, especially for people who are unfamiliar with basic database concepts. Access is available as a stand-alone product or in the Office Professional suite. Access is also available as part of Microsoft 365, Microsoft’s subscription-based Office product. FileMaker Pro is part of the FileMaker platform, which includes:
FileMaker Pro Advanced, which includes all the Pro features as well as a set of advanced development and customization toolsFileMaker Go, which allows iPhone and iPad users access to FileMaker custom appsWebDirect, which allows users to access FileMaker databases in a web browserFileMaker Server for more robust database hosting
Base is—well, based on—Apache’s OpenOffice Base database product, and is being actively developed and supported, unlike OpenOffice. Base integrates fully with all other LibreOffice products and sports all the features you would expect in a desktop database. Base is user-friendly with a set of wizards for creating a database as well as tables, queries, forms, and reports. It ships with a series of templates and extensions to make database development easier. Base is also fully compatible with several other databases and provides support drivers for other industry standards including MySQL, Access, and PostgreSQL. Base is attractive not only because it is free, but because it is backed by a large developer community. Paradox is considerably less expensive than Access or FileMaker Pro but is not as broadly used. Further, Corel is no longer actively updating it; the current WordPerfect Office X9 includes Paradox version 10, last updated in 2009. It is, however, fully compatible with the rest of the suite and may suit your purposes if you need a basic, low-cost database for home use.
