The Best Tools to Build Your Own App

My first PC—a Compaq LTE laptop—was a limited little beast. It weighed a ton, had only a 75Mhz processor, and would struggle on anything beyond DOS games and SimCity. And of all the things it could have come with, it only included 2 Office apps: Word and Access '97.

And so, I made my first apps. I wanted Excel, but didn't have it, so I made little Access tools for the things I wanted: a basic schedule, a stamp collection database, a contacts book, a crude finance tool. I never did that much with it—didn't even dig into coding macros—but it was enough to make me excited about the possibilities of making software without programming (all the more exciting as I sloughed through Java textbooks).

Today, there's a lot more you can do without coding, from far more polished versions of Access and web apps that are even easier to use. I've just rounded up the best of them on the Zapier blog, along with some tips on how to use your new simple tools alongside the rest of your software. It was a fun exploration for me, and hopefully will help you find the tool to jumpstart your next project.

Next time you need a tool, don't open the App Store. Fire up one of these apps instead, and see what you can make on your own. And have fun!

Continue reading at https://zapier.com/blog/simple-database-app-builders/

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