Alpha Five Database Software

I recently purchased Alpha Five v9 Platinum Edition, a database management/development tool. As a SoftVelocity Clarion user, I was intrigued by Alpha Five's description of itself as a RAD application for developing ajax-rich database-driven websites. Wow, I thought, a rapid application development tool for only $159 -- you've got to be kidding. Nope, the offer is good and the service has been stellar.

Here's some additional marketing-speak from the Alpha Five website:

With Alpha Five, you can build mission critical applications (using the built-in database or any SQL database) easily and in a small fraction of the time of alternatives like PHP, JAVA, .NET, VB, Filemaker, MS Access, or Ruby.

In my one week of using the product (yes, very limited experience), I've been impressed with how quickly I am able to create a table, set relationships, design a form, and construct a printed report. Although the interface heralds back to Access 2003 days, the underlying database structures, drivers, and performance seem quite solid. Oh, I also have to mention that I purchased the Web bundle for $299, that includes a Alpha Five proprietary web server. Launch the server, tell it what port to listen to, publish your database using grid components from Alpha Five Premium, and you've got yourself a database-driven web application. Very simple and straightforward -- again, I've done all this in one week of on-and-off usage.

If you want to see something really impressive, check out Steve Wood's AlphaToGo website -- it is completely driven by Alpha Five, as a content management system. Posted by Glen Coulthard on February 19, 2009 in Technology • Comments (0)

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