
Show HN: TablePlus – A macOS client for relational databases - bit_4l
https://medium.com/tableplus/modern-native-tool-for-relational-database-79efc35b647d
======
ble52
Love it! Please don't bother with people who don't care about proper native
experience. I've been waiting for a tool like that for sooooo long and I'm
really happy to see it. I love when developers use the platform to its full
extent instead fighting with it (like Electron and all rest of cross-platform
approaches)

And for those whining about "macOS-only" \- take a look at Tower, a Git client
that was initially macOS-only as well. They later released a dedicated, native
Windows version, just like the developer of TablePlus wants to do, and it's
awesome. True native experience will always win in my heart with cross-
platform solutions and that's where I'm putting my money.

~~~
hungerstrike
I'm happy with what I already have on Windows. I've never seen a better client
than SQL Server Management Studio or SQL Server Data Tools and this tool
doesn't look like it even comes close.

Honestly, I've never seen a native macOS app that I thought was any good
though. That's why I typically just use them to compile my stuff for iOS. If I
have to use some program on a Mac, I hope it's got a somewhat familiar
interface and that's why I prefer Electron apps like VSCode on macOS.

~~~
matthewmacleod
_Honestly, I 've never seen a native macOS app that I thought was any good
though_

Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but I do find it ludicrous, and
I'm sure many other people will too.

Proper, well-implemented macOS apps are great – ones that properly use all of
the system services and toolkits make it really, really nice to work with
them.

~~~
hungerstrike
Pfffft. Mac fanatics are in the vast minority.

------
igammarays
Awesome! I can't believe it took this long for someone to get it right!
Support for Redis too?! Finally! Navicat is great, but very expensive, and its
Mac implementation is a bit slow and buggy in my experience. Definitely not a
first-class citizen on Mac. DataGrip is my primary tool right now, and I had
no complaints, except that it was also slow on Mac, and had no Redis support,
or table structure editing. And you've solved all of that! One small tip:
Advertise the WHERE filter more prominently on the homepage. Fast WHERE
filtering/column selection is crucial to a productive workflow, but it took me
a while to find it on your interface.

------
modernerd
[https://tableplus.io/](https://tableplus.io/) for those who want to try it
without reading the launch post.

Mac-only, Windows version planned. Free to download with paid upgrades giving
more features: [https://tableplus.io/pricing](https://tableplus.io/pricing).

Looks like a good potential alternative to
[https://www.sequelpro.com/](https://www.sequelpro.com/) (Mac and MySQL -only,
donationware).

~~~
eerikkivistik
If it works as advertised, this might be one of the most pleasant surprises in
a while. Will try it now. Been looking for a good alternative to pgAdmin.

Edit: Tried it out and it works really well from first impressions. Would
definitely recommend trying it out as an alternative to pgAdmin.

~~~
bit_4l
Thanks! If you want to request any new features, drop us a message on Github
[https://github.com/TablePlus/TablePlus](https://github.com/TablePlus/TablePlus)

~~~
eerikkivistik
Good to know. Our team is evaluating it now and if everyone is on board, we
will be grabbing a few licenses from you!

------
memco
Wow, pretty nice so far. Sequel Pro has been my main workhorse, but the fact
that it's MySQL only has often left me looking for other tools.

It would be great to see better support for relationships and triggers and
such like Sequel pro, but I like what it has so far in the structure view. I
think the idea of the colored connection status bar, but it would be good to
see some sort of logic for coloring the text on top to match or at least
contrast sufficiently (something like how iTunes did it[0] would be awesome).

Lastly, better import/export would be nice. You can export and specify a few
options but it would be good to see a little more full featured (see also
Sequel Pro).

The price point seems reasonable too. Honestly, it feels a little awkward that
Theming (even using alternating row colors) is a paid feature, but it probably
will generate sales as I am inclined to use it immediately just to get rid of
the popups.

[0] [https://panic.com/blog/itunes-11-and-
colors/](https://panic.com/blog/itunes-11-and-colors/)

------
dancek
I've been using DataGrip by JetBrains for a while now. I have no qualms with
it, but the price would be an issue if I didn't have the full JetBrains pack
already from my employer.

What is the killer feature of TablePlus? Should I try it even though I'm happy
with DataGrip? Or is it just as good for a lower price?

[https://www.jetbrains.com/datagrip/](https://www.jetbrains.com/datagrip/)

~~~
turtlebits
DataGrip has one of the worst UI's (if not the worst) I've ever used.

If you create a new database (not using Datagrip), it won't show up in until
you go manually enable it to be shown. I ran into so many issues wondering why
my created databases didn't show up. (while spamming the refresh button in the
toolbar). And ended up spending extra time to verify that they were there

Eventually figured out the setting is hidden in the context menu for a
connection. Right click -> Database Tools (click). Get a new popup -> Manage
Shown Schemas.

And the kicker is that it's not intuitively named AND hidden under a separate
UI element. After not using DataGrip for a while, I end up spending a bunch of
time digging through context menus trying to find it again.

~~~
prputnam
While I have had my far share of head-scratchers trying to find the proper
setting for x, I would certainly disagree that DataGrip has one of the worst
UIs. I have used it daily for the past two years with a variety of databases
(MySQL, Postgres, and Redshift for the most part), and honestly it seems like
the best tool out there right now.

What tool is your preference?

------
no_gravity
I would like to stay in the terminal even when working on a DB. But I never
found a decent terminal based DB client with a GUI (TUI?). So I am writing my
own at the moment. A terminal based database editor. It's a bit like vim for
databases.

If you too are interested in such a thing, let me know.

~~~
cdubzzz
DBCLI[0] offers some decent solutions (although definitely not "vim for
databases"), have you played around with them? I have used and liked pgcli and
mycli, but haven't used them extensively by any means.

I'd be interested to hear more about what you are working on.

[0] [http://www.dbcli.com/](http://www.dbcli.com/)

~~~
no_gravity
I think this is a misunderstanding. I am not building a client where you type
in commands. I am building a client where you can browse tables like
spreadsheets.

Maybe 'PhpMyAdmin for the terminal' is a better description then 'Vim for
databases'?

~~~
cdubzzz
Sorry! My comment before edit excluded the note about DBCLI being a different
type of product (: "Vim for databases" is very clear.

~~~
no_gravity
Awesome. I'll send you an email.

------
dsego
Been using it for a month now and I love the modern sleek interface. It's very
similar to Postico (which is Postgres only unfortunately). One killer feature
for me is that you can assign colors to connections. When you open a window
this color is prominently displayed at the top, very useful for distinguishing
production and dev. ⌘+P command prompt is also supported, like in Sublime
Text. Some nice touches is that you can assign custom icons to connections and
that empty space is filled with cute drawings. One thing I miss is that if you
don't specify a DB in the connection info, the main window doesn't list all
the available DBs, you have to ⌘+K to get the selection panel.

~~~
tijs
Postico is great but it does seem to hang/crash with big operations quite
often. From my quick tests it does not seem like TablePlus has similar issues
which is fantastic.

------
hammerbrostime
Wow, I am so excited about this app. I have to wonder, how come the market
hasn't supported something like this in the past - or more specifically - why
_hasn 't_ SequelPro thrived and evolved to eventually support Postgres? Are
developers too cheap?

~~~
bit_4l
Well, that's the downside of open source, you can't really demand for quick
support & development. When we waited for so long, we needed to build it
ourselves.

------
1_player
Thanks! I love Sequel Pro but multi-clause filters are a pain with it, and I'm
never able to save my queries and have them available the next time I use the
app.

Great job, I'll probably buy it after a few weeks of testing!

EDIT: love the commit feature. Not a fan of the cloud account thing, but the
app still works without creating any.

------
jason_slack
I like what TablePlus is offering. My question is the price. $69 isn't
horrible, but it is still a lot. Is this one time $69 with a long path of free
upgrades or is this $69 once a year like other software I use (VMWare Fusion,
Office, etc).

~~~
Chris911
The pricing page shows $49 at the moment.
[https://tableplus.io/pricing](https://tableplus.io/pricing)

~~~
jason_slack
Thanks! I see it. It was $69 earlier today.

------
zepolen
I love it, while it clearly gets 'inspiration' from Postico - (not a bad
thing, Postico's interface is awesome) - the fact that it supports all
databases and even redis support planned is making me a customer.

~~~
bit_4l
and I love making you a customer :D

------
cturner
There is a certain difficult to describe joy about tight native development.
Ignore the haters, congrats on your release.

~~~
huyphams
Thank you <3

------
alienreborn
Thank you for this. If there is one area where there is a dearth of tools it's
universal SQL workbenches. Only tool that's worth considering till now is
Datagrip and now this looks promising.

~~~
tieubao
Right to my feeling

------
avdempsey
This looks pretty sweet so far. I love having multiple panes, multiple tabs,
and good shortcuts. When you click on a row it also appears in a vertical
orientation in the sidebar on the right, that's a nice touch.

Today, I use mysql in the terminal most of the time. The main reason I've been
using the terminal instead of SequelPro is my terminal has the scrollback
available from my previous queries. This is great for comparing results,
printing out a few table schemas to help write a query, and acting as kind of
a log of my thought process. Terminal has a lot of other disadvantages, but
I've accumulated a lot of tricks to mitigate them.

A nice implementation of tabs and panes could chip-away at that advantage,
definitely, so this app is exciting. One limitation in the current
implementation is it looks like table views need to take up the whole tab. It
would be nice to have a table view in one pane, and a query editor in the
next.

The app has a nice query history sidebar. In addition to the query, it has the
timestamp; my terminal doesn't have that. Could this concept be expanded to
include query results? My first instinct was also to try dragging and dropping
one of the queries from my history into the desired pane. That didn't work,
but its behavior of adding it to the pane where the cursor was last works
well.

All in all, I think this will definitely find a regular place in my tool set;
thank you for making something cool!

------
Mister_Snuggles
I work at an Oracle shop, so this doesn’t work for me right now, but I’m
looking forward to playing with it once Oracle support comes out.

~~~
bit_4l
It's on the roadmap and will be rolled out soon.

------
pjmlp
Looks quite nice.

Currently stuck on pgAdmin 1.22, as I won't touch the "modern" Electron
version of it.

~~~
BerislavLopac
I've recently discovered DBeaver, and am quite happy with it.
[https://dbeaver.jkiss.org/](https://dbeaver.jkiss.org/)

~~~
placebo
Likewise, was wondering whether someone would mention it here. I'm quite
impressed and considering at some point paying for the premium features
(mainly support of NoSQL databases).

------
dotdi
Well done!

Now I wish I had something as fancy for my meek Linux box.

~~~
FunnyLookinHat
It's not as good as this or Sequel Pro - but Sqlectron
([https://sqlectron.github.io/](https://sqlectron.github.io/)) has been pretty
good for me as a Linux-friendly client.

~~~
mwexler
I hadn't seen this before, but I love their attempt to keep parity between
their text/term version and the gui version; quite clever and the text version
is really functional.

------
cpursley
This is timely! I spend all of yesterday setting up a Windows 10 VM just to
have access to MSMS. The existing field of macOS MSSQL clients are light on
features, including Microsoft own cross-platform SQL Operations Studio.

Question: Does TablePlus have a way to create a linked_server via the GUI?:
[https://www.sqlshack.com/how-to-create-and-configure-a-
linke...](https://www.sqlshack.com/how-to-create-and-configure-a-linked-
server-in-sql-server-management-studio/)

~~~
huyphams
Looks like this is a feature of MS SQL (I meant, only on MS SQL). I will read
it and if it easy to implement, I will include it in TablePlus. Otherwise, we
can add it by developing a plugin.

~~~
cpursley
Cheers. If it helps with making a GUI version, here's how a linked_server in
MS SQ is created via a stored procedure:

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-
databases/sy...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-
databases/system-stored-procedures/sp-addlinkedserver-transact-sql)

------
davidcollantes
Absolutely love it. Buying it, thanks!

~~~
bit_4l
Lovely, thanks!

------
fibers
How is this better than DBeaver

~~~
dlandis
It doesn't even seem close to DBeaver at this point, but who knows how it will
progress. DBeaver is Java-based but still runs very fast on my Mac. Definitely
the best db client I've used in years.

------
hartator
I wish they have something like this for MongoDB. Didn't find anything good on
OSX. Maybe Mongo 3G is still the best option and they just sold.

~~~
dawnerd
I don't see why they couldn't add mongo support to this. If it had mongo
support I'd buy it instantly

------
stephenr
Their tech stack faq ([https://tableplus.io/faq](https://tableplus.io/faq))
mentions "go for server side"

Can someone confirm what this is related to? Surely this app isnt sending all
connections via some server(farm) the developers control?

~~~
huyphams
No, I'm the author. I confirmed with you that we didn't track any your
connections/database information (you can find it out in our privacy:
[https://tableplus.io/privacy](https://tableplus.io/privacy))

We use Fabric to track crash and A/B testing and it's anonymous data, the data
tracking clicks on a button etc.. and not related to your database content.

You can use some network tracking to track TablePlus traffic to verify it by
yourself.

TablePlus server side is using for our website and licensing.

------
Cyberdog
I'll buy that this is a true native macOS app, but why does it seem to be
trying so hard not to be? Why does everything have a flat white background,
and why is the list of data not a standard Cocoa list view? It's still a bit
too visually disruptive for my taste.

------
furilo
Any major differences related to SQLPro Studio?
[https://www.sqlprostudio.com](https://www.sqlprostudio.com) (apart from
access to some systems, and price, but since I consume it via Setapp...).

And so: Plans to make it available on Setapp?

~~~
whitehouse3
I run SQLPro Studio at work. Just downloaded TablePlus to play around. The big
difference is GUI performance. With a 100k row sample set SQLPro Studio UI
gets laggy. TablePlus runs it smooth.

TP also has more data display options.

------
crowecawcaw
I've used Querious for a while and really like it:
[https://www.araelium.com/querious](https://www.araelium.com/querious)

Like TablePlus, it's a native MacOS app, has great performance, and a clean
interface.

~~~
Cyberdog
But like Sequel Pro, it only supports MySQL.

------
mjw1007
They have somehow managed to write a 500-word article on their project,
advertising that it's "built native", without mentioning which platforms it
runs on.

The answer appears to be "only macOS, maybe Windows later".

~~~
bit_4l
We planned to release a Windows version in Jan 2018. Unfortunately, we got
trouble with Swift compiler on Windows (not officially supported, only Linux
and Unix). We decided not to wait for Swift and rebuild all the whole thing in
C/C#. That takes longer so we hope to release it soon

~~~
BerislavLopac
So why is there no Linux version?

~~~
bit_4l
Because Linux has too many distros. We didn't decide to use Gnome or C/C++ to
build the interface. Since the team is very small, we have to focus on our
best.

------
JonathanAquino
Just wondering, when a new tool like this comes out, how can one be sure that
it doesn't contain any malicious code? Would love to try it for work, but am a
bit concerned about this, at least until it gets vetted more.

~~~
huyphams
If you're in Vietnam. I would like to invite you to our office to review the
code.

Btw, as the author of this app. I publish all my profile. If my app does
something wrong, you can sure I will end up in court (and definitely, I don't
want to get that trouble).

------
cdl
It would be cool to see a plugin or native support for visualizing query
plans.

~~~
bit_4l
Right, that'd be a big leap since we also plan to make it viable for non-tech
users. If we put those kinds of feature in plugin, we can keep the app simple
& clean.

------
roadbeats
I’d pay for a Linux version. Graphical SQL clients in Linux are the worst
ever.

~~~
von_tenia
Not really a proper linux version but I had success running HeidiSQL with Wine
since a while and I am a happy camper.

------
lukeqsee
This is fantastic! I need to use it for a bit, but this might just replace
tsql (finally!).

Some feedback:

I wasn't able to figure out how to mark something as favorite (no star icon,
right clicking a table doesn't show an option).

~~~
Willamin
Took me a while to figure that one out. I was able to write a query in the app
and save it as a favorite.

------
joneslee85
This is the missing PostgreSQL client for OSX that I have been looking for. I
am blown away by the intuitive UX. First time user and I already feel like I
have been using the app for months.

------
bastawhiz
Coming from pgAdmin, I couldn't be more pleased to see this. I was considering
building something like this for myself with an electron app, but this is far
more ideal. Great work!

------
Darkstack
This looks promising, i will look forward to the windows version, but the
MacOSX as a first supported platform seems a bit odd, I used to think most DBA
worked under Windows/Linux.

~~~
Cyberdog
> I used to think most DBA worked under Windows/Linux.

I guess it depends on how you define a DBA. Surely macOS is huge among web
developers, and since most non-trivial web applications interface with a
database, web developers have to install and maintain DBMS systems and create
and interact with databases. Does that make them DBAs too? Arguably so.

------
samat
Yay, finally a Paw for SQL! :)

Do you consider adding Clickhouse support? I would really appreciate that

([https://clickhouse.yandex](https://clickhouse.yandex))

------
wingerlang
Are there other macOS apps that can read both MySQL and SQLite?

~~~
rahilsondhi
PopSQL ([https://popsql.io](https://popsql.io)) supports macOS/Windows/Linux
and certainly supports MySQL and SQLite. [disclaimer: co-founder]

~~~
wingerlang
Cool, thanks

------
thenaturalist
FYI: Most of your footer links are not working & point to
[https://tableplus.io/#](https://tableplus.io/#)

------
sleepyhead
Looks great! But please put up some information about who makes it. The "about
us" link doesn't go anywhere. Trust is critical for such a product.

~~~
huyphams
We will put it tomorrow because it's midnight now in our country :D

------
sgt
I think this looks great. But do you know what I would really enjoy - and
that's a psql on steroids. Basically what I mean by that is take a lot of
features in TablePlus but make a console app of it. You'd be expected to run
super wide windows but it would lend itself to being used very rapidly without
ever using the mouse, and being able to retain the incredible usefulness of
psql while still getting an overview of your queries, your result sets,
different view formats, etc. Maybe it's just me, but I would buy such a
console app.

~~~
rabidrat
I have been working on just such a console app[0]. I would love to hear your
use cases. Email me and I would be happy to give you a demo.

[0] visidata.org

------
nikolay
There's also TeamSQL [0], which is pretty nice.

[0]: [https://teamsql.io/](https://teamsql.io/)

------
bit_4l
tl;dr: visit [https://tableplus.io](https://tableplus.io) and see for yourself

------
slifin
Seems quite good, it does have issues with chunkwm though if you open two
databases and then try and switch between them

~~~
huyphams
Hey, are you using MS SQL or something? I just fixed a bug switching between
MS SQL database.

------
jbergstroem
For people that have tested it: can it set up connections over ssh tunnels?
Would be a handy step to skip

~~~
al3xnull
Tried so far and unable to get a connection with a key to go through with no
error console to review the issue. =[

------
cuchoi
Can I connect to SQLite file over ssh? I could not manage it through the
"Connect with URL"

------
huydx
Looks better than MySQLWorkBench btw

------
pdtp
The UI looks nice. Is there any plan for Linux version?

~~~
rahilsondhi
PopSQL ([https://popsql.io](https://popsql.io)) supports macOS/Windows/Linux
and works with PostgreSQL, MySQL, BigQuery, SQL Server, Redshift, SQLite,
Presto, and Cassandra. [disclaimer: co-founder]

------
ZuLuuuuuu
What do they mean by native? That they are using macOS dev frameworks supplied
by Apple, instead of a framework like Electron? If that is the case, how are
they planning to have a Windows version?

~~~
huyphams
Yes, we build it natively. There are tons of native applications: sublimes,
Dropbox, chromes etc... and many ways to cross-platform. I don't want to spend
2GB for every electrons app (slack, vscode, database app...) so I build
TablePlus natively. Basically, I split the project into 2 pieces. Logic and
Interface. The logic can cross-platform because it is pure C/C++.

Dropbox does the same way with djinni:
[https://github.com/dropbox/djinni](https://github.com/dropbox/djinni)

~~~
ZuLuuuuuu
I see, thanks for the answer. I am a fan of native applications by the way.
Will the Windows version use WinForms, WPF or UWP for UI?

------
gatetroy
Fast, beautiful and useful database tool

------
peternicky
This is really well done. Thank you.

------
nrjames
Any plans for BigQuery support?

~~~
rahilsondhi
We support BigQuery in PopSQL ([https://popsql.io](https://popsql.io))
[disclaimer: co-founder].

~~~
nrjames
Thanks, I'll have a look.

------
jarnix
They complain about Sequel Pro but TablePlus is limited to Mac :(

~~~
lchsk
Excuse my shameless plug but I'm working on a Linux desktop client for
postgres: [https://sanchosql.com](https://sanchosql.com)

Maybe someone will find it useful

~~~
beojan
You're working on a _GTK_ client for Postgres.

Let's not forget that KDE exists, nor that you can use GTK on non-Linux
platforms (I'm thinking of the BSDs here).

------
gnooooc
Great

------
listenallyall
Sorry but I'm gonna rain on your parade here.

DBVisualizer already runs on Windows/Mac/Linux, connects to more databases,
and implements just about every feature you're currently working on, plus all
the ones you'll excitedly announce in the next few years -- like exporting
data, query parameters, source table editing, charts, result set search,
command-line interface, etc.

[https://www.dbvis.com/features/](https://www.dbvis.com/features/)

Your screenshots show so much wasted whitespace... timestamps that line wrap =
half as many rows fit on the screen. Tons of unused space in the
'instagram_id' column.

A while back I used DatabaseSpy, which was also much more feature-rich than
your tool.
[https://www.altova.com/databasespy](https://www.altova.com/databasespy)

No relation to either tool, just a customer/user.

~~~
awinder
To my eyes, dbvisualizer and databasespy are never going to have native look
and feel on OSX and I’m going to feel like their UI is inferior because of it.
Maybe they’re more powerful & established right now especially but I used
Sequel Pro when I was using MySQL for the same reason. This tool seems great
for people like me who see good OSX experience as table stakes.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
> To my eyes, dbvisualizer and databasespy are never going to have native look
> and feel on OSX and I’m going to feel like their UI is inferior because of
> it.

I'm having trouble understanding this thought process. Are you saying you'd
pick a truly inferior tool that looks good on a Mac to a superior tool that
_looks_ inferior because of the UI?

~~~
LaGrange
This matters. The dbvis interface looks like a misclick waiting to happen. I
seriously prefer using plain psql over tools with that much noise. If it
doesn't improve visibility, it can GTFO.

Seriously, I have access to all the fancy features already. I need a tool that
will make the usual stuff - table introspection, mostly - easier and more
pleasant. If I need to export some stuff, nine times out of ten I'll do it in
Python anyway.

~~~
batbomb
dbvis is fine. It’s not eye candy, but it’s the only tool which gets the job
done uniformly for any database you may need to connect to.

------
locnhse61312
Awesome app!

------
holechihieu
Been using it for months and love it! Great work :thumb-up:

------
andrew_wc_brown
Navicat has a high price tag but its still a better tool and I wish everyday
if I had to use a GUI it could be Navicat over TablePlus.

TablePlus looks good but its design is confusing and downright stupid.

~~~
FanaHOVA
> TablePlus looks good but its design is confusing and downright stupid.

Thanks for the great insight!

Next time try to articulate your point, the team is here and I bet they'd love
to know how they can improve their design.

