Ninox - the first REAL Bento replacement!

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!

Jazz4Me about Ninox Database