Ninox Database App Reviews

It’s actually fairly decent, and does satisfy a niche, but without any kind of ACLs the sensitivity of the information should be kept to minimal. Hopefully the developers add some kind of encryption and at least a database level password.

Ninox does quite a good job of showing tables of flat database information. Very functional in this regard. It also has a simple relational database ability. The relational database may work better than I have been able to create but it is impossible to know because the manual is very poorly written. For instance, the invoice template uses a relational database to create a scroll table that works quite well but the manual has no information on how to create this type of display. The program appears to be quite stable. The only problem is that some table configurations I have created are not saved within the program and they have to be recreated each time. I give this App three stars due to the awful manual.

Ive used Ninox for less than a week, but I am impressed with its capabilities. I was originally put off by the cost, having already been burnt by low cost dbs. I took a database I had originally set up in Filemaker and redid it in Ninox. Ive put just under 10,000 records into 3 tables and set up relationships between them. Ive found Ninox to be unexpectedly fast, and as other reviewers have noted, a little quirky in the UI department. However, once I got past its UI and spent a little time using Ninox, I became a fan. This is not to say its perfect. There are features missing which I think are needed. For example, there is no reporting capability. You can export data, but in my opinion, the export feature in Ninox doesnt replace a good report generation function. Id also like to be able to save my dbs where I wish. Support is handled via email, and there is as yet no user forum. I sent one question to the developers and was pleased to receive a response in only a few hours. Not sure how the email response time will fare as the Ninox user base increases, though. All in all, Ninox appears to be a fairly powerful database capability, with some holes, but well worth the $35 pricetag. I’m looking forward to future Ninox releases and am hoping that the Ninox developers will do for database software what the Affinity guys are doing for graphics design and photography.

For those of you that really want a full-featured database with extensive relational capabilities and an excellent user interface look no further! I have used this app since the beginning and every update that comes out provides meaningful additional capabilities and not just bells & whistles. After Bento turned vapourware I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on alternatives which had steep learning curves to the point where one would have to spend more time learning the application than putting it into productive use. The new graph capabilities and the addition of an adjustable form view window are really nice! The thing that really surprises me is the speed of this app. It is fast! The development team has done an excellent in refining this. I’m staying with this for the long term and have already committed to building databases of significant size. Absolutely stunning job on this!

It is REALLY REALLY BAD! Hard to use, bad interface, widgets not working, no menus, lack of help. Never seen something worse. NO DEMO AVAILABLE, so you have to buy it to realize that is rubbish. ***WASTED MONEY, REALLY A THEFT***** BAD.

I do not write many reviews. Maybe one or two in the past. I was compelled to write this review because I am super thrilled with this application. In order to make a database that was going to work for my needs (and sync with my iPad), I tried Filemaker (the trial version), which was great but really expensive and frankly out of my budget, Tapforms, which is also great that I will be using for more simplified databases, and verious apps which I hoped I could customize, but couldn’t after all. Also, I wanted something that didn’t live on someone else’s server in order to protect my information. I found Ninox and ended up buying the mac version, as well as the IPAD version. I will admit that it took me several weeks of tinkering and reviewing the information in their manual to get to figure it out. I am not very database/computer savvy, but now that I found my groove, it is amazing. What I like about this vs. the other apps I have tried is the ability to customize your databases, but the clincher was that you can easily build reports and pretty charts within your databases and create and customize invoices that you can print and send within the app. I wanted to let everyone know that this is fantastic and if the other apps out there want to compete, they will take note. I hope Ninox stays around for a long time because I don’t ever want to be without it.

I just upgraded to Yosemite. Up to now I use SBook, a very old free form database that worked well for me for a long time. It non- longer works. I had never heard of Ninox but I am desperate and bought it. I then created a file and told it to import the raw data that was produced by sbook found of course in Document. Wow! I made a search and boom! The answer was just there in front of my eyes. That is all I did so far. I never inputted anything in it yet. That is all I know about Ninox but this makes me very happy because i non- longer have a easy access to my data using sBook. I was almost reverting to 10.9 because of the death of my old friend sBook.

This is a full blown database. For curiosity I created the same database functionality for which I needed 2 days in Filemaker in just around 2 hours in Ninox - I didn’t find any serious functional restrictions to do that. As a personal database or a small team database this product is impressive. For teams, the possibility to connect the database to a cloud service others than icloud (for example dropbox) is missing but would be very helpful. The only thing to get used to are some handling specialties: At the beginning I kicked myself all the time out of ninox. The buttons for exit, database overview or table overview should be more distinguished. It shouldnt be possible to exit the product just by clicking the wrong button - a warning message would be very helpful. But anyway - a really serious and strong database.

Its rare for me to write reviews of software, but this app deserves your attention! Many of us are lamenting the disappearance of Bento, the great little database on the Mac and iOS. When Bento was discontinued we were faced with the prospect of upgrading to FileMaker (which Ive used in the past to develop business applications) or to one of the other relatively new small databases. Upgrading is a HUGE expense, while none of the Bento "replacements" are really all that attractive (either in appearance or ease of use.) For some reason no one is talking about Ninox, a true Bento replacement from Austria. Ive been using it for a specific task, one which Ive used Bento for in the past, and Ive come away impressed. Unlike the competition in the former Bento space, Ninox LOOKS like a Mac app. If youve tried some of the AppStore alternatives with their circa-1998 user interfaces and wished for the beauty that was Bento, Ninox will be a breath of fresh air. While not *quite* as pretty as Bento, Ninox still looks good and because its very much a Mac/iOS app everything is done with drag-and-drop functionality. (Building calculations is actually fun!) As I mentioned, I have this little app that Ive used in Bento and rebuilt in both Tapforms and now Ninox. Ninox was by far the fastest to get up and running; Bento was second; and Tapforms was far back in third place. I had to consult the online documentation only once, largely to get a feel for how they handled the database structure. The rest was fairly intuitive and quite easy to figure out, and in many ways I ended up with a more sophisticated database than I had with either of the others. There are a few small things missing but I suspect the developers will sort them out quickly; there is no auto-incrementing number field, for instance; you can probably write a formula to do that (add one to the last record number), but it would be nice to have it done automatically. Its screen layout options arent as comprehensive as Bentos, but theyre attractive and very functional. Like Bento the printing options are a little limited, but whats there seems to be a bit more flexible than Bento. (I rate it as 4.5 stars, a half star off only because I want the ability to upgrade it to 5 stars when the next version comes out and some of this little functionality is added!) One of the big features of Ninox is its iCloud support, which works excellently. The iPad version of my database looks and functions exactly like its Mac counterpart, making the transition between desktop and tablet as seamless as it gets; it may, in fact, be the only database thats so far achieved this distinction. Ninox is, as I mentioned, an Austrian company; if you go to their website its in German (if theres an English option, I couldnt find it!) Dont worry, though, because the documentation is in English (good English, not the Google translate variety you find with some apps) and they have English-speaking support (to whom I suggested a feature improvement; they responded quickly, on a weekend no less!) Ninox is well polished and compared to its competition its bug-free (near as I can tell, anyhow; Ive used just about all the functions and havent found a flaw yet, which is definitely not the case with some of the other databases.) I believe it to be the very best Bento alternative anyone has yet come up with and far ahead of anything comparable on the Mac or iOS. If you’re trying to decide between Ninox and Tapforms, take it from someone who has purchased both and has the database experience to make an informed choice: I’m using Ninox!

at first: the total on-line documentation is about 12 pages and tells you WHAT you can do and WHY you might want to do it, but not HOW (hence 4 stars). Took me several hours. But once I got it, it really shines. Quick, appetizing, it walzes through changes in schema without a hitch or complaint. Easy reporting, with the ability to save report formats. Full of lurking sub-menus which keeps the interface uncluttered, but remember: if ‘lost’, always try CONTROL-CLICK!! Having spent more hours and developing more functionality, I have to say that this is some piece of systems’ programming. With all my changes and experiments, it never hung. It has the ability to nest one table inside another (composition) that is elegant (for instance, the maintenance log items for each piece of machinery). Then, if you ditch the machine, you get a cascading delete (yes, I know, very bad for referential integrity, but here it’s just fine). This is not even on the same planet as a flat-filer––with some planning, you can achieve 2nd normal form. Worth five stars. And get this: I sent an email to support (in Germany, in English (which embarrasses me, since I’ve been working on German for about five years)) about delinking an item related in error. I got an answer, in perfect English, brief and to the point, in less than 12 hours. The answer: use the little menu and pick de-link. The illustrated examples are in German.

I am no superuser/developer for Access but did have some utility apps that I used regularly before moving to a Mac. This is the only database app I have found that works for those needs. Thank you!

I run an independent video company and this app is great for managing my clients and billing.Small learning curve if you have had experience with relational databases.

Is wonderful! Affordable! PERFECT

This now the “mobile” database app I use. It syncs very nicely with Ninox for iPhone and iPad (I got the paid version) using iCloud and dooes not require you to have a server (like FileMaker). The UI is not too intuitive, but the learning curve is not steep and you can up an running in less than an hour. The instruction manual is not as polished, but it is helpful. Tech support is super responsive. I highly recommend it!!

I’m a long, time HanDBase user and still prefer HanDBase for some aspects of their app (Relationship fields for one). What they don’t have (and I’ve bugged ‘em about) is iCloud syncing of a DB across all your Apple devices. This has iCloud syncing and it works wonderfully. The new graphing capability is much appreciated. I’d have given this app a five if only their English documentation was complete. Apparently the developer expects you to use their somewhat meager documentation and then experiment with their various templates till a light bulb comes on. Once it did, I was off to the races and now alternate between HanDBase and Ninox depending on whether I need a feature that is limited to one app or the other.

I have spent hundreds of dollars on every crm app out there. This one is all you need. I just donloaded it 20 minutes ago and all my data is in a customiziable database that is now running my business. Most importanty you can upload via csv and it reads all you files and fields! Imagine that. All I need now is the iPhone app to sync it to. If you were running act or something like that (i was) Get this app.

I have tried many other database apps for the Mac since Bento died. This is by far the best. It’s fast and easy to get up and running, and has features such as formula felds and table relationships that advanced will appreciate

I tried to use this program because I was looking for a relational database less intense than Filemaker but better designed and more stable than Tap Forms. I though I’d found it in Ninox but I was wrong. The *excellent* functionality of this program is crippled by a half-baked, clunky and completely unusable UI. There are virtually no keyboard commands, navigation between different databases is torture with many mouseclicks to accomplish what should really take just one to do. There are very few buttons and widgets to close windows, forms and tables. Instead one is forced to use the mouse and click around for nearly EVERY SINGLE interaction. Actually USING the program to create and use a database is so unintuitive, frustrating and unforgiving that I’ve asked Apple for my money back. It’s way too bad becuase from what I can tell the database functionality is very good, it’s been stable, full-featured and syncing with iOS works perfectly. I just can’t have such a poorly designed, clunky program for everyday use. Company needs to hire a professional interface designer and they’d give Filemaker some badly needed competition.

Once you understand that this app is designed to essentially work the same across Mac and iOS, you’ll see how brilliant the design is. The lack of keyboard shortcuts is suddenly not a shortcoming anymore - an iPad doesn’t have a keyboard. Enabling a developer to design and build an entire database with his fingers is nothing but revolutionary. And the database model is not *that* flat - I’m finding that there’s enough relationality for my admittedly simple needs. If you take the time to learn it, it will reward you with a set of apps sharing UI and data right across your Mac, iPhone and iPad. I’ve searched the entire app store and internet world for an app to record my modest coin collection. Ninox gave me a perfect functional fit in two days (most of it ramp-up time). These developers are brilliant. Every time you find the solution after getting impatient, they force you to admit: "yes, you’ve already thought of this." Give it some time - it will reward you over and over.

I’ve been researching and testing database apps for the Mac for months and I finally landed on this one. It is a great deal for what you get.