IndiDatabase Revives Lotus Approach Model for Small Businesses

GEORGETOWN, KY, UNITED STATES, October 6, 2026 /CourierPR/ -- More than twenty years after Lotus Approach was discontinued, a local-first desktop database brings back the visual form, report designer, and shareable apps. More than twenty years after Lotus Approach was discontinued, a local-first desktop database, indiDatabase 1.0, has been released by Indomitus Group, bringing back the visual form, report designer, and shareable apps of the discontinued Lotus Approach model. The product, indiDatabase 1.0, is designed to meet the needs of small businesses, nonprofits, and offices by allowing them to design tables, draw forms, and print reports without the need to write code. Instead, the user can use a visual form and report designer to customize the database, which is stored in one file on the user’s own computer. This file can be shared across the office without the need for a server or subscription, and the result can be packaged as a file that others can use.

The release of indiDatabase 1.0 is a significant return to the functionality of Lotus Approach, which was discontinued in the early 2000s. Many of its users still rely on Lotus Approach in virtual machines, and the visual desktop databases that remain have largely moved to per-seat annual subscriptions, with office sharing sold separately as a server product. indiDatabase 1.0, however, offers a different model, storing an entire database, including tables, data, forms, reports, saved finds, users, and history, in one file on the user’s own computer. This file can be shared across the office without the need for a server or subscription, and the result can be packaged as a file that others can use.

The release of indiDatabase 1.0 comes after a customer request for a program that could replace Lotus Approach.

IndiDatabase 1.0 offers a solution to this problem by providing a visual form and report designer that allows users to design and customize their databases without the need to write code. The product also offers the ability to export an app as a template file, carrying its complete design, including tables, joins, forms, reports, saved finds, and styles, and make it again in any other indiDatabase file. Only the design travels, and records never do. This allows organizations to hand their application to another organization, which gets the same working application in its own database, ready for its own data.

The product offers a sharing feature that allows one file to be shared with every computer on the local network, and the file never leaves the machine holding it. Pairing uses a short code read across the room, and every connection is encrypted and pinned to the host. A record being edited by someone else is refused by that person's name, and every screen refreshes within moments of a save. The computer holding the file is the server, and there is nothing to install on another machine, nothing hosted, and no per-seat meter running.

IndiDatabase 1.0 is available now for Linux and Windows at www.indomitusgroup.com, with a 30-day free trial of the full product. The Windows installer is code-signed by Indomitus Group LLC. Pricing and availability are as follows: indiDatabase, $199 one-time, indiDatabase Multi-User, $399 one-time, unlimited computers on the network.

IndiDatabase 1.0 is a privacy-first, one-time-purchase desktop application that brings back the visual form, report designer, and shareable apps of the discontinued Lotus Approach model. The product is designed to meet the needs of small businesses, nonprofits, and offices by allowing them to design tables, draw forms, and print reports without the need to write code. It stores an entire database, including tables, data, forms, reports, saved finds, users, and history, in one file on the user’s own computer. This file can be shared across the office without the need for a server or subscription, and the result can be packaged as a file that others can use. The product offers a visual form and report designer that allows users to design and customize their databases without the need to write code. It also offers the ability to export an app as a template file, carrying its complete design, including tables, joins, forms, reports, saved finds, and styles, and make it again in any other indiDatabase file. Only the design travels, and records never do. This allows organizations to hand their application to another organization, which gets the same working application in its own database, ready for its own data.