If you want forms try https://visualdb.com/ it is another tool that aims to be Microsoft Access

Not open source though?

Right but it is cheaper than open source products if you self-host. Most open source products in this space, including grist, are only partially open source.

[grist employee here] Grist forms are open source and were used to keep the toilets clean at FOSDEM just a few days ago https://fosstodon.org/@grist/116001932837956733

Everything you see in our standard docker image is open source. Yes, you can enable and pay for enterprise features too.

It is weird that your enterprise features are not self-hostable even if a customer pays. I understand if some features are not open source, but why make it not self-hostable? Self-hosting is a requirement for confidential data.

The enterprise features are self-hostable. Look at "your servers" on the pricing page for Grist. Individuals (and orgs with < $1 million in annual income) quality for free activation keys btw.

https://nocodb.com/ is an open source alternative.

It has data corruption issues, see https://visualdb.com/blog/concurrencycontrol/

I'm not an MS dev type, but I've often seen these forms questions. What made their forms so easy, or more in general what is so complicated about forms that this was even a tool so many liked?

MS Access was on its way out by the time I started working in software, but the simplest explanation I can give about why the "forms" question is this, let's say you're a business person and...:

  * You have a huge Excel document that's basically a DB. (What Access kinda was)
  * You want users to interact with said data document, i.e add record, find/query record(s), edit records
  * You add a "form" for users to do just that. You can also add a "login" form to give some users more permissions.

It's basically if you could turn a SQlite file into a low-coded desktop app.

Access is an FE for db — JET Red, specifically.

JET Blue aka ESE is currently used by products like Active Directory and Exchange.

With Access, a business doing data entry could -- with a business user not a software engineer -- craft a Form and voila, easy onboarding to train new employees instead of filling out sheets of paper and filing them.

Access biggest advantage by far was that you could share the file on a network drive and having multiple people accessing it: You didnt need any type of complex backup procedure.

In case of failure, just copy-over the old file from yesterday - such simple solutions are pure gold for SME without any big IT department

Form support is touted on the homepage: https://www.getgrist.com/forms/

For what it's worth, which isn't much because this is probably outdated: I remember trying grist a few years ago and leaving mildly unimpressed with form support (I think because I was hoping to have image upload in the forms and that wasn't supported yet).

Grist forms support uploads since 2025 https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-core/pull/1655

Since it is relevant here: support for uploads was code written by a French contributor, and reviewed by a developer working for the French gov (ANCT/DINUM) and a developer working for Grist Labs. Grist Labs has since maintained and improved on it. The forms feature itself was inspired by an integration built by Camille Legeron at ANCT.