Alternative to Dataverse?

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Posted on by Tal22

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Can anyone recommend an alternative to Dataverse? I tried MS Lists, but it is limited and does not support any real forms. I just want to build in an environment where build simple forms and views and also delete tables or edit the relationships between them.

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,488 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @Tal22

You said you tried MS Lists, my recommendation would be SharePoint. It's going to be the closest and free thing (assuming you have Office Licenses)

Now before you start listing well it doesn't do this or it does not do that... you are asking to replace a Business Transactional System that is designed to do a zillion things on purpose, where-as there are no other "comparable" things because DV is a platform for doing this.

However, SharePoint has great forms, relationships, AI, etc. But do not think of it as exactly like a database, which is how you are talking, because if you want that and you want forms etc etc, then use SQL Server and build Canvas Apps on top.

That or use SharePoint.

Bingo, for the win :-)

If these suggestions help resolve your issue, Please consider Marking the answer as such and also maybe a like.

Thank you!
Sincerely, Michael Gernaey

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WarrenBelz 153,117 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Tal22,

Adding to @Michael E. Gernaey's comments, I have used nothing but SharePoint across many customers over 8 years on some quite substantial apps and have yet to find function I could not achieve to the customer's satisfaction. That is not to say you might have a quite different data model that may require something different. One of the great things about SharePoint as a data source is that it is OOB with no extra licence costs.

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Tal22 259 on at

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Michael E. Gernaey

I tried MS Lists and the creating a form with it. The failing with MS List is that those who I share it with only have Viewing permissions which means they cannot add to or edit the list. I don't see the logic of not allowing users to edit a list. Very lame!

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WarrenBelz 153,117 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Tal22,

I am not sure how you used MS Lists, but SharePoint has none of the limitations you mention, certainly no restrictions on the sharing and permisisons with users to read/write/create records. Shane Young has a very good video on the ranking of Data Sources for Power Apps.

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,488 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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HI @Tal22

MS Lists and SharePoint are not the same thing. That is why I recommended SharePoint

If you want to allow users to edit lists they can, but if you want them to Edit lists and any Forms you create those are different things. Possibly but different.

SharePoint is still the best alternative.

Is there more information not already provided by my original answer that you need? In addition to @WarrenBelz ?s

As the question has been answered more than a week ago, please respect those that take the time to answer.

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Tal22 259 on at

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@Michael E. Gernaey

I built several SharePoint lists, but now, when clicking on the one I just built, I get this:

The link takes me to the backend. Anyway, Dataverse is way to clunky - the UI for building forms and view is crap. SharePoint lists are half baked tech - typical of Microsoft. I am going back to Access, which is one of the few solid applications Microsoft offers.

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WarrenBelz 153,117 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Tal22,

I will add a comment to your regression exercise. I was an Access developer for 15+ years before transitioning quickly and completely to Power Apps 8 years ago, almost exclusively using SharePoint across many customers. Yes, I missed a couple of things in the development space, which were more convenience issues than function roadblocks, but the flexibility it gave the customer outcome, particularly multi-site and multi-device office/mobile and more importantly integration of file storage and image store/view made it a no-brainer.

I have not found anything I could not replicate functionality from Access to Power Apps.

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Tal22 259 on at

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@WarrenBelz

My non-profit organization doesn't have Power Apps's licensing for staff. We have a front SaaS for our main human services system and Zoho Analytics for the back-end reporting. They have a need some apps outside the client centric SaaS. I've built a few SharePoint Lists but, as indicated in my post, SP lists is buggy and unreliable. Access is my only choice to build solid apps.

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,488 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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HI @Tal22

Yeah, it really depends on what you want to do.

When you are saying Power Apps, it's not specific to Model-driven (aka Forms in Dataverse), versus building your own forms in Canvas Apps, versus building forms in SharePoint directly, versus Microsoft Forms, etc.

I have no idea what you did wrong not to see any data, whether the real list has no data, or if you added columns only that have no data.

SharePoint is the primarily used separate from Dataverse, which is the question.

Also to make one clarification. Dataverse doesn't make forms, the Power Platform aspect is Model-driven forms, simply derived by the Data Model behind it.

I've never found it clunky in... 25 years, but hey hehe everyone is open to their opinion, but as it relates to costs, Dataverse licenses versus free SharePoint SP is the way to go.,

Access is ok, it is not comparable to what you can do in SharePoint all up (not even close), but it certainly is a Simplified way to create forms for a smaller load.

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