I put together a little DIY fieldwork database server using nearly entirely open source tools and software. It consists of a Raspberry Pi operating on a local network, which contains a MariaDB server, a SMB file sharing server, an R Shiny server, and automatic scheduled backups, but can be configured or extended to suit whatever situation you're in. This is a more collaborative and distributed setup than a typical Microsoft Access setup (or even worse, a series of scattered spreadsheets :z), since multiple users can simultaneously enter data stored in a unified and central directory, share files across the network, and browse what's going on across an entire project. Microsoft Access, on the other hand, is proprietary, expensive and windows-only software that has poor multi-user support and the learning curve is steeper than its worth (I could go on...).
Moreover, this is a very inexpensive and portable setup. In terms of hardware, you will need a 35$ Raspberry Pi, a 32GB SD card (al