Get Your Workgroup into Gear: Four Free Database Apps
December 18th, 2007 (4:00pm) Samuel Dean 15 Comments
Workgroups of all sizes can often benefit from a shared, centralized database that everyone can keep up to date. In fact, for some workgroups, a tiny amount of time invested in building a shared database can have huge payoffs in terms of viewing sophisticated reports, planning, completing projects, and more. The good news is that you can build your own custom database for free with numerous applications. However, there are lots of catches involved with many of the free database offerings, and limits on the size of your databases are among the most common. In this post, I’ll round up four very robust, free database offerings, one of which imposes no size limit at all.
IBM’s DB2 Express-C is an excellent free database choice for many web workers. There is no size limit on your databases, and if you eventually decide your workgroup needs support, you can pay a very low annual cost for it. DB2 Express-C is a fully relational and XML data server, for Windows or Linux users. You’re not restricted by any type of universal template; instead, it’s very easy to create your own database applications, customized for your group.
Another popular free database choice to look into is Oracle Database XE. Unlike IBM’s offering Oracle’s does impose a limit of 4GB of user data, but that’s enough for many small workgroups and Database XE is one of the nicest environments to build a database in. Also, although the database is downloadable, there is a nice browser-based interface for managing your databases. There is also a free version for Mac OS X.
Microsoft’s SQL Server Express Edition is a free offering and is freely distributable. I would recommend this choice for a workgroup that wants a robust database application quickly, because Microsoft goes above and beyond at supplying training and tutorial materials as well as starter database schemas. For example, you watch over nine hours of video instruction on starting a database aimed at absolute beginners. You can also read case studies on useful databases built with the product. Like Oracle’s database, though, Microsoft’s only lets you build 4GB databases for free.
Finally, Zoho DB & Reports is an excellent way to get a workgroup going with a database, and since it’s an an online database, Mac and Linux users are invited to the party along with Windows users. You can view a number of sample databases built with it. Note that you can’t currently import a file larger than 1MB with it, so if you already have a lot of data you may want to look into something else.
Do you have any good tips on free databases?
15 Comments Post your own comment
Dave says: December 18th, 2007 6:09pm
Since when does Microsoft SQL Server run on Linux?
Graham says: December 18th, 2007 6:27pm
You missed the king of free databases - MySQL.
Adam says: December 18th, 2007 6:50pm
Yeah…both MySQL and PostgreSQL are capable databases without the limits of these other “free” offerings. Any particular reason why they weren’t mentioned?
kevin says: December 18th, 2007 7:42pm
Yea, MySql needs a mention as well as SQLite and PostgreSQL.
Samuel Dean says: December 18th, 2007 8:01pm
Good points that MySQL should have a mention, and I am aware of it although I’m not a user. However, if you Google “MySQL No Longer Free” you’ll get lots of results about how the company has steadily been moving away from a free model, especially with its Enterprise Edition, which you can’t use for free beyond a free trial anymore. Their Community Server is still free, and worth a mention, but especially in the past year, they’ve been steadily moving toward paid business models.
Samuel
Samuel Ryan says: December 19th, 2007 2:13am
Although mySql is the “king” of databases when it comes to bloggers and freelancers,
I’ll throw a vote in with SQL Server EE. I use it for my blogs and websites and it has served well thru those occasional Digg-Reddit-StumbleUpon combo attacks.
Ed French says: December 19th, 2007 5:17am
OK it’s not free (just cheap), and compared to the suggestions above it lacks technical muscle, but for most light use DabbleDB.com provides a wonderful alternative to desktop databases IMO. Just a dumb name- try suggesting to your boss that something called “Dabble” is a good idea for something important!
Peter says: December 19th, 2007 10:40am
There is also a new open source console available for DB2 Express-C available on sourceforge.net. It is written in PHP and is completely customizable through XML profiles.
Callister Jaybon says: December 19th, 2007 10:53am
I don’t believe that free service is good. Why should they care about your data security then? You don’t pay them anything and they probably need money to maintain solid technical support. We collaborate in Wrike.com and this service is really secure. It saved our data for us when we ad a couple of serious problems with our server.
Jason Johns says: December 19th, 2007 12:50pm
Callister, there is a HUGE difference between data security and disaster recovery. It sounds like you are talking about disaster recovery which is great, however, it is only a sub-set of an overall data security model.
The good(or bad) thing about managing your own RDBMS is that your are responsible for both its security and recovery. If those features are important and you know what you are doing, most of the systems mentioned in this post (and many in the thread) are excellent and provide a great deal in the way of security and recovery.
links for 2007-12-19 at Alan Vonlanthen’s blog says: December 19th, 2007 3:31pm
[...] Web Worker Daily » Archive Get Your Workgroup into Gear: Four Free Database Apps « Free database tools (besides mysql & postgres) (tags: free db tools) [...]
links for 2007-12-21 — SOJo: Student of Online Journalism by Megan Taylor says: December 20th, 2007 11:20pm
[...] Four Free Database Apps (tags: database apps) [...]
Business Hacks mobile edition says: January 7th, 2008 12:01pm
[...] looking to share information that’s centrally located, nothing beats an online database. Web Worker Daily has the scoop on four free databases from IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Zoho. An excerpt: Microsoft’s SQL Server Express Edition is a [...]
Zoho Blogs says: January 28th, 2008 8:03am
Get the max out of Zoho!
Pai writes about using Zoho Creator and Zoho DB & Reports.
You can now build powerful and sharable databases online for free thanks to websites like Zoho. You don’t even need any special database development experience to create online databases …
Suresh Patel says: March 24th, 2008 5:11am
Hi
Following the gmail model, we provide a free online database at http://www.gobblerecords.co.uk. Its similar to zoho but 100% free.
Enjoy…