How to set up my own free database for work purposes?

MySQL Community Server is free and very popular. If you need a GUI to go with it there’s a variety to choose from, the free version of Navicat can be a good choice.

yeah, MySQL would be my choice as well. Runs on Windows, OS X and *nix as well. There’s a GUI interface for MySQL as well (several, actually). Check google and see which works for your needs.

Is this helpful as a GUI?

You could try OpenOffice Base as well, if you would benefit from something similar to Microsoft Access for Reports, Macros, User Interfaces, etc.

But if you’re familiar with SQL and want just a basic database I would follow @gggritso and @eponymoushipster‘s advice and go with MySQL.

Although it isn’t free, I personally use FileMaker for this type of thing

@pdworkin I’m sure that’s a great choice for someone with basic needs, but as soon as @NoCatharsis‘s needs grow he may consider buying something cheap but reasonably robust like MySQL Front.

I’m no expert – it was just a coincidence that I happened to be on that app’s page when I saw this post!

@pdworkin That’s just freaky. I will say though, often a Firefox extension is a good way to go for small tools like these. For example instead of using a standalone FTP client I just use FireFTP. The only problem with doing this for SQL is that once you start trying to do more complicated things like copying tables it becomes slow and unreliable. There is a ton of MySQL tools available, MySQL Yog, MySQL Front, Navicat, PHP MyAdmin just to name a few. It’s all about looking at your specific needs.

People in my office seem to opt for microsoft access.

You may wish to consider using SQLiteSpy as a SQLite frontend. You can put both SQLiteSpy and the *.db file you create with it on a thumbdrive, and you can take it with you anywhere! Pretty handy…

Of course, MySQL is quite good as well, and, like @se_ven said, if you need Report generating capabilities, you might want to consider OpenOffice Base (or Microsoft Access).

I personally use MySQL for my DB needs, with PHP for report generation.

It entirely depends on your requirements, afaict: do you need to access the data programmatically, do you have a preferred db client? do you want to build a front end on it? If you just want to access it yourself, using sql, then i’d go with sqlite – it works well, it’s small and you can take it anywhere, back it up, anything! It sits as a file on your hard drive, and gets accessed whenever you make a request on it, so not even any processing power/memory is used. When I wouldn’t use sqlite is when you need concurrent access to this, as things start to go pear shaped.

If we’re on the subject of sql clients, I’d recommend SQuirreL which can handle any database that there is a JDBC driver for – I currently use mine for Oracle (OCI/thin), DB2, SQLite, MySQL as well as SQLServer – highly recommended.

Microsoft SQL Server Express is free, and Microsoft has a huge amount of free learning material online.