Member Avatar for DigitalAngel

I have never used MySQL and am a little unfamiliar with the pros and cons of using it. Is it true that it has no front end? I know that it is free but would like to know what the options are if we use JSP, ODBC or VB as the front end.

I am trying to see the pros and cons of using Access VS MySQL and also how much it would cost for each of them.
Thank you.

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Quick clarification and practical angle on the thread: asked about “front end” and cost; noted the lack of an Access-style UI in MySQL and pointed out that admin GUIs aren’t the same thing as a user-facing form/report builder. MySQL is a data server — build the UI with the technology you prefer (JSP, VB, .NET) and talk to MySQL with the appropriate driver. For JSP use a JDBC driver and put the DataSource/connection pool in the servlet container (Tomcat JNDI is the common pattern). Example JDBC snippet:

String url = "jdbc:mysql://dbhost:3306/schema?serverTimezone=UTC";
try (Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(url, "appuser", "secret")) {
  // use con with PreparedStatement
}

See a Java+MySQL how-to and Tomcat datasource docs for best practices. (baeldung.com)

Access vs MySQL — practical tradeoffs: Access is a file-based desktop database with built-in forms/reports; when multiple users share it the standard mitigation is a split front-end/back-end design (Microsoft documents the splitter and the limits). MySQL is a client-server RDBMS (scales better, supports transactions and declarative foreign keys via InnoDB, handles concurrency and web workloads). Licensing and support differ (Access is part of Microsoft Office; MySQL Community is GPL with commercial options). Choose Access for small, local, form-driven apps with few concurrent users; choose MySQL when the app needs many concurrent users, remote hosting, stronger transactional guarantees, or horizontal scaling. (support.microsoft.com)

If migrating from Access to MySQL, follow a short checklist: inventory schema and data types, map autonumber -> AUTO_INCREMENT and memo -> TEXT, export/import data (watch dates, nulls, reserved words), create proper users/privileges, rebuild forms/reports in the selected front end, and test concurrency/backups. For classic VB or ODBC consumers a DSN-less connection string is common; an example driver string format is shown below (adjust driver name/version and options for the environment):

"Driver={MySQL ODBC 8.0 Unicode Driver};Server=localhost;Database=mydb;User=myuser;Password=mypassword;Option=3;"

For heavier server-side logic or advanced trigger/procedural needs, PostgreSQL is a strong alternative (rich PL/pgSQL and trigger features noted by other posters). Refer to the ODBC DSN examples and PostgreSQL trigger docs when planning the migration and UI redesign. (mathworks.com)

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Member Avatar for madmital

One of the major cons of MySQL is the fact that it is open source...and thereby free of charge.
Also it is both faster and more stable than Access.
You can download it from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/

It is true that it has no front end, but you can download a graphical front end from mySQL.com called 'MySQL Administrator'. I've never tried 'MySQL Adminstrator' so I can't really comment on that.

But there are also other freeware front ends available, like
DB Manager Pro Freeware from

or phpMyAdmin from
http://www.phpmyadmin.net


Using the command prompt interface of mySQL isn't really that hard, though, and the mySQL manual has pretty good syntax descriptions.

Member Avatar for JRM

Well, none of those "admins" are what I would call a "font end" acceptable for commercial use. A secretary would be baffled.

OpenOffice.base is an ODBC program that has a wizard to generate a "reasonable" interface for a single table database. anything more complex will require a bit of work, but it has all the GUI widgets. Another one is QT designer by Trolltech. QT works alot like Access, but is GPL and more flexible.

Another DB to look into might be PostgreSQL, same idea as MySQL but preferred by GPL purists. Both are OK IMHO.

Member Avatar for ses5909

I would recommend mysql over access anyday, but i would like to second JRM's recommendation of postgreSQL. Here is a pretty good comparison of the two:

What i like about postgres is it has better support for triggers and PL/sQL.

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