Free or cheap private web-based relational database?

September 4, 2008 7:52 PM

Free or cheap private web-based relational database?

Hi, I need to set up a relational database for a volunteer-run annual event. I'd like for all of the members of the planning committee to be able to log in and access the database from their home computers. It needs to be a relational database so that I can set up one table for people's contact information and other tables for each year and type of participation (registrants, vendors, etc.). Ideally, I'd like to be able to set user-level permissions to control which people can read or write to which tables. I might want to use it for other things like project and task management as well, but managing people, sales, and marketing survey responses is the priority. We don't have a lot of money so we want something free or cheap!

Any suggestions? I'm already checking out WebEx and Zoho Applications but I would appreciate other recommendations or hearing about your experiences using or searching for such programs yourselves.

I am familiar with the basic principles of database design (I can write one out on paper with all the tables, fields, field types, and table relationships) but am otherwise not a programmer or techie. Installing something on a server somewhere is beyond my capabilities so I'd prefer a user-friendly web-based "software as service" kind of thing.

Thanks!

posted by Jacqueline to computers & internet (13 comments total)

DabbleDB. There's a free plan, but it makes all your data public, so you'll probably want one of the monthly plans — the cheapest is $10/mo. I haven't used it but have looked through the demo and was impressed.
posted by enn at 8:07 PM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]

One of those cases where the way the question is formed leads people down a path you might not have intended. Without reading closely, I was going to start you down the path of getting your own web space and installing MySQL.

After reading more closely I realized you might be better off asking how to set up your own web forms - check out WuFoo (and similar tools) and see if they don't scratch your itch.
posted by djpappas at 8:25 PM on September 4, 2008

No, I'm not thinking of forms for our website. I'm thinking of a private relational database with a bunch of tables. I need to be able to set up many-to-many relationships etc.
posted by Jacqueline at 8:36 PM on September 4, 2008

Oh, and I want to be able to set up different views of different tables too.
posted by Jacqueline at 8:38 PM on September 4, 2008

SDF is a very economical hosting service with shell access. It looks like a database account is about $30 a year.
posted by sammyo at 9:43 PM on September 4, 2008

This may be more than you need, but if it were me, I'd use Drupal. (Caveat: I'd use Drupal to make toast and wash the dishes. I love Drupal.)

Drupal has a very flexible way of setting up content types, called "Content Construction Kit", or CCK for short. You can define fields easily, so you could set up a content type of Participants, then another of Involvements or however you want to define the instances of being involved in a particular year.

If you have existing data, you can use the node_import module to import it.

You can use the Panels module to display the related information (all the years Jane participated, or all the people who participated in 2005).

Drupal has good, granular permissions built in, and if you want to go crazy with permissions, there are add-on modules for doing that, too.

Drupal is free, as are all its add-on modules. You would need a hosting account with PHP and MySQL, though.

If that is, in fact, more than you need, I'd suggest just setting up an account with a good host (Downtown Host has some good plans) and using phpAdmin to get started ... but that may give you LESS than you need.

On re-reading your question - using Drupal would require installing something on a server, although it's relatively painless as these things go.
posted by kristi at 10:31 PM on September 4, 2008

I would like to speak out *against* DabbleDB, I have used it at a prior place of employment and it's not a relational database -- it's a different system for storing data with it's own metaphors. It's own very confusing, awkward metaphors.

It's also have a very poor UI and is extremely slow and unreliable. Do not use DabbleDB for your project.
posted by godisdad at 10:55 PM on September 4, 2008

Seconding Drupal. Perfect tool.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:37 AM on September 5, 2008

??? I was under the impression that Drupal was for building public websites, not private databases? I've looked around the website briefly and I don't see anything about it having relational database capabilities. Am I looking in the wrong place?
posted by Jacqueline at 6:20 AM on September 5, 2008

If you already understand the ins and outs of relational databases, then I hope you realize that to really leverage that knowledge at some point you're going to need to get your hands dirty. There are no completely web-based database front-end managers that aren't going to require tweaking and digging under the hood; hosted services are so far not much more than spreadsheet-managers.

Drupal is a pretty good suggestion but while it's in many ways user friendly, it's also going to require tinkering to get it to do what you want.

If you decide to go the Drupal route and need a host, Dreamhost will give non-profits a free hosting account. While Dreamhost isn't the best host (I definitely prefer something more bulletproof like pair networks), it's really hard to beat $90 worth of monthly hosting for nothing, and they offer some features that are particularly handy for non-profits like unlimited email announcement & discussion lists, a lot of software preinstalled, etc.
posted by bcwinters at 6:25 AM on September 5, 2008

Drupal might be a good candidate. It is a community CMS, but A) it also lets you create your own record types (the "content construction kit") and views, and B) it has nooooomerous 3rd-party modules, some of which may provide you with the functionality you need out of the box. It would take a while to evaluate everything and get the various pieces playing nice with each other, but certainly less time than rolling your own. And of course, it comes with all the user-management stuff.

I've set up a couple of small projects in DabbleDB. It really is a relational database, unless I'm missing something, but it's more oriented towards number crunchers. It doesn't do such a great job with granular permissions and stuff.

Another web app I just ran across, which is sort of like DabbleDB but also lets you create business logic, is Coghead.
posted by adamrice at 7:30 AM on September 5, 2008

I was under the impression that Drupal was for building public websites, not private databases? I've looked around the website briefly and I don't see anything about it having relational database capabilities. Am I looking in the wrong place?

You're right, in a way. Drupal is a CMS (content management system), not a relational database per se. However, it's built on a a relational database (MySQL, although you can use PostgresQL if you prefer). More important, one way you can use it is to build access to data you define (using CCK, as mentioned above), which you can connect relationally (the Panels module may be the easiest way to do this, but there are plenty of ways). It's perfectly possible to use Drupal for a private system rather than something open to the public; plenty of people are doing that, and as I mentioned, Drupal's built-in access controls make that quite easy out of the box.

I haven't used Zoho at all. From a 5-second skim of the web page, it looks like that would give you the kind of direct database access you're looking for, and it does seem to offer some permission/access control.

If I were you, I would give Zoho a try, see if it does what you want, and if not, consider Drupal. As I said before, Drupal may well be way more than you need, but it is an option.
posted by kristi at 1:41 PM on September 6, 2008

A CMS is not the answer for this, even if Drupal is a nice CMS.

Intuit (the Quicken people) have a product for exactly this: Quickbase. There are even starter application templates that you could customize to build out your database without starting from scratch. I don't have any affiliation with the product, but have used it in the past (a long time ago) and liked it for exactly these kinds of purposes.
posted by anildash at 7:54 PM on September 7, 2008