Simple Database Software: The Easy Way to Set Up a SQL Database

Does your business require a database? And you're feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the choices: MongoDB, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MySQL, or Amazon RDS?

Don't worry. You have come to the right place.

In this blog post, we are introducing a simple database software that lets you easily set up a SQL database - without writing code.

Simple Database Software: The Easy Way to Set Up a SQL Database4 Tips For Choosing Your DatabaseUsing Five to Create a SQL Database [Free Download]

Prerequisites

This blog post is a step-by-step guide on how to create a simple database. Though we do not need to write any SQL to create our database, it is helpful to understand what relational databases are, how they store data, and why they are generally more performant than other ways of storing data.

This guide presumes that readers are familiar with things such as Database Schemas, Entity-Relationship Diagrams, Primary Keys, Foreign Keys, or SQL Data Types.

Last, to follow the steps shown in the video below, make sure to sign up for a free download of Five, a simple database software that lets you create a MySQL database in just a few clicks.

4 Tips For Choosing Your Database

Before we start building our database, a few words about choosing your database.

As mentioned in the introduction to this article, there is a large variety of different database systems, such as MongoDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, etc.

For someone new to the field of databases, this can be pretty overwhelming. So here are three important things to note:

1. PostgreSQL, MySQL, or MariaDB are all database systems, but they are not the tools that you will be using to create a database. The tools used to create a database are called database GUIs, such as MySQL Workbench, DB Visualizer, DBeaver, or Five. Especially for those new to database development, picking the right tool is just as important as picking the right database technology.
2. If your use case for a database is a small application used by internal staff, it does not matter so much which database technology you are choosing. For example, a lot of developers like to argue about the advantages and disadvantages of PostgreSQL and MySQL. But unless you are planning to build the next Facebook or Instagram, these details are almost completely irrelevant. It is hard to go wrong with a plain-vanilla, relational database. Especially for small applications, any relational, SQL database will do.
3. What matters most is getting your database schema right.There is no good application without a good database schema. So instead of spending a lot of time delving into databases and reading up on the advantages of NoSQL vs SQL, spend your time on making sure your database schema is correctly set up.
4. Choosing an open-source database technology with a large developer community increases maintainability.In recent years, proprietary databases, such as Airtable or Knack have become more and more popular. While these solutions are usually great for the short-term, problems can emerge in the long-term, as you are trying to expand your database or application. That's where open-source databases, such as MySQL are unbeatable. They have an extremely large community of users, and it is always easy to find help. On top of that, by choosing an open-source database technology, your data remains portable and you have less vendor lock-in than with a proprietary product.

Using Five to Create a SQL Database [Free Download]

Now that we're ready, let's set up our first database! We will be using Five to create a MySQL database.

Step 1: Download Five for Free

Five is a development environment used to rapidly create database-driven business applications. To follow along, make sure you have installed Five on your computer. Simply sign up for a free download and you are ready to go.

Simple Database Software
Download Five for Free to Create Your Database

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Five is an extremely simple database software. It allows users to:

1. Create new tables,
2. Define database fields from a list of common SQL data types, and
3. Automatically manages primary and foreign keys.

Five also comes with a visual database modeler that lets you inspect, edit, and manage your database completely visually.

Step 2: Creating Tables

To get started with creating your database, create a new application in Five and then click on Data > Table Wizard.

Here is a short video explaining the steps to create a table with Five.

Follow the entire video series to learn how to build an entire database-driven web app using Five. Or download one of our template applications!

Step 3: Host Your Database Online

Once your database is ready, the next question usually is where to host it. Traditional database GUIs such as MySQL Workbench do not offer hosting services. Instead, you have to move the database to the cloud, picking AWS, Azure or Google Cloud as your hosting platform, for example.

Five, on the other hand, offers a simple single-click deployment feature that lets you deploy your application (and its database) for as little as US$29.99 per month to cloud. This gives you a fully-provisioned cloud-hosted database.

Even better, you can use Five to create an entire application for your database. This application can contain forms, reports, charts, or dashboards.

The front end can also be configured for different user roles with different access rights. Five makes it incredibly simple to assign CRUD permissions to different user roles.

Of course, if you don't want to host your database with Five, no worries at all. You can also export the database that you have just created with Five as a SQL dump, and then host it elsewhere!

Summary: Simple Database Software

Let's face it: the reality is that the question is not so much if your business needs a database, but rather when to get started with databases. As explained above, setting up a database can be accomplished by using more traditional database GUIs, such as MySQL Workbench or DBeaver, or by using tools such as Five.

In our example, we've shown how Five can be used as a simple database software for MySQL, creating an entire MySQL database in just a few clicks.