Microsoft Access vs. PostgreSQL

Having worked at startups, I can say Microsoft Access is most suited for their needs. Some of the reasons for that can be the ease and ability to create tables, design an entity-relationship diagram, define the relationship between different tables, feeding data into the tables, and retrieving data. All of this can be curated very easily into a process for small to medium-size enterprises. But a serious limitation can be observed where Access does not provide better features for large-scale companies. Another limitation is for companies where Mac is used as work computers.

Incentivized

PostgreSQL is ideal for handling databases that contain large volumes of information due to its efficiency, speed and above all because of the good management it makes of our resources, it also behaves very well in distributed environments of high demand, if you want a database of stable data and excellent performance PostgreSQL is one of the best.

Incentivized

• One good aspect of Microsoft Access is how the software can be customized for different applications. This is very useful because we are able to use this software for multiple applications, which makes it cost-friendly.
• Another strong point of Microsoft Access is the skill required to customize, the amount of programming required is less than most other database programs. This is good for a beginner looking to get into database management.
• Microsoft Access is one of the more cost-friendly database applications, and most of the time it comes with Microsoft Office. Other database programs can be expensive and not as easy to use.

Incentivized

• Advanced spatial capabilities by using PostGIS extension
• Very fast data processing and support of native ANSI SQL language syntax allows maintaining capability and scalability of database
• Fast data aggregation, even by SQL or stored routines/functions
• Well documented, free for use, great community. A lot of examples, and for this reason - lesser threshold for junior developers to start with

Incentivized

• Generally high learning curve for new users. Especially if they are not comfortable with technology.
• Desktop only program; not available in web-format like other O365 products
• Fewer experienced users, means it's a lot of self-teaching and troubleshooting when you run into an issue

Incentivized

• The performance of PostgreSQL has been enhanced through the years, but always is better to have as much performance as we can.
• The replication services could be done directly within the database, and more easily.
• The Object Orientation of the Database could be extended, and albeit it manages inheritance of tables, and accepts XML and JSON as primary types, it would be wonderful if one could attach methods more easily to tables (to make them more like classes), and instances (rows for example).

Incentivized

I and the rest of my team will renew our Microsoft Access in the future because we use and maintain many different applications and databases created using Microsoft Access so we will need to maintain them in the future. Additionally, it is a standard at our place of work so it is at $0 cost to us to use. Another reason for renewing Microsoft Access is that we just don' t have the resources needed to extend into a network of users so we need to remain a single-desktop application at this time.

As a needed software for day to day development activities

Incentivized

Microsoft Access is easy to use. It is compatible with spreadsheets. It is a very good data management tool. There is scope to save a large amount of data in one place. For using this database, one does not need much training, can be shared among multiple users. This database has to sort and filtering features which seem to be very useful.

Incentivized

Postgresql is the best tool out there for relational data so I have to give it a high rating when it comes to analytics, data availability and consistency, so on and so forth. SQL is also a relatively consistent language so when it comes to building new tables and loading data in from the OLTP database, there are enough tools where we can perform ETL on a scalable basis.

Incentivized

I don't think the program has ever failed me. It is one of those programs where there is always a solution if you know where to look.

Incentivized

PostgreSQL's availability is top notch. Apart from connection time-out for an idle user, the database is super reliable.

Incentivized

The data queries are relatively quick for a small to medium sized table. With complex joins, and a wide and deep table however, the performance of the query has room for improvement.

Incentivized

While I have never contacted Microsoft directly for product support, for some reason there's a real prejudice against MS Access among most IT support professionals. They are usually discouraging when it comes to using MS Access. Most of this is due to their lack of understanding of MS Access and how it can improve one's productivity. If Microsoft invested more resources towards enhancing and promoting the use of MS Access then maybe things would be different.

Incentivized

AWS, Heroku, and Digital Ocean all provide Postgres-as-a-service, where you pretty much never need to administrate it yourself but they do it for you. The Postgres community also has developed awesome and reasonably priced extensions, such as Citus DB and CockroachDB in case you need additional support for running it. If you need documentation, Postgres's docs are super thorough and their official forms are active.

Incentivized

The online training is request based. Had there been recorded videos available online for potential users to benefit from, I could have rated it higher. The online documentation however is very helpful. The online documentation PDF is downloadable and allows users to pace their own learning. With examples and code snippets, the documentation is great starting point.

Incentivized

there is no key idea, since it is easy to implement Microsoft Access

The online documentation of the PostgreSQL product is elaborate and takes users step by step.

Incentivized

Excel is a fantastic - robust application that can do so much so easily. Its easy to train and understand. However - excel does not provide a reporting function and that is typically where we will suggest a move to [Microsoft] Access. [Microsoft] Access requires a little more knowledge of data manipulation.

Incentivized

In this case, Postgres is preferred because it handles large data sets and requires fewer hardware resources than its competitor, MySQL. Compared to PostgreSQL, Microsoft products are excellent, but the installation process for MS SQL is lengthy. PostgreSQL has an advantage over its competitors in that it can adapt or configure third-party programs, applications, or settings.

The DB is reliable, scalable, easy to use and resolves most DB needs

Incentivized

• Microsoft Access has had a mostly positive impact on our business objectives in that most of our work is funded by grants and those grants need reports with data about our projects. Microsoft Access makes getting and organizing that data very easy.
• Another positive is that since it is built on an Excel backbone, Excel files can be easily imported into Microsoft Access and also it is easy to export Microsoft Access reports, data sheets, etc. into Excel and some other programs as well. That might help more people who already use Excel learn how to work in a database.
• I can't really think of a negative impact other than not many people at my workplace have ever used or understand how to use a database. Most people tend to use Excel rather than a database, like Microsoft Access.

Incentivized

• Easy to administer so our DevOps team has only ever used minimal time to setup, tune, and maintain.
• Easy to interface with so our Engineering team has only ever used minimal time to query or modify the database. Getting the data is straightforward, what we do with it is the bigger concern.
• It's free. You can't beat that.

Incentivized