Web platform and customization; free or affordable

[Jim.H.]

Web platform and customization; free or affordable
Is there any web platform that gives MS Access like capabilities, such as creating tables, forms and reports and have a secure login feature.

[ItsMe]

Visual Studio Express? You can get ASP.Net Visual Web Developer 2010 Express for free. You should be able to download SQL Server 2008 express edition with WEB Developer. Should have an option for VB and C# flavors. Not sure that will get you a free login. Windows authentication will cost. Also, there are other ways to do web development and connect to your server.

A quick google search found this info
http://databases.about.com/od/sqlser...sql_server.htm

[helloworld]

MS Access 2010 or 2013 via SharePoint server or SharePoint Online. You can create an Access Web App. Hosting your own SharePoint server is not really affordable, but using Microsoft's Cloud-Based SharePoint Online, it starts around $3/per user a month.

I do not believe you can use the built in reporting features when hosting the WebApp DB on SharePoint, but you could program your own reports in a .NET language by using SharePoint's lists that are populated by the Access database when hosting it online.

Edit: I will also add that since the Access DB would be hosted on SharePoint, the secure log-in would be handled for you; you would just have to set the permissions for each user to Access the part of the site where the Access WebApp is located if you decided to use SharePoint for more than just hosting the DB.