r/Database

Hey, I know almost nothing about how database software works, and do not have the time currently to learn it, but I do have a need to keep track of something.

I'm looking for an (open source/free) application that would let me make "profiles" of people, and then link pictures to those profiles. Preferably this would be local and not need to be hosted in any way - I just want to put everything needed on a hard drive, open the application and then open the database from there.

It sounds to me like I need something like a local contact database? But I'm not knowledgeable about databases in the slightest, so I have no idea how to begin looking. I would greatly appreciate any recommendations that might fit my need.

Thanks a lot in advance!

Say I have a table with users:

USERS
-----
ID
EMAIL
PASSWORD
CREATED_AT
UPDATED_AT

then I also create a table to track changes:

USERS_LOGS
----------
USER_ID
TIMESTAMP
ID
EMAIL
PASSWORD
CREATED_AT
UPDATED_AT

Does it make sense to have CreatedAt and UpdatedAt on the USERS entity if there is already a "TIMESTAMP" field in USERS_LOGS?

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Let me know what you think.

I have a VM (for ease lets name it ALPHA) with multiple instance of MySQL. Each instance have their own user, my.cnf, datadir. I used systemd. Not docker due to the requirement being suitable. Less resource use and all instance uses the same version of mysql.

I have a question. How do i set a cluster with the ALHPA which holds all the instances to to be a primary node in the cluster and the secondary nodes (2 secondary nodes) will have the same instances and replicate all those instances. Its it even possible to do it natively?

Why i set it like this is because the requirement specifically asks for each system manage their own instance and have their own encryption and configuration.

Been searching and I can't find a lot of information about how to do it and the few I've found is either too confusing, old or for Windows when I'm using Linux Mint.

I also tried with LibreOffice Database but nothing. And trying to use MySQL Workbench results in failure. I've asked on various Discord servers, Facebook and different subreddits but no one seems to give me better insight.

What should I do?

Hey data folks, I'm looking for an open source cloud database to store telecom distributor data.

This project is both personal and professional the distributor I'm building this for is my uncle,

so I want to help him generate insights from his distribution data and get a clearer picture of his

business. I'll be using Power BI for the dashboard and visualization.

The challenge is I don't know which open source database to go with. Azure and AWS are off

the table since their free tiers only last 30 days, and I need something long-term.

Also want to avoid Google Sheets or Drive it doesn't feel like a proper database, and

honestly when explaining the tech stack later, it won't sound great. Looking for something more

structured and scalable.

In short, my requirements are:

1. Open source database that a non-tech person can easily use to insert data

2. Can connect with Power BI

3. At least 1 GB of free storage

in many environments, data constantly flows from SaaS platforms like Google Workspace, Slack, Salesforce, and similar tools into internal databases, warehouses, or BI pipelines through exports, integrations, and automated syncs. The difficult part seems to be understanding whether the original access and sharing permissions around that data were already too broad before ingestion even happened.

What makes this especially messy is that SaaS permissions tend to change gradually over time. External collaborators get added temporarily, links remain active longer than expected, and inherited access quietly expands visibility without anyone intentionally creating a security issue.

Please don't judge me, I'm not applying for a DB job, I just want to get basic design principles. If possible very example driven, why to use one to many in this case, or not to use. I know that every field needs years to master, even what I mentioned, I don't want to master it :-)

So any course suggestions?

[Edit] SQL is not a huge problem, I want to know things like, should everything related to a user be a huge table? Should I put flags about his password in the same table as his address. Or separate tables based in some principles?

Im trying to wrap my head on how to program to apply payments against invoices.

I have a data table for invoices and one for payments so far

User selects new payment and is taken to the payment screen

User selects customer

A list is populated with any invoices with a balance above zero for that customers id

User enters amount of payment, and also how much of that goes to each invoice

When user hits DONE, the program would check if the overall amount matches the sums of all amount entered to each invoice

But there is a payment details data table im missing? And how does it tie in to hold the “where payment was applied”?

I have a Windows 11 machine. I want to create a database which contains records sorted by date. For each date, I will have a text file, and a video that could be 1 or 2 gigabytes. The resulting file will be in the order of a terabyte. I am the only person who will ever use this database. Which free or cheap software do I need to create and use this database?

I'm looking for easy to use (no or minimal coding involved) database that will work on both Mac and PC. I have a lot of records for a residency program that I want to be searchable and easy to use and pull information from. Bonus points if alumni can send updates directly to the database. Not a lot of sensitive information, but also not information I want widely shared.

Hi, I'm basically a new FM user and would like to create a custom database, including relationships for student attendance and study progress. There is an existing Access database so i guess i can export most tables to csv for a start.
But it would obviously help me a lot if i could use AI with natural language to explain what i want, providing the csv tables and to see whether the AI could cook up something actually decent I can already start using.
Any tutorials or methods to get started that way ?

I currently use an excel spreadsheet to keep track of horses and their trip notes. I am looking to build a database that’s a little cleaner to be able to filter easier and store this data, compared to an excel sheet. Any thoughts/direction on how to accomplish this?