Jet & Access vs VistaDB

VistaDB is a replacement for Microsoft Access on the desktop

VistaDB was designed from the ground up as an alternative database engine for developers using the Access runtime components to manage data through managed code. If you are running .Net applications with Access as your backend database, you should review VistaDB as an alternative.

VistaDB is not a replacement for Microsoft Access as an end user desktop forms application and it is not designed for end-users or VBA developers using Microsoft Access to build applications. If you have forms, linked tables and other Access only objects in your databases you will have to migrate them to .Net applications first.

VistaDB as an alternative to Microsoft Jet

VistaDB makes an excellent alternative to the Microsoft Jet database engine. VistaDB is actually smaller and easier to deploy than Jet, but allows the same level of functionality in the managed application space. If you are developing VB.net or C# applications and need a desktop SQL database engine to replace Jet look no further than VistaDB.

VistaDB provides Cross-Platform support for single and multi user environments.

Microsoft Access is not a data engine by itself, it is actually an application that uses the relies on the Microsoft Jet engine to perform the actual data storage and retrieval on the .MDB data files. The Jet engine was originally designed as a single-user desktop database engine, which as most developers know, does not work well in multi-user and web server applications.

VistaDB supports cross-platform scenarios with Linux & Mac (under Mono) and iOS & Android (using Xamarin). Access and Jet are exclusive to the Windows platform.

VistaDB can run 32 and 64 bit from a single .Net assembly

As of Office 2010 Microsoft introduced a 64-bit version of Access but if you want to deploy on 32-bit and 64-bit you will have to distribute both with your application and have the user install the appropriate engine. If a user installs their own version of Office it may overwrite the common settings that control which engine is invoked, breaking your application.

In comparison, VistaDB uses a single file for 32 and 64-bit ensuring that you don’t need to worry about what architecture your application is running on.