A Microsoft Access alternative you can open right now.
Flat pricing, unlimited users, no per-seat fees — and no sales call to find out whether it's any good. The button below opens a real, working database in your browser: Microsoft's own Northwind sample — the one Access ships as a template — rebuilt in Bionic Forms, with its customers, orders and line items all wired together. No signup, no email, nothing to install.
Where this is up to
- You run Access, so you're on Windows — and there is no Windows desktop app yet. The Windows build exists and runs; it is waiting on code signing, which is why the site offers a waitlist rather than a download today. What works for you right now is the browser version — nothing to install, works on any OS, and it's the same app. The desktop app ships on macOS and Linux today, and the phone apps get built the moment someone needs them.
- Offline is a desktop feature. The encrypted local database ships with the desktop app, so on Windows you'd be in the browser for now and "works offline" isn't true for you yet. I'd rather say that here than have you find out on a train.
- The local database file is encrypted on disk (adiantum full-file encryption), and the key lives in your operating system's own secure store rather than in the file.
- I'm not going to tell you Access is dying. It isn't — it still ships, and if it works for you there is no reason to move. Microsoft publishes its own guidance on migrating an Access database when it outgrows the format; this is a different answer to the same moment, not a warning about your software. The only thing I'm claiming is a different pricing model and a different shape of app.
What it actually looks like
Both of these are the CRM template as it ships — one click from an empty account, no setup. They are screenshots of the running product, not mockups.
A grouped list view. Columns are renamed and retyped in place; there is no separate schema screen.
The same app's dashboard. The charts read live from the records above, not a separate reporting tool.
How the pricing works
Flat, by what you build — never by how many people use it. Add the whole team, the contractor, the client who needs read access: the price doesn't move.
What happens when the person who built it leaves?
That's the question this is really built around, and it's the one I'd genuinely like to hear your answer to. A departmental Access database usually outlives the person who wrote it, and what's left behind is often an .accdb nobody can safely change.
- The app is described, not codedDoc types, fields, views and workflows are structured definitions — the next person reads what it does instead of reverse-engineering someone else's VBA.
- Every change is a revisionRecords keep their history, so "who changed this, and when" has an answer after the original author is gone.
- The data is a database on your machineOffline-first and encrypted, syncing when it can. If my company disappeared tomorrow, the file wouldn't.
- Roles are part of the appPermissions live in the app definition, so handing it over doesn't mean rebuilding who can see what.
What you can do yourself, today
Moving your records is self-serve, and it doesn't need a conversation first. Access exports CSV, and the app reads one directly: drop it in and it proposes a collection — a field per column, with the type it thinks each column is and the reason it thinks so, plus a few real values from your own file so you can check the guess instead of trusting it. Nothing is written until you say so.
Where it can't tell, it asks rather than guesses. A column of dates like 03/04/2026 could be
the 3rd of April or March 4th, and the rows it would get wrong look exactly like the rows it would get
right — so it stops and asks you which, and won't import until you answer. If one value anywhere in the
file can't be read, nothing is imported at all: a half-loaded collection is worse than an empty one,
because you can't tell which records made it and running it again duplicates the ones that did.
Export several tables together and it looks for the links between them — an order that names a customer ID gets connected to its customer, so you can open one and see the other. It only links where both the column name and every value agree; where it isn't sure, it leaves the values alone rather than guessing.
Where it stops: it moves data. It does not convert forms, reports, macros, VBA or queries. Those are a rebuild, done in the app itself — this just means your records can be in front of you in a couple of minutes rather than waiting on that.
What this is not
It isn't an Access importer — there's no automatic conversion of an existing .accdb, and I'm not going to pretend a rebuild is a click. It isn't a spreadsheet, it isn't a form builder, and it isn't finished software with a track record. It's an honest early product with a pricing model that doesn't punish you for adding people, and I'm looking for a handful of people willing to tell me where it falls short.
What it costs to find out
Nothing, and there is no call to book. Open the demo, click around a real database, and decide for yourself. If you want your own, the free tier is genuinely free and takes a minute.
When you are ready to bring your own data, Access exports CSV and the app reads it directly, working out how your tables relate to each other — that is the part described above, and it is self-serve. You do not need me for it.
Still comparing? I wrote up every Access alternative I could find, priced against the $0 you already pay: the Power Apps and Dataverse arithmetic, when Microsoft Lists is genuinely the right answer, and the case for keeping Access and moving only the tables.
Bionic Forms is built by Matt Bidwell (Bionics LLC). If something here reads as overclaiming, tell me and I'll fix the page — that's a promise I can actually keep at this stage. Either way you can reach me at matt@bidwellhq.com.