That's what I've read, and what I've experienced with my limited Power Apps "play time." I'm still learning it though, and hope to put together some videos on it soon. I'm too inexperienced with Power Apps at this time to make a definitive judgement though.

But as far as local, PC, desktop-based, front-end database design, NOTHING beats Access. :)

And yeah, I have to qualify that because Access isn't a web-based tool, and it's not a database server like SQL Server. But it is the best at what it does.

I find both the cumbersome and unwieldy. You have to jump through several hoops just to share a Model Driven Form view and even more steps to create a form. And the UI and the UX is awful - built for pro developers, not for citizen users. It feels like MS slapped Power Platform together to keep up with the other online application platforms. My organization wants to move towards cloud apps. I am looking at Zoho.

The closest equivalent to Access is the "canvas apps"  of Power Apps, not model-driven apps.  A canvas app lets you make continuous forms (called "galleries"), combo boxes, command buttons, and other Access-like features.  Power Apps is supposedly a "low-code" environment, but you still have to learn its unique coding method called "Power Fx," which has a passing resemblance to Excel functions.

Thanks Kevin, I ran into several bugs playing with Power Apps. I am hesitant to invest time and energy learning Power Apps until it becomes a more mature platform. What do you recommend?

Power Apps is for online multi-platform usages.  Another way to do that is a web interface designed with ASP or ASP.Net with a database backend suitable for online use such as SQL Server.  This method can be done locally and/or online, whereas the Power Platform is all done online, from design to live.  And that's another thing that makes me not want to use the Power Platform.

The bane of any online-only solution is that if it went out of business or discontinued in any way, all your work would likely go down the drain.  I could still run Access 97 or 2.0 if I wanted to because by nature their files always reside locally.  But data that require an online frontend would likely be unusable if said frontend were gone.  I'm kind of old-school (worked in the 90s to 10s, retired a few years ago), so I'm a lot more averse to online-only solutions than probably the current generation of techies.

Kevn, you make a good argument for avoiding online only solutions. I am a boomer working primarily with Gen Z and Millennials. They don't like the dated look of Access forms and also want everything on their phones. And they are not nearly as tech savvy as advertised. It is a battle to get buy in on Access, but I forge on.

You make nice-looking interface only if it is what your business bottom line requires.  If not, then you just discard the request.  Regarding phones, see if online multi-platform access is required by your bottom line as well.  Of course, "bottom line" is only what you define it to be.  If you have "competitors" that offer those features that you don't, you may consider adding them to your requirements if you haven't.