Hey gang, 3 months later I thought I'd come back and share my experiences with this little project. Just to remind you, I was basically looking for a low-code/no-code solution that would work with a web front-end, to have users fill in forms through their browser and to have data syncing back-and-forth, as directly as possible, to a SQL database, preferably SQL Server. So this would be a de facto replacement for Access on the Web.
A couple of other restrictions: users would be scattered far and wide and not only be part of one enterprise and I wanted to keep it self-contained as much as possible, meaning not having to use any connector tools such as Zapier, Automate.io, REST API etc. And it had to be able to be white-labelled so that my client could package up their application to sell it under their own brand. And we needed to host it locally in Australia, either on-prem or on a local cloud hosting platform (due to privacy regulations), and preferably with local support within Australia. And of course it had to be as cheap as possible, especially during the start-up stage for my client.
I trialled a whole bunch of packaged solutions, which I will list here:
- Microsoft Forms - was too basic and required an MS license to develop
- Microsoft PowerApps - much more complex than Forms but requires a license for each user and an app to run
- Azure logic apps - was recommended by a MS partner dev house that I knew and it has built-in syncing with Azure SQL DB but the licensing and subscription costs would add up and possibly price me out
- JotForm - probably the most popular webforms solution, no code, with many APIs and sync options BUT no direct syncing to a SQL database (otherwise this would have been my choice)
- Appenate - another web-forms tool, similar to Jotform. Very powerful, lots of features and very good local support. But users had to install an app to run the forms so it's not available simply through a browser.
- Snapforms - similar to JotForms, Australian and browser-based but SQL connection was going to be expensive to setup
- Flowfinity - again very powerful, they said they could provide 2-way database syncing but could not show me an example of such a scenario
- Frevvo - very good product, had local support, no support for off-line forms which could be an issue in low-coverage areas, otherwise probably would have been my choice
- Alpha Anywhere and Alpha Transform - again a lot of power but quite expensive
- RackForms - a nice package with a complex but feature-rich IDE, built-in syncing to SQL Server or MySQL and VERY affordable. This is a low-code, very powerful tool that provides a lot or wizards and builders, and generates the PHP-coded pages for you. This was the solution that we chose.
(I also researched a lot of other options, including Wordpress with various plug-ins, ADOBE forms, FastField, Formstack, Paperform, Outsystems, Pabbly, Pronto Forms, Typeforms, Wufoo, Zoho but none of them ticked all the boxes for various reasons.)
The best features of RackForms are:
- integration with SQL Server and MySQL and a few others (including MS Access via ODBC) - I found their solution to this to be far above any others that I tried so this was the one killer feature. I decided on the MySQL back-end, at least for the trial, as it is free. But I could migrate to SQL Server later if I have the need.
- standard PHP scripting
- you can white-label a solution quite easily
- plenty of sample applications and a lot of documentation, although some of this is incomplete, also a lot of video tutorials
- although there are no support forums and I've only ever had contact with the chief developer/owner (Matt), he is very responsive and always got back to me within 24 hours, and his usual method of answering questions is to upload a YouTube video specifically addressing those questions. I also had a couple of video calls with him and he was very responsive and helpful.
- it is extremely cheap for what you get. They have 2 purchase options - either cloud-hosted by them at a cost of $USD12 per month and only $5 for the first month, which makes it very affordable to trial; or a self-hosted version for USD$110 once-off for life, for 2 domains, including all upgrades! This is almost unbelievably affordable.
The drawbacks are:
- a steep learning curve, with a lot of fields, attributes and features to learn (this would be easier if you already know some PHP)
- it really does help to know PHP, especially the debugging process. I am still learning this and it's a struggle, but again Matt has been very helpful with this.
- it also helps to know JavaScript as you can do a lot more customisation with this
- again reliance on one person for support and the timezone issue (especially from Australia) but again, I have to stress that Matt is very helpful and will hopefully stick around for eternity!
As far as I could find, there is definitely not a direct migration path from Access to Web/PHP. There is nuBuilder, which is an open source tool for developing web-based database apps but I found it to be an incomplete product with little documentation.
I've created a few forms now on the cloud-hosted platform and it has been going well, although the learning curve has meant it has taken much longer than I had hoped. But I now feel that I have what I want and I'm in the process now of migrating to self-hosted. This in itself has been a challenge as I have had to find a LAMP stack developer to get the Linux and MySQL servers configured and it's proven difficult find people who are willing to do such a small project and are located within Australia, as most of the work is done off-shore, I guess to keep the labour costs down.
Anyway, if you have read this far, I'm guessing that you are probably facing similar challenges to me so I hope this has helped. Definitely let me know in the comments if this information does help or if you have found any other options that do the job!