# What is the best option to use as database or similar?

**URL:** <https://community.make.com/t/what-is-the-best-option-to-use-as-database-or-similar/10256>\
**Category:** Questions\
**Tags:** data-store\
**Created:** [May 3, 2023, 8:57pm UTC](https://community.make.com/t/what-is-the-best-option-to-use-as-database-or-similar/10256 "2023-05-03T20:57:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![iwxfer](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.make.com/iwxfer/32/10365_2.png) [@iwxfer](https://community.make.com/u/iwxfer)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2023, 8:57pm UTC](https://community.make.com/t/what-is-the-best-option-to-use-as-database-or-similar/10256/1 "2023-05-03T20:57:38Z")

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I am wanting to store temporal data that will be used in different scenarios. Where is the best place to store it?  
I was thinking to use Google Spreadsheets. What do you think?

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**Author:** ![XenoMax](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.make.com/xenomax/32/9949_2.png) [@XenoMax](https://community.make.com/u/XenoMax)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2023, 12:27am UTC](https://community.make.com/t/what-is-the-best-option-to-use-as-database-or-similar/10256/2 "2023-05-04T00:27:29Z")

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Make has a solution for that, [Data Stores](https://www.make.com/en/help/tools/data-store)

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**Author:** ![DavidGurr\_Make](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.make.com/davidgurr_make/32/4624_2.png) [@DavidGurr\_Make](https://community.make.com/u/DavidGurr_Make)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2023, 11:17am UTC](https://community.make.com/t/what-is-the-best-option-to-use-as-database-or-similar/10256/3 "2023-05-04T11:17:59Z")

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Data Stores are great to hold persistent data key-value between scenarios, where the data is both generated and consumed by scenarios. As it’s held within your same Make Organization you have the benefit of keeping everything in one place and relatively fast access compared to an external service. You can read about the Data Store allowance on your plan at [https://www.make.com/en/pricing](https://www.make.com/en/pricing) (click “What is Usage Allowance” in the FAQ section).

If you need any kind of UI for your data, then you’d do best to either build a separate scenario for that using a form builder, or instead to use a web database service which includes a UI. [Airtable](https://www.airtable.com) is very popular for this, though there are of course others. [Knack](https://www.knack.com) is especially good if you need fine-grained user access permissions.

If you’re on a Make Free or Core plan and so don’t have [Custom Variables](https://www.make.com/en/help/functions/variables#custom-variables-1529751), it can be handy to hold configuration data in a Google Sheet or Excel.

If you need any kind of relational database, complex queries or large datasets, then you’d be best using a standalone database like [MySQL](https://www.mysql.com) (again, many others available!).

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**Author:** ![Make\_Bot](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.make.com/make_bot/32/14661_2.png) [@Make\_Bot](https://community.make.com/u/Make_Bot)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2023, 4:22pm UTC](https://community.make.com/t/what-is-the-best-option-to-use-as-database-or-similar/10256/6 "2023-12-07T16:22:33Z")

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