A shared .accdb on a network drive is a ticking clock.
File locking, a dropped Wi-Fi packet mid-write, a 2 GB ceiling, and the compact-and-repair ritual. Saltcorn runs on PostgreSQL: real transactions, row-level locking, everyone writing at once.
Comparison · Saltcorn vs Microsoft Access
Take the .accdb off the network share and put it on a real multi-user database — reachable from any browser, exportable as a mobile app, hosted wherever you say. MIT-licensed, with no per-seat fees.
A shared .accdb on a network drive is a ticking clock.
File locking, a dropped Wi-Fi packet mid-write, a 2 GB ceiling, and the compact-and-repair ritual. Saltcorn runs on PostgreSQL: real transactions, row-level locking, everyone writing at once.
Access never left the Windows desktop.
Field technicians on a phone, a client on a Mac, anyone outside the office — none of them can open it. A Saltcorn application is a URL, and a native iOS and Android build.
Replacing it usually costs five figures a year, forever.
Most modernisation paths swap one trap for another: per-seat SaaS to rebuild what you already had. Saltcorn is MIT-licensed — you pay for a server and keep the rest.
| Feature | Saltcorn | Microsoft Access |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Server-based: web, mobile and API from one deployment | A desktop .accdb file on a share |
| Many users at once | PostgreSQL transactions and row-level locking | File locking, and corruption risk as users are added |
| Size ceiling | Whatever PostgreSQL will hold | 2 GB per file — and slow well before that |
| Mobile | Native iOS and Android builds, offline capable | None — Windows desktops only |
| Shipping a change | Publish once on the server; everyone has it | Redistribute a front-end file to every desktop |
| Data sovereignty | Self-hosted or on-premises, with audit history per table | Loose files wherever they were copied |
| Integrations | REST API, Stripe, Twilio, LDAP, MQTT, AI agents | VBA and ODBC, and not much beyond |
| Cost to scale | MIT licence, no seat fees | A Microsoft 365 licence per user |
When the records are child protection files and coroners' reports, a fragile desktop database is not a risk anyone can carry.
No more corrupted network files. No more desktop silos.What an Access migration is actually for
No. Export the Access tables into PostgreSQL and Saltcorn will discover them as they are, or import CSVs table by table and let Saltcorn create the tables and infer the types. Relationships become real foreign keys on the way in.
No. Saltcorn is point-and-click. Anyone who was comfortable building forms and queries in Access — or working in Excel — can build the replacement.
Both. The database, the screens and the workflows are one platform — you are not buying a separate front-end tool the way most Access replacements require.
It is MIT-licensed open source: no seat fees, no licence cost. You host it on your own server or cloud, which is also what keeps the data — and the privacy decisions — yours.
Import one Access table, build a screen over it, and see the replacement working the same afternoon.
The Saltcorn team and our partners have moved statutory, regulated applications off Access already.