Excel vs Access: When to Switch to a Database (And When to Skip Access Entirely)

You’ve hit the wall with Excel. The files are too big, too slow, too fragile. Someone mentions Microsoft Access. “It’s like Excel but it’s a real database,” they say. And they’re half right — which is exactly the problem.

Access occupies a strange middle ground. It’s genuinely more capable than Excel for structured data management. It solves real problems that spreadsheets can’t. But it also introduces a whole new set of limitations that many businesses discover only after they’ve invested months migrating into it.

This article will help you figure out whether Access is the right next step, a useful stopover, or something you should skip entirely.

What Access Actually Is

Microsoft Access is a desktop relational database with a built-in form and report builder. In practical terms, that means:

• Structured tables — like Excel tables, but with enforced data types (a number field only accepts numbers, a date field only accepts dates)
• Relationships — you can link tables together. A customer table connects to an orders table, which connects to an order items table. This is fundamentally different from Excel’s flat “everything in one sheet” approach.
• Queries — a way to ask questions of your data without formulas. “Show me all orders from the last 30 days where the total exceeds $5,000” is a query, not a SUMIFS.
• Forms — data entry screens so users don’t interact directly with the tables. They type into a form, and Access handles putting the data in the right place.
• Reports — formatted, printable outputs that pull live data from your tables.

If you’re coming from Excel, the biggest conceptual shift is relationships. In Excel, if a customer has five orders, you either repeat their details on five rows or use a VLOOKUP to connect two sheets. In Access, the customer exists once, and their orders reference them. Change the customer’s address, and every order reflects the update automatically.

Where Access Genuinely Fixes Excel’s Problems

Let’s give it credit. Access solves several issues that make Excel painful at scale.

Data Integrity

Access enforces rules at the database level. A required field can’t be left blank. A number field won’t accept text. A foreign key relationship ensures you can’t create an order for a customer that doesn’t exist. These rules run regardless of who’s entering data or how — no more relying on people to follow conventions.

Structured Relationships

A customer can have many orders. An order can have many line items. A product can appear in many orders. These relationships are modelled properly in Access, which means no data duplication, no inconsistency, and no VLOOKUP chains.

Better Multi-User Access

Access supports multiple simultaneous users on a shared network drive — up to about 10-15 in practice. That’s a meaningful improvement over Excel’s “file locked for editing” problem. With a split database (front-end on each user’s machine, back-end on a server), performance is reasonable for small teams.

Queries Instead of Formulas

Instead of building complex formula chains across sheets, you write queries. Need total sales by customer by month? That’s a straightforward query. Need to find all products that haven’t sold in 90 days? Another query. The logic is separated from the data, which makes it easier to maintain and less likely to break.

Where Access Falls Short

Now for the other half of the story. Access solves Excel’s problems, but it creates new ones that can be just as limiting.

It’s a Desktop Application

Access runs on Windows. Not Mac. Not mobile. Not in a browser. In 2026, that’s a serious constraint. Your field team can’t check data on their phones. Your Mac-using designer can’t access the system. Remote workers need VPN access to a network share. There’s no “open a link and see the dashboard” option.

The Multi-User Ceiling Is Low

Access technically supports up to 255 simultaneous users. In reality, performance degrades noticeably past 10-15 concurrent users, especially over a network. Complex queries slow down. Form loading gets sluggish. Record locking conflicts increase. If your business is growing toward 20+ regular users, you’re already approaching Access’s practical ceiling.

File Size and Performance Limits

An Access database file has a 2GB size limit. That sounds like a lot, but it includes tables, queries, forms, reports, and temporary objects. Databases with large datasets and embedded images or documents hit this limit faster than expected. And unlike a proper database server, Access doesn’t have sophisticated caching or query optimisation — it processes everything through the local machine.

It’s a Single Point of Failure

An Access database is a file on a network drive. If that file corrupts — and Access files do corrupt, especially under heavy multi-user load — you’re recovering from backup. There’s no built-in replication, no automatic failover, no transaction logging that lets you recover to the point of failure. The corruption risk is lower than Excel, but it’s still very real.

Nobody Wants to Maintain It

This is the practical killer. Building an Access database with forms, queries, and reports requires a skill set that’s increasingly rare. VBA in Access is even more niche than VBA in Excel. Finding someone to maintain, modify, or extend an Access application is getting harder every year, and the people who can do it charge accordingly.

When the person who built your Access database leaves, you face the same “black box” problem as with Excel macros — but worse, because the system is more complex and the pool of people who can work on it is smaller.

When to Use Access

Access is a reasonable choice when:

• You’ve outgrown Excel but your needs are modest — 5-15 users, under 50,000 records, Windows-only team
• You need data integrity but not web access — enforced types and relationships matter, browser access doesn’t
• You have someone who can build and maintain it — either in-house or a contractor you trust
• Budget is tight — Access comes with Microsoft 365 Business, so there’s no extra software cost
• You need it fast — a competent Access developer can build a functional system in days, not weeks

When to Skip Access Entirely

Access is a poor choice — and often a wasted step — when:

• You need web or mobile access — if any of your users need to work from a phone, tablet, or Mac, Access is immediately disqualified
• You’re growing past 15 regular users — you’ll hit the performance ceiling within a year or two
• You need integrations — connecting Access to external APIs, accounting software, or email systems is technically possible but painful
• Your data will exceed 2GB — you’ll need to migrate again sooner than you think
• You can’t find someone to maintain it — building it is half the battle; maintaining it as your needs change is the other half

The Third Option: Skip the Stepping Stone

Many businesses go from Excel to Access to a web-based system, taking two painful migrations instead of one. Each migration costs time, money, and disruption. Each requires re-training the team. Each has a period where the old system and new system run in parallel.

If your business is already showing signs that Access won’t be enough in two or three years — web access needs, a growing team, integration requirements — it’s worth asking whether the intermediate step is worth it. Sometimes the smartest move is to skip the stepping stone and go straight to something that’ll last.

That doesn’t always mean custom software. Cloud-based platforms like Airtable, Notion databases, or industry-specific SaaS tools might be the right fit. The key is thinking about where your business will be in three years, not just what you need today.

Practical Decision Framework

Ask yourself these five questions:

1. Do any users need access from a phone, tablet, or Mac? If yes, Access is out.
2. Will more than 15 people use the system regularly? If yes, Access will struggle.
3. Does the data need to connect to other systems? If yes, Access makes this harder than it should be.
4. Can you find someone to maintain an Access database? If no, you’re building a future problem.
5. Will you likely outgrow Access within 3 years? If yes, skip the intermediate migration.

If you answered no to all five, Access is a genuine upgrade from Excel and a cost-effective one. If you answered yes to two or more, you’re better off investing that migration effort into something that won’t need replacing again soon.

Excel is a brilliant tool used past its limits. Access is a capable tool with a shrinking place in the world. The right answer depends on where your business is now and where it’s heading — not on what’s cheapest this quarter.