DBeaver v. MySQL Workbench v. POPSQL v. Visual Studio Code.
a comparative analysis of SQL client tools.
4 min readMay 23, 2020
Based on features:
DBeaver
DBeaver is a free universal database tool and SQL client, built based on Eclipse RCP platform.
- Supported platforms: DBeaver works on all platforms supported by Eclipse framework, previously Windows, Linux, MacOS, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX. Starting from version 4.2, it limited its support to Windows, MacOS, and Linux only.
- Supported Drivers: DBeaver community version can work with any database server which has JDBC driver (basically all of them or almost all of them): MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, SQLite, Oracle, to DB2, SQL Server, Sybase, MS Access, Teradata, Firebird, Derby, Snowflake, etc.
- The enterprise adds support for non-JDBC data sources (WMI, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis).
- Pricing: DBeaver has a community version (DBeaver CE) which is free and open source. There’s also an enterprise edition (DBeaver EE) with more driver support, more advanced features and dedicated customer support for enterprises.
Pros:
- Cross-platform
- Multiple drivers support
- Assigning connection color
- Entity-relationship diagrams are available
- Built-in reformat SQL
Cons:
- It runs on a Java virtual machine, eats up a lot of RAM while running.
- Autocomplete is slow, and not so smart.
MySQL Workbench
MySQL WorkBench offers a full-featured administration tool for MySQL on multiple operating systems.
- Supported platforms: MySQL Workbench is cross-platform. It’s available on Mac, Windows, Linux.
- Supported Drivers: MySQL Workbench supports all versions of MySQL because it’s built by the MySQL at Oracle. It supports Snowflake Data warehouse.
- Pricing: MySQL Workbench also has a community version which is free and open source. The other two commercial versions for enterprises are subscription based with enterprise features and support.
Pros:
- It’s cross-platform. In case you work on more than one operating system, you don’t have to use a different tool and the experiences will be consistent.
- It includes everything a data modeler needs for creating complex ER models
- It has a Visual Performance Dashboard
- A complete and easy to use tools for database migration.
- Ability to cancel long queries without hanging.
- It provides fast access to server status and other information.
- It shows multiple result sets.
- It’s easy to create and edit views, procedures & functions.
Cons:
- Snowflake driver should be added manually.
- The UI is unintuitive. It is packed with a lot of features.
- Doesn’t have SQL Assist.
POPSQL :
PopSQL is a modern, collaborative SQL editor for teams that lets you write queries, visualize data, and share your results.
- Supported platforms: It’s available on Mac, Windows,Linux.
- Supported Drivers: BigQuery, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and many more.
- Pricing: It comes with 14 days free trail.
Pros :
- Collaborate in realtime, just like a Google Doc .
- Share queries by URL, and organize them in folders. Folders can be private to you, or shared with your team.
- PopSQL magically generates the best chart to visualize your data.
- Share database connections with your team for easier setup.
Cons:
- Licensing is cost may be higher.
- Support is not much available for now.
- Connection setup didn’t work as expected for trail version
Data Grip :
DataGrip is a multi-engine database integrated development environment (IDE) designed by JetBrains that enables developers to execute queries intelligently and perform efficient schema navigation.
- Supported platforms: DataGrip is cross-platform. It works well on macOS, Linux, and Windows.
- Supported Drivers: DataGrip supports a whole lot of databases: Postgres, MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, Azure, Redshift, SQLite, DB2, H2, Sybase, Exasol, Derby, MariaDB, HyperSQL, Clickhouse.
- Pricing: DataGrip doesn’t have a community version. You can download and use the free trial for 30 days, then you need to pay for a subscription service. It costs $8.9/mo for an individual and $19.9/mo/user for business.
Pros:
- It supports multiple drivers
- It has smart context-sensitive and schema-aware code completion.
- A visual table editor lets you add, remove, edit, and clone data rows.
- It has version control support
- Refactoring support
Cons:
- It’s not user-friendly. It takes time to learn how to use it.
- It doesn’t run fast, compared to similar tools. It will be very sluggish when working with high-volume databases. It can use up to several GB’s of memory.
VSC
Visual Studio Code is a lightweight but powerful source code editor which runs on your desktop and is available for Windows, macOS and Linux. It comes with built-in support for JavaScript, TypeScript and Node.js and has a rich ecosystem of extensions for other languages (such as C++, C#, Java, Python, PHP, Go) and runtimes (such as .NET and Unity).
- Supported platforms: is cross-platform. It works well on macOS, Linux, and Windows.
- Supported Drivers: Casandra, MySQL. Snowflake driver is available in Github.
Pros:
- Supports most programming languages.
Cons:
- Github dependent for drivers (?)
- Installation is not very intuitive.
Summary…
So, I’d say
DBeaver for —
- if you dealing lots of kinds of databases,
- prefer an old-fashioned design with many function buttons,
- a get-er-done kinda tool
DataGrip if you -
- are comfortable with the cost
- need a full-featured tool
- & don’t mind the sluggishness (memory usage is high)
🤷♂️
Thanks for reading.
