Comment by jkaplowitz

I wonder if being a more powerful backing data store for Excel is one of the remaining reasonable uses for Microsoft Access, at least for users of the Windows desktop version of Office? Access is still included in many editions of that (although not on Mac or web or mobile). Officially it’s even still supported and not deprecated, although of course it’s very much not emphasized by MS any more.

Other options might be SQL Server Express or SQL Server Express LocalDB, the latter of which seems conceptually very much like SQLite within the MS ecosystem, and both of which are usable for production purposes at no cost within the technical limitations that differentiate them from paid editions.