
TablePlus – Modern, Native Tool for Database Management - bottle2
https://tableplus.com/
======
jackschultz
Don't know if the person who posted this has an affiliation, I do not, but I'm
a huge fan of TablePlus so feel it's still worth it for me to comment about
this.

It offers so many features that seem so natural. Quick editability which in
some cases saves a ton of time. Tabs for different tables, plain text editing
for queries with highlighting for ease of reading. There are other database
interactors, that do the same thing, but really for me, I've found the UI/UX
looks and feels so much better than others, and as a user, that really is a
huge part of it.

As for the licensing price, I started by trying it out in the free, two tab
version. I then stepped back and thought about how for me, the benefit it gave
me was well worth $60.

Again, I have nothing to do with them, but for how nice it's been for me, I
feel it deserves a shoutout.

~~~
jacurtis
I've been using TablePlus for a long time now as well. I don't have any
affiliation but started with their mac app. It was easily the best DB GUI out
there. I like that you can use the same GUI for PostgreSQL, MYSQL, Redis,
MongoDB, and SQLite (there are even more than this, but these are the ones I
use).

It is awesome to have one very powerful and well-maintained program for all my
database needs. I can get proficient at one tool and use it for everything. In
addition, I can pay 1 licensing fee and get access to a powerful tool for
working with all of these databases, instead of needing a separate tool for
each one (which was the case in the past).

The pricing model is EXTREMELY FAIR in my opinion. First of all, it is free to
use in its entirety forever, with only a small handful of limitations. New
devs will easily be satisfied with the free version. You can upgrade to
support them and to remove the few limitations in the free version for just
$60. This is well worth any developer's time as it accounts for only an hour
or two of their wages most likely. I also like that it is a perpetual license,
so you don't need to "subscribe" if you don't want to. You do need to renew if
you want newer versions, as the $60 license only covers 1 year of updates. But
i think that this is a great balance between being fair (it is perpetual at
the version + 12mos that you bought it at), while also incentivizing and
allowing to support further development. Finally offering a generous free
version supports newbies and the dev community.

Lastly I need to point out an often-overlooked reason to consider TablePlus.
They offer tools on every platform (Mac, Windows, Linux). And MOST
IMPORTANTLY, this isn't an electron application. Each version is maintained by
a seperate team (from my understanding) within their business and it is built
on the native language and frameworks for that platform.

About 1.5-2 years ago I started a discussion on their forum about bringing a
version to Linux (at the time it was only Windows and Mac). The forum post
quickly started gaining momentum from other Linux users who discussed how
there is quite literally NO good DB GUI on Linux (other than the CLI). Let
alone something as easy to use and powerful as TablePlus. The team eventually
committed to a Linux version, and after a year of development updates I was
invited to the beta and had been using it ever since.

This team really is great and I highly recommend trying their tool for free
and upgrading to the paid version if you find it useful, which I think any
developer will.

~~~
elamje
That sounds impressive, if not unbelievable, they have 2 employees listed on
their LinkedIn, and only 3 listed on their website. Maybe they are using
offshore developers for a lot of the heavy lifting, but I honestly don’t see
how they could have native apps for 3 platforms that have this much
functionality with that many employees. Anyone else have insight?

~~~
nicoburns
Why not? Two full time developers is plenty if you don't have the overhead of
management processes, and everyone has a unified vision. Sublime Text was a
one-man show until relatively recently. It's a single cross-platform codebase,
but he built the cross-platform abstraction layer himself! Presumably this has
the underlying database logic in some kind of shared library.

------
planetjones
Been using the open source dbeaver for a while now. On the whole very
impressed with it, so worth a look as a free alternative.

~~~
wackget
Does the code completion/autocomplete in dbeaver support "fuzzy typing" like
in Sublime Text?

For example, if you have a table called "catalog_product_flat", would the
autocomplete suggest that table when you typed "catprfl"?

~~~
zmmmmm
Just tried that and it did autocomplete, for example 'dal' to
'django_admin_log'. It did not auto-suggest it while typing, but when I
pressed control-space it expanded it.

------
HHad3
The application looks and feels nice, but the per-device pricing/licensing
model seems severely outdated to me. I will not make a purchase unless named
licenses, which enable me to use the application on all devices and operating
systems I use (with reasonable limits if DRM is needed for some reason), are
available.

~~~
DevX101
This is an odd hill to die on. I'd bet 90%+ of engineers have a single
computer they code from at home (even if you have multiple computers) and
another at work. It's perfectly fair to pay for a separate license for each of
those use cases. I'd prefer this to some $10/month SAAS model.

~~~
ineedtosleep
Disagreed. I have a MBP, a Linux desktop and a Thinkpad running both Linux and
Windows. My one subscription to a Jetbrains product covers all of them
provided I don't run the program at the same time across multiple machines.

Believing that most engineers only have one computer IMO seems out of touch
with reality.

~~~
brandonmenc
> My one subscription to a Jetbrains product covers all of them

And also includes their database tool, DataGrip.

~~~
Aeolun
DataGrip is quickly becoming unusable to me due to it’s inability to show me a
tables/field encoding.

I really have no clue how anyone thought that was an unnecessary feature.

~~~
therealdrag0
Can you elaborate on what that is? I haven’t ran I to that before.

~~~
Aeolun
Like the other response on this says. Tables in MySQL (and individual columns,
and databases) have an encoding associated with them, this determines what
characters you can store in them.

Right now I cannot modify that in Datagrip, but worse, I cannot even see it
without a raw query.

------
ganomi
Free alternative i have been using for some years now:
[https://dbeaver.io/](https://dbeaver.io/)

The community edition is updated more often than i would like and sometimes
features break but bugs get fixed quickly and they add usefull stuff all the
time.

Dont know what i would do if i was stuck with pgAdmin...

~~~
anhthang
I like SequelPro. The UI much simpler, powerful, but it's inactivated, nobody
working on it to update for new macOS :(

~~~
casperb
I loved it and would pay for it. But after 3 months of restarting it a couple
of times a day since the 2018 Mac update, I switched to TablePlus.

I still miss SequelPro, as its search and export features where way better
then TablePlus’ way.

~~~
paulryanrogers
There are nightly builds, including in Homebrew. They're not perfect but the
only bug I've run into is filtering the query history.

------
rkwz
I've been using it for the past year and it's my go to app for managing PG
databases. As much as I love SQL, TablePlus makes certain actions like
inserts/updates/import really convenient especially when you're working with
dev databases.

------
Cenk
Previous discussion (333 points):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16339004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16339004)

~~~
dang
That was 2018.

Also 2019:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19160808](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19160808)

And another 2018:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18004727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18004727)

------
computerman1337
How does this compare to Datagrip / IntelliJ IDEA for databases in terms of
functionality? I’ve been using IntelliJ for relational databases and I am very
pleased with it.

~~~
mekster
It is far easier to work than DataGrip.

I used DataGrip after SequelPro stopped updating to support MySQL 8 and
apparently it's feature rich but got annoyed how it's bloated and takes half a
minute to launch.

I still prefer SequelPro for it's layout and UI but finally dropped it in
favor of TablePlus as now it seems close enough to that usability.

Also of note is that the author is really responsive and friendly on GitHub
who corrected some minor UI issues pretty quickly when I reported.

------
caseyf7
Postico is a nice Mac alternative but is focused on Postgres DBs like
Redshift.

~~~
augstein
Been using it since its first stable release, absolutely reliable and easy to
work with. Version 2, which should be released soon, is even nicer.

[https://eggerapps.at/postico/](https://eggerapps.at/postico/)

~~~
elAhmo
Version 2 is lovely, I have been using it in beta and it seems quite stable,
looking forward to the final release.

------
wenc
I work with SQL Server. I really like general multi-db GUI tools like this,
but also wonder if one is giving up a lot of power.

SQL Server's free native tool is SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio), which is
one of the most powerful SQL clients I've ever used. (despite my carryover
reservations with MS products from the 1980s-90s, SQL Server is indisputably
an innovative and solid piece of technology -- MS did something right with
their database group). One can interact syntactically with the database via
pure SQL, but SSMS lets you access the deep corners of the database quickly
via a GUI (SQL is a great _query_ language, but many admin/ops tasks are much
more easily done via a GUI -- writing SQL every time you want make a simple
change is tedious plus nobody remembers the syntax for infrequently used
features). Some of the features I use regularly: row/column/covering index
creation, linked servers, user management, live query plans, create/alter
script generation from existing objects (stored proc, view, index, table,
etc.). I've never seen these features exposed in any third party SQL GUI
client.

Postgres has a bunch of very powerful features too, and I've never seen these
exposed in GUI tools.

Jetbrains' DataGrip comes the closest, but because it needs to support lowest
common denominator features across databases, it doesn't expose deep features
either.

I wonder if folks are giving up deep feature discovery by using an generic GUI
SQL client.

Exception: Oracle SQL Developer. It's native to Oracle but is quite unpleasant
to use.

~~~
oefrha
Edit: read the parent wrong, but leaving my comment here so it doesn’t look
like backtracking some offensive content.

> wonder if one is giving up a lot of power.

That’s an irrational concern. GUI tools also come with SQL consoles where you
can do anything that’s possible in the CLI. With the added benefit of results
being presented in a nicer way.

~~~
kyleee
If you've used SSMS extensively you'll know it's tailored to SQL server like a
glove. You'd definitely be leaving usability on the table going with a generic
DB client. The person you've responded to even mentioned that of course you
can do all things via CLI, but SSMS builds powerful GUI layer on top of that

~~~
Nullabillity
> If you've used SSMS extensively you'll know it's tailored to SQL server like
> a glove.

Sure, assuming that MSSQL is a foot.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
I love the licensing model. No crappy "pay us for the privilege of using the
software every month and year" like Adobe does. Just plain perpetual licence
like Affinity. We need more projects like that.

~~~
cwhiz
Perpetual license but not perpetual updates. And you have to pay per device
instead of per seat.

I think the pricing is low enough to overcome these annoyances but I’d rather
pay double and not have to be concerned with buying another license when I
dual boot another OS.

~~~
jacurtis
I do agree, that it would be nice to pay per seat, not per computer.

I develop on Mac 95% of the time, so I own a license on Mac, but on Windows I
just use the free version because I don't use it on Windows enough to justify
paying for it on that device, despite the fact I am a paying customer. This is
an annoyance for me. However, I rarely run into any of the free-version
limitations on Windows since I am usually just logging in quickly to check on
something on Windows and not doing anything major. If I need to do some
hardcore work I pull it up on my mac, which has a better dev environment. But
it is extremely annoying the few times when I do go to open several tabs on
WIndows and remember that despite being a paying customer, I can not use these
paid features because I am using it on the wrong platform.

I don't have a problem with the perpetual license that doesn't include
perpetual updates. To me, if you are using the tool that often, you can
support the team that builds something that you most likely make money off
using. One year of updates for TablePlus is nearly equivalent to a month of
updates from Adobe. At $60 a year we are talking about $5 a month. Which is
very little to most developers, who purchase $6 coffees and $15 salads without
batting an eye.

But I would like to see a per-seat option. Especially because I most likely
wouldn't/couldn't use two different computers at the same time, it seems fair
to let me install it on a few OS's if I desire.

------
jonnycomputer
I have been looking for a native app alternative to pgAdmin ever since they
changed it over to a browser based application. I will have to check this out.
Actually, if people have suggestions, I'll listen!

~~~
amartya916
I have used both Postico and Tableplus extensively, and if you are sure that
you are going to be working with Postgres only, its the better, more Mac-like
app. However, both are a serious upgrade over PgAdmin :)

------
alexashka
These products all do more or less the same thing. If Valentina Studio free
version supports your DBs of choice, I've found it to suit my needs perfectly
well - Postgres user here. Oh, did I mention it's free?

These products should have a mandatory feature comparison chart to their
competition - it'd speed up the inevitable decline of mediocre competition
that relies on gaming google search results for its survival. I back in the
day had to download and suffer through half a dozen DB clients that do the
same thing slightly differently.

------
mikl
I’ve been using TablePlus for a while, its nice to have because it supports
all the databases I use with no fuss, replaced a bunch of separate apps for
Redis/PostgreSQL/MySQL/Cassandra.

Also comes as part of the deal if you have a Setapp subscription
([https://setapp.com/](https://setapp.com/) )

(And just to be clear, I’m not affilated with either company.)

------
nojvek
I like how TablePlus makes a yearly post. It is relevant for HN users and will
deliver them nice sales but I wonder what is the policy for pasting same urls.

In product hunt I see same products arriving again with version #2 e.t.c

I know VSCode and Typescript announce their new versions here too.

May be the official policy is "it doesn't matter, unless too spammy?"

------
sinnet11
"Supports a whole set of relational databases"

Includes MongoDB in the list.

~~~
megavolcano
and redis lol

------
hackerm0nkey
> After 1 year, you can continue using TablePlus without any limitations but
> you can't upgrade to the latest version. If you want to upgrade, you must
> renew the license, the renewal fee is much cheaper than buying a new one.

This sort of put me off. Personally I am fine with a single user perpetual
license for my use case. But as they are claiming it being a young project and
likely to have more bugs than your average mature product. Why do you expect
me to renew my license to get your updates ? doesn't seem fair.

> TablePlus is a young project, we fix bugs and add new features every day,
> then put them together in a new update released at the end of week/month.

That week/month could fall a year after the date of my initial purchase :(

~~~
eugeniub
TablePlus for 2 Macs with 12 months of updates: $99

SetApp subscription for 2 Macs (includes TablePlus): $108/year

~~~
tasqyn
does SetApp show ads? what is the difference between business and personal
pricing? they seem to be the same.

~~~
hackerm0nkey
Yeah, I am getting the same impression that the personal might have ads? not
sure.

I am trying it now and the trial version doesn't show me ads, at least not yet
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
halostatue
No ads in Setapp.

------
Thristle
I like tableplus a lot and used it mainly as a redis GUI (we have a querious
license at work so i use that for sql). I did encounter some wierd things
around version 290 it seems that when you use a filter (which is called
"advanced filter" not sure why) on a mac everything works but the same
filtering action was blocked for the free version on my windows machine. some
versions later it was also blocked on my mac but i cant seem to find any way
to filter redis keys at all. other than that i really like everything else

------
memco
I like TablePlus and have bought licenses for my work computers. It’s got a
lot features, but is still rough around the edges in some spots: Mongo is
technically supported but the viewing and editing experience isn’t great for
nested object. The SSH support seems wonky: I can’t get it to work with my ssh
config which uses proxyjunp to connect. I have to setup the tunnel using -L in
my terminal and use the local port in TP. I know it’s supposed to be able to
use the proxy jump configs but it has just never worked for me.

~~~
mekster
I have a jump host and it works by reading ~/.ssh/config and works fine.

You might want to report it on GitHub as they seemed quite responsive the last
time I reported an issue.

------
paulryanrogers
These GUIs are great though I find no substitute for learning the CLIs. With a
CLI one can work on remote systems and quickly automate one off tasks.

~~~
_el
Ditto. I'm one of the few at my company who uses the CLI. It's so much quicker
and intuitive for me.

------
wackget
Does the code completion/autocomplete in this program support "fuzzy typing"
like in Sublime Text?

For example, if you have a table called "catalog_product_flat", would this
program's autocomplete suggest that table when you typed "catprfl"?

That's one feature I find is missing from every single DBA program out there
except for DataGrip, which I don't like because it's overkill.

~~~
nickforall
Yeah, it tries to do that but is not always very good at it. For example with
aliases in join and subqueries it struggles sometimes and it doesn't show up.

------
pvtmert
I saw TablePlus first time again in HN, (circa 2016) since then it is go-to
tool for databases.

Many DB connection UI's (except MySQL Workbench and Sequel Pro I think)
requires some kind of purchase. Besides My company uses Sequel Pro it always
had either crashed or having slow import/export speeds etc.

Even TablePlus can import/export between engines using CSV files, which is
IMHO awesome option to have.

~~~
mekster
SequelPro served me for years and I loved it but since it no longer is being
actively maintained (I know about nightlies but it's buggy with constant
crashes and such, so it doesn't count.) to support MySQL 8, I'm glad TablePlus
mostly caught up on the usability to SequelPro for me to have a unified tool
for all DB needs.

------
seemslegit
When/Why should someone pick it over dbeaver ?

------
978e4721a
Hands up if you use cli and format SQL with python-sql-format/README.md at
master · longgb246/python-sql-format [https://github.com/longgb246/python-sql-
format/blob/master/R...](https://github.com/longgb246/python-sql-
format/blob/master/README.md)

------
exabrial
For those of you who miss SequelPro before it was abandoned, this is a worthy
successor. I bought licenses for my whole team.

~~~
jdpedrie
Indeed. I just went searching for a SequelPro replacement yesterday and found
Table Plus. Tried it for an hour and bought a license.

------
Nevada-Smith
This program won't install on Windows 7 because it requires .NET Framework
version 4.8, which won't install on Windows 7, because Micro$oft doesn't
support it any longer. Given this, you'd think TablePlus would explicitly
mention this before putting Windows 7 users through this unnecessary waste of
time.

~~~
ricardobeat
Why would they support a dead OS? Windows 7 is months past end-of-life,
receiving no security patches and hence unsafe to use.

And by the way they actually explicit mention it on the homepage - it says
.NET 4.8 right under the download button.

~~~
Nevada-Smith
> And by the way they actually explicit mention it on the homepage - it says
> .NET 4.8 right under the download button.

True, that. Except who keeps track of which version of .NET works with what? I
for one don't.

Years ago, I used to use TablePlus on my Win 7 box but eventually canned it
for better (IMO) alternatives. So when TablePlus recently reappeared on HN, I
decided to give it another tryout.

Not one to keep track of .NET compatibility, I simply clicked their "Download
for Windows" button, and ran their setup program, which eventually prompted
for me to download/install .NET 4.8, as if everything was okay so far...

All this extraneous effort could easily have been avoided simply by:

a) s/Download for Windows/Download for Windows 10/

b) Browser OS sniffing-->Sorry, you're using an unsupported OS

c) Their install program could have announced straight away-->Sorry, you're
using an unsupported OS

~~~
bwat49
Alternatively, you could just use a modern OS and no longer have to worry
about whether or not programs are unsupported.

------
dotmanish
Coincidentally, I discovered TablePlus in Setapp today while searching for a
macOS MySQL client. Has been a smooth experience in the first few hours, and a
better looking interface that other clients that I have tried in the past.

As another comment mentions, support for Linux is a big plus - we need better
GUIs in there.

------
SeriousM
I like the fact that it has a reasonable price without the subscription
bullshit. Like linkpad, pay money and own the product without having to pay
for every single month. That's how software should be sold, like the good old
days.

------
petilon
Looks like almost the same feature set as SQLPal:
[http://www.pebblereports.com/sqlpal/](http://www.pebblereports.com/sqlpal/)

However, SQLPal only supports Oracle.

------
sergiotapia
Been using this for a 8 months now, I really enjoy it. It's polished, and has
a format sql query feature that is useful for that final step once you have
your query down to what you want it. Very nice stuff.

------
whoisjuan
TablePlus is awesome! I got it through Setapp and it completely any need I had
for SequelPro which I feel got shittier in the last couple of years (no new
features and it feels super laggy nowadays).

------
Roritharr
After testing this for 30 minutes it made me actually Donate money to the
HeidiSQL project, as it fits my workflow MUCH better.

It has a couple of annoying bugs but it's feature set develops in general much
more along my actual needs.

The Redis implementation of TablePlus is rather worthless to me compared to
what Redis Desktop Manager does as it doesn't sensibly group keys, it doesn't
give me much information about the relevant redis metrics (memory usage
especially).

Over in the MySQL side of things of TablePlus I like the way it structures its
filters and the way I can actually copy a column of values in sensible
formats, but besides these two features i'm much happier with HeidiSQL, so
that's where I put my money.

~~~
kevmo314
Have you gotten HeidiSQL to work well with PostgresQL? I really like it back
when I used MySQL, but it's absolutely rife with bugs in its PostgresQL
adapter with constant crashes and invalid queries being generated.

It's so bad that it makes me wonder if I just have something misconfigured
instead of it being an application bug.

~~~
Roritharr
I only use the PostgreSQL adapter only for a very simple database, so I can't
comment on it.

------
jasonpbecker
I’ve been using this as a part of my Setapp subscription and loving it. It’s
the only tool that has replaced DBeaver (which is still more powerful, but I
hate the interface).

------
timothevs
Has anyone compared this to Navicat? Our non profit has a non commercial
license for Navicat Premium, and I just love the product (despite more than a
few quirks).

------
megavolcano
gave it a trial install, and one thing I noticed right away is that memory
usage shoots up and responsiveness slows to a crawl when working with medium-
ish tables (hundreds of thousands of rows) if you happen to run a select and
forget to limit your query, it slows to a crawl

datagrip paginates results in batches of 500 by default, which helps with not
accidentally making the interface implode on itself

------
blobster
I love it because it's the only Mac app that allows you to connect to a remote
Mysql server via ssh and Unix socket at the same time.

------
978e4721a
Where's Linux version? Does editor has vi bindings? People should stop
building database IDE without vi bindings.

------
pencilcode
I use sqlpro and just tried this, thinking that maybe table plus is better,
their history feature is much better imho.

------
crazygringo
Curious if anyone knows how it stacks up against Sequel Pro?

(At least if you only need to work with MySQL, obviously?)

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Well, it is maintained! My understanding is that SequelPro hasn't seen any
release since 2016 (at least based on
[https://github.com/sequelpro/sequelpro/releases](https://github.com/sequelpro/sequelpro/releases)).

------
lpil
Just gave it a test with WSL2 on Windows, doesn't seem to work with that
setup. A shame

~~~
ewenjo
Just tried the same, worked fine for me.

------
ryanmarsh
No mention of DynamoDB or Cosmos. Why can’t these DB’s get some love from tool
vendors?

~~~
ufmace
I use both TablePlus and DynamoDB at work. I don't see any reason to bother
trying to put DynamoDB support into TablePlus.

DynamoDB is great at its one killer feature of supporting arbitrarily huge
tables without you having to worry about any details. For everything else,
it's just kind of adequate, considering the constraint of needing to support
multi-Terabyte tables. It lacks a huge number of features that all RDBMSes
have that would admittedly be impossible or not make sense on huge tables.
Thus, it doesn't make much sense to try to access it from a RDBMS GUI.

The AWS Console provides all of the GUI that really makes sense for it, plus
the CLI tools and API.

------
tumidpandora
DBeaver is hands down the best client for any and all databases, plus it’s
free.

------
dikaio
Use it, love it. All it needs is a Data Modeler and it would be complete.

------
tbrock
Anyone know what this is built in/with? C++ & GTK?

~~~
armadsen
I can confirm with a very little spelunking that the Mac app is a real native
AppKit/Cocoa app. It appears to mostly be written in Swift, but also uses a
fair amount of Objective-C. They've said publicly that the Windows version is
written in C# and C/C++. Not sure what they did for Linux...

------
MrOxiMoron
I love TablePlus. Definitely worth it's money for me.

------
geniium
Looks nice. Is there any plan to support Apache CouchDB ?

------
soheil
Sequel Pro's pros:

\- Sequel Pro's UI is much simpler

\- it's been around for over a decade

\- Sequel Pro can import/export large DBs much quicker

\- works on OSX

\- less bloated by not having to support 10+ different db types

Genuine question: when did Redis become a relation db?

~~~
s_dev
Table Plus works on macOS.

I disagree about the UI. Table Plus when connecting to a DB will mark the
offending parameter red to let you know what credential isn't right e.g.
host/port/key I've found this very helpful.

Sequel Pro is free which you didn't mention and Table Plus has a fee.

------
z3t4
Thats one scary select statement in the screenshot.

------
russianbandit
Anyone know if they plan to support Presto?

------
S3raph
is this similar to DBeaver?

