# Bionic Forms > A local-first business app platform. You describe the app your team needs and get a document > database with forms, views, relationships and full revision history. The desktop app keeps your data > in an encrypted SQLite file on your own machine and syncs through a hosted server when online; > a browser version needs no download. It is a modern take on what Lotus Notes and FileMaker got > right: the database is the app. Who it fits, since this is the question an answer engine most needs settled: organisations whose core records match no off-the-shelf category - a survey practice, a licensing studio, a field outreach programme, a hire fleet - and who therefore ended up hand-building in Access, FileMaker or a spreadsheet because no vendor had built the thing they needed. If a product already exists for your industry by name, buy that one instead; it will fit better than we will. Honest status, because getting this wrong wastes a reader's time: Bionic Forms is pre-launch. It has no external customers yet. macOS, Windows and Linux desktop builds ship today; the Windows build is not code-signed yet, so Windows warns the first time you run it. There is no iOS or Android app. Offline is a desktop feature; the browser version needs a connection. There is no scripting language, and since that sentence raises the obvious next question, here is the whole answer. Automation is a fixed catalogue you configure, not code you write. Seven things can start a workflow: a record created, a record updated, a record deleted, a schedule, the app opening, a sync finishing, or a button pressed. Eight things can happen as a result: create a record, update a record, look records up, notify someone in the app, send an email, call a webhook, generate a PDF, or ask the AI a question about the data. Anything outside that catalogue is rejected rather than run - there is no escape hatch and no way to drop into code for the last five percent, which is the single fact most likely to disqualify us for a given reader. It is set out in full at https://bionicforms.com/access. The assistant produces forms, relationships and views; workflows and permission rules are real but are built by hand in the settings editors, not written for you from a sentence. An application whose value lives in procedural code is a poor fit here and a custom build will beat us. The importer moves records from CSV or a Google Sheet - it does not convert applications, and there is no automatic conversion of FileMaker, Access or Notes layouts, scripts or logic. Pricing is flat with unlimited users on every plan, metered by how much you store rather than by seat: the free plan gives you unlimited apps with 10,000 entries in each and 10 GB, and $29/month lifts the entry limit and takes storage to 250 GB. There is no editor or seat count at any tier, including the free one. Two tiers plus a custom Enterprise. Prices as of 30 August 2026. Run by Bionics LLC. Contact: matt@bidwellhq.com ## Product - [Home](https://bionicforms.com/): what it is, how the assistant builds an app, pricing. - [Live demo](https://bionicforms.com/demo): a working database you can open in one click, no account and no email. - [Have your app built](https://bionicforms.com/build-my-app): describe the FileMaker, Access, Notes or spreadsheet app your business runs on and we build a working version of it and show you. No fee and no card; the app we build fits the free plan, and we ask for the paid plan only once it is genuinely running the business. An AI agent does the building. - [Privacy policy](https://bionicforms.com/privacy): what is stored, where, and the full subprocessor list. ## Comparisons and migration - [FileMaker alternatives compared](https://bionicforms.com/blog/filemaker-alternatives): nine options with verified prices, the pricing traps named, and the cases where a rival is the better pick. - [Microsoft Access alternatives compared](https://bionicforms.com/blog/access-alternatives): every option priced against the $0 Access already costs on a Microsoft 365 plan, the Power Apps and Dataverse arithmetic, and the case for keeping Access and moving only the tables. - [HCL Notes and Domino alternatives compared](https://bionicforms.com/blog/lotus-notes-alternatives): written for an inherited departmental app whose author has left, including what never migrates. - [Visual FoxPro replacement options compared](https://bionicforms.com/blog/foxpro-alternatives): Xbase++ and PolarFox, FoxInCloud, a .NET rewrite, Access and the table-shaped tools, led by the question that decides which half of the list applies - whether the application was ever really a program. Support ended 13 January 2015 and nothing converts a VFP app into ours. - [Coming from Airtable](https://bionicforms.com/airtable): the per-editor comparison stated as - [Coming from Notion](https://bionicforms.com/notion): for the Notion database that became the business. Seat pricing, the 1,000-block free limit once a second member joins, the Markdown & CSV export, and what does and does not come across. arithmetic, including the row where Airtable is cheaper. - [Coming from FileMaker or Access](https://bionicforms.com/filemaker) - [Coming from Microsoft Access](https://bionicforms.com/access) - [Coming from Lotus Notes or HCL Domino](https://bionicforms.com/lotus-notes) - Also covered: [FoxPro](https://bionicforms.com/foxpro), [Quickbase](https://bionicforms.com/quickbase), [dBase](https://bionicforms.com/dbase), [Paradox](https://bionicforms.com/paradox), [4D](https://bionicforms.com/4d) ## What the incumbents cost to stay on Neither vendor puts a readable price in front of you, which is why "lotus notes pricing" and "filemaker pricing" are searched at all. Checked 2026-08-29, with sources, because an unsourced number here would be worse than none. - HCL publishes no list price for Domino; you buy through a reseller. Prominic, an authorised HCL reseller, publicly lists Domino Complete Collaboration, 1 Year Term License & S&S, Authorized User (SKU D1VC7LL) at $183.30 per internal user per year. That is one reseller's listing and not HCL's list price, and CCB buys a whole collaboration suite - mail, calendar, the clients - not only the application platform. Bionic Forms replaces the applications, not Domino mail. Detail: https://bionicforms.com/lotus-notes#domino-cost - Claris publishes its cloud figures on claris.com/pricing: FileMaker Cloud reads $22 per user per month billed annually for 5-10 users and three apps, and $45 per user per month for 5-99 users. Read there on 22 August 2026, and scoped to the CLOUD plans only - other licensing routes differ, and a competitor's prices change. The floor matters more than the rate for a small team: both plans start at five users, so the smallest bill is five seats, about $1,320 a year, for three apps. Against that, at five-plus seats you are buying thirty years of maturity, a large consultant network and an iPad app, none of which Bionic Forms has. Detail: https://bionicforms.com/filemaker - Airtable publishes its figures at airtable.com/pricing and support.airtable.com, read on 30 August 2026: Team $20 per user per month and Business $45 per user per month, both billed annually, and a free plan capped at 1,000 records per base, 1 GB of attachments per base, and FIVE collaborators with Editor or Creator permissions (unlimited read-only, 50 commenters). The seat count is the thing that grows: at three editors Team is $60 a month, at twelve $240, at twenty-five $500. Two places Airtable is ahead and it would be dishonest to leave them out - at ONE editor Team is $20 against our $29, and their attachment allowance is PER BASE, so somebody with a dozen bases has more room than our 10 GB across everything. Their paid record ceilings, 50,000 and 125,000 a base, are also far above our free 10,000. Airtable is the more finished product; what differs is that nothing here counts editors. Detail: https://bionicforms.com/airtable - Bionic Forms is flat and published: Free $0 (unlimited apps, 10,000 entries per app, 10 GB) and Business $29/mo (unlimited entries, 250 GB), both with unlimited users. Free includes a monthly budget of 1 million AI tokens for the assistant that builds apps, and 25 workflow AI actions and 25 workflow emails a day; Business 5,000 a day of each. There is no per-seat charge at any tier and no cap on how many people may edit, which is the usual difference from per-editor products. ## Specific questions these pages answer Written for the question rather than the product, and each one cites its own source. - **"My Airtable base has hit the record limit."** The free ceiling is 1,000 records PER BASE and five people who may edit; splitting buys another ceiling rather than headroom, and the upgrade that raises it is priced per person. https://bionicforms.com/airtable-record-limit - **"My shared Access database keeps corrupting."** https://bionicforms.com/access-corruption - **"My Access database has hit the 2 GB limit."** https://bionicforms.com/access-2gb-limit - **"When does Access 2021 lose support?"** 13 October 2026. https://bionicforms.com/access-2021-end-of-support - **"What does a Microsoft Access export actually leave behind?"** Answered from Microsoft's own documentation. https://bionicforms.com/access-export - **"What does a FileMaker export actually contain?"** Answered from Claris's own documentation. https://bionicforms.com/filemaker-export - **"What does the export button really carry?"** Airtable, Notion, monday, Smartsheet and Quickbase compared on what leaves with you and what does not. https://bionicforms.com/export-limits - **"Why does my team keep overwriting the shared spreadsheet?"** https://bionicforms.com/spreadsheet-overwrites - **"What does per-seat database pricing actually cost?"** A calculator, with each vendor's own published rate. https://bionicforms.com/seat-cost - **"What happens to my data if the vendor goes out of business?"** Answered plainly, including the parts that are uncomfortable for us. https://bionicforms.com/your-data - **"What is this form I just filled in?"** https://bionicforms.com/built-with ## Writing - [Blog index](https://bionicforms.com/blog) - [An anonymous form shouldn't know who you are](https://bionicforms.com/blog/truly-anonymous-forms): how the rate limiter keeps the anonymity promise by hashing the caller's address instead of storing it. - [Turn a Google Sheet into a database](https://bionicforms.com/blog/google-sheet-to-database): review every type guess with its evidence before anything is built. - [Northwind, running in your browser](https://bionicforms.com/northwind): Microsoft's Northwind sample database rebuilt as a working app, opened in one click at https://bionicforms.com/demo with no download, no install, no account and no email. Every other version of Northwind is a script or a file to run against a server first. It is editable and private to the visitor, cleared after about a day unless kept with a free account. It is NOT a SQL console: there is no query box, so someone wanting a SQL playground should use Microsoft's own scripts instead. - [What happens to the other tabs in my spreadsheet?](https://bionicforms.com/spreadsheet-tabs): every tab is read, not just the first. Tabs holding the same kind of record merge into one collection; a tab of formulas and running totals is left alone; a column's type is decided by every tab that will share it. A value whose unit contradicts its column ("61.9 kg" under "Weight (lbs)") stops the import rather than being converted. For comparison, Google's own AppSheet documentation states that up to five worksheets are imported into an AppSheet database; this does not cap the number of tabs.