DBeaver – open-source database client(github.com)
github.com
DBeaver – open-source database client
https://github.com/dbeaver/dbeaver
160 comments
I personally like the ER diagram viewer in DBeaver. On a project with very little documentation, it was extremely pleasing to point it to the staging database and be able to visualize the relationships between various entities.
SchemaSpy can generate static docs based on a live db, and they include pretty good ER diagrams (IMO).
They have a sample on their website (go to the relationships section):
https://schemaspy.org/samples/epivirusurf/
The convenience factor is that you don't need a continuous connection to the db to refer to the diagrams or other docs.
They have a sample on their website (go to the relationships section):
https://schemaspy.org/samples/epivirusurf/
The convenience factor is that you don't need a continuous connection to the db to refer to the diagrams or other docs.
The free version supports a few, but you need to pay $500 a year if you to talk to more databases or want security or cloud features:
https://dbeaver.com/edition/
It's a great tool, though, a bit buggy but most useful.
https://dbeaver.com/edition/
It's a great tool, though, a bit buggy but most useful.
In what way is the free version lacking security?
They do use JDBC and even allow you to customize your choice of driver version for a db. It is a bit clunky when one has to resolve missing dependencies but that's just how it works I guess.
I know probably 95% of HN will see it as a downside but one of my favorite things about DBeaver is that because it is implemented on Eclipse you can install nearly any Eclipse plugin and they work. So I installed Vrapper to edit in Vi-mode, some git tools I like, PlantUML, etc. Really makes it a step above other tools in terms of the power and flexibility you can have with it.
Apart from that, you can install it inside regular Eclipse as a plugin, so then you can have your database window and your ER diagram next to your code. Again, something that really sets it apart from dedicated tools.
Apart from that, you can install it inside regular Eclipse as a plugin, so then you can have your database window and your ER diagram next to your code. Again, something that really sets it apart from dedicated tools.
I love the Eclipse IDE. It's a shame the Eclipse Foundation doesn't treat it better.
Last time I tried to contribute to it, I ended up giving up. They wanted me to sign paperwork simply to report a bug. There was no documentation about how to build the IDE, which is scattered across dozens of repositories. Maybe that has improved, but I doubt it.
They seem to be putting all their eggs into the Theia basket, which is an IDE framework similar to VSCode. Would have been nice to see that energy go towards improving Eclipse instead of reinventing the wheel.
Improving the UI's handling of HiDPI would be nice. One can but dream.
Last time I tried to contribute to it, I ended up giving up. They wanted me to sign paperwork simply to report a bug. There was no documentation about how to build the IDE, which is scattered across dozens of repositories. Maybe that has improved, but I doubt it.
They seem to be putting all their eggs into the Theia basket, which is an IDE framework similar to VSCode. Would have been nice to see that energy go towards improving Eclipse instead of reinventing the wheel.
Improving the UI's handling of HiDPI would be nice. One can but dream.
Hi, I am an Eclipse Foundation committer, but I am not committing to the IDE itself.
You don't have to sign the CLA (contributor license agreement) if you want to report a bug, but you have if you want to contribute code, even a small patch for a bug you found. That's a legal requirement to protect the Foundation from contributions that may copy/paste proprietary code and to ensure that you will not in the future change your mind and make claims for your contributions. It's not peculiar to Eclipse Foundation, many open source vendors require contributors to sign a CLA [1]
My understanding is that Theia is currently more of a platform than a complete IDE. It is meant to be usable for building cloud-based IDEs, and you can test a distribution on your workstation, but being it a client/server architecture, you currently have to run a docker container locally to test Theia (or at least this was the case in Q3 2023). They are now focusing on the user interface and plug-in architecture of Theia (which is already capable of running VSCode extension). IMHO, for Theia to become really meaningful the server-side part needs to be improved: currently Theia reuses Eclipse JDT and other plug-ins on the back-end, which is fine for a desktop app, but less convenient for a client/server IDE as you will need a separate server-side container running the Eclipse plug-ins for every active user running the Web-based Theia GUI.
With respect to Eclipse itself, it has dramatically improved over the last few years, since the Foundation started making a release every 3 months. You may like the UI or not, but on my workstation it's now much faster and lighter than it used to be, and it's also faster and lighter than IntelliJ. To me the main issue with Eclipse is that it relies on P2 for plug-in distribution, which makes installing Eclipse add-ons a painful process.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributor_License_Agreement
You don't have to sign the CLA (contributor license agreement) if you want to report a bug, but you have if you want to contribute code, even a small patch for a bug you found. That's a legal requirement to protect the Foundation from contributions that may copy/paste proprietary code and to ensure that you will not in the future change your mind and make claims for your contributions. It's not peculiar to Eclipse Foundation, many open source vendors require contributors to sign a CLA [1]
My understanding is that Theia is currently more of a platform than a complete IDE. It is meant to be usable for building cloud-based IDEs, and you can test a distribution on your workstation, but being it a client/server architecture, you currently have to run a docker container locally to test Theia (or at least this was the case in Q3 2023). They are now focusing on the user interface and plug-in architecture of Theia (which is already capable of running VSCode extension). IMHO, for Theia to become really meaningful the server-side part needs to be improved: currently Theia reuses Eclipse JDT and other plug-ins on the back-end, which is fine for a desktop app, but less convenient for a client/server IDE as you will need a separate server-side container running the Eclipse plug-ins for every active user running the Web-based Theia GUI.
With respect to Eclipse itself, it has dramatically improved over the last few years, since the Foundation started making a release every 3 months. You may like the UI or not, but on my workstation it's now much faster and lighter than it used to be, and it's also faster and lighter than IntelliJ. To me the main issue with Eclipse is that it relies on P2 for plug-in distribution, which makes installing Eclipse add-ons a painful process.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributor_License_Agreement
Hey - don't know what part you contribute to, but thanks for the work whatever you are doing.
Eclipse has been my mainstay for ~20 years now, and while I know lots of people probably more authoritative than me will vehemently disagree, I honestly see it as one of the best pieces of software engineering ever made. The flexibility of the UI, the plugin system, incremental compile, the concept of perspectives and the overall stability delivered given how it is built - a complex ecosystem of cooperating plugins - is absolutely amazing. Now I've reached the point of making my own plugins and contributing to others my respect for it only increased.
It's definitely a complex tool and I think the vast majority of people fall over before they get over the hump of learning to use it. For more experienced users, many people still have in their head the image of Eclipse from 2007 and don't realise that it's been on a path of steady but slow linear improvement for more than a decade - another testament to the underlying engineering.
Eclipse has been my mainstay for ~20 years now, and while I know lots of people probably more authoritative than me will vehemently disagree, I honestly see it as one of the best pieces of software engineering ever made. The flexibility of the UI, the plugin system, incremental compile, the concept of perspectives and the overall stability delivered given how it is built - a complex ecosystem of cooperating plugins - is absolutely amazing. Now I've reached the point of making my own plugins and contributing to others my respect for it only increased.
It's definitely a complex tool and I think the vast majority of people fall over before they get over the hump of learning to use it. For more experienced users, many people still have in their head the image of Eclipse from 2007 and don't realise that it's been on a path of steady but slow linear improvement for more than a decade - another testament to the underlying engineering.
You might already know, but for others, installing plugins can become a bit less painfull if you make a list of favorites and install those plugins in one go.
In order to make favourites list, you have to open an account in eclipse.org and then search in the marketplace website and "star" the required plugins.
example -> My favorites URL - https://marketplace.eclipse.org/user/mbhata6m/favorites
I like the Eclipse UI. I just don't like how it behave on high resolution displays on Linux.
I was unable to create an account for the bug tracker without signing a CLA. Maybe that's changed now, but I'm pretty sure that was the case when I last tried.
I wouldn't say that Eclipse has dramatically improved on the last few years. On the contrary. It feels more sluggish to me and it crashes more frequently than before.
The plugin Marketplace in Eclipse is a steaming pile of shite. Installing plugins is an incredibly slow and painful affair. It can take MINUTES to run a search for a plugin, and while it's loading the rest of the UI just freezes. That's a shame.
But given that I can't even figure out how to build the full IDE with its hundrends of plugins, and the CLA nonsense, I certainly won't be investing my time on trying to fix that.
I was unable to create an account for the bug tracker without signing a CLA. Maybe that's changed now, but I'm pretty sure that was the case when I last tried.
I wouldn't say that Eclipse has dramatically improved on the last few years. On the contrary. It feels more sluggish to me and it crashes more frequently than before.
The plugin Marketplace in Eclipse is a steaming pile of shite. Installing plugins is an incredibly slow and painful affair. It can take MINUTES to run a search for a plugin, and while it's loading the rest of the UI just freezes. That's a shame.
But given that I can't even figure out how to build the full IDE with its hundrends of plugins, and the CLA nonsense, I certainly won't be investing my time on trying to fix that.
Can't talk for Linux, I am now using Eclipse on Mac.
I used Eclipse on Linux about 8 years ago, and I remember running into frequent issues at that time: the problem was that I was using Ubuntu 16.04, but the SWT widget toolkit maintainers for Linux were Red Hat employees and they were focused mostly on Fedora. For several months SWT was very unstable because the native nature of SWT made it difficult to support it on the different Linux distributions, especially during the transition from GTK2 to GTK3, and considering that Ubuntu was tweaking GTK a lot to achieve its own unique visual style. You can get an idea of the problems the Linux maintainers were having here [1]
At the same time, the release notes of Eclipse clearly stated that that particular version of Ubuntu was not supported. So maybe you are running into the same issue, maybe you are using a Linux distribution that is not amongst the list of officially supported (=tested) Linux distributions.
With respect to market place and plug-ins my experience is different from yours, but having worked on Eclipse plug-ins for years I am certainly a more expert user. As I already said, to me the worst aspect of Eclipse is the p2 package format. It probably solves many problems (e.g. it tries to guarantee that you don't end up with a broken Eclipse instance due to lack of dependencies), but I often think that they could have achieved the same by using plain-old Maven dependencies and BOMs.
[1] https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=492371
Edit: fixed typos
I used Eclipse on Linux about 8 years ago, and I remember running into frequent issues at that time: the problem was that I was using Ubuntu 16.04, but the SWT widget toolkit maintainers for Linux were Red Hat employees and they were focused mostly on Fedora. For several months SWT was very unstable because the native nature of SWT made it difficult to support it on the different Linux distributions, especially during the transition from GTK2 to GTK3, and considering that Ubuntu was tweaking GTK a lot to achieve its own unique visual style. You can get an idea of the problems the Linux maintainers were having here [1]
At the same time, the release notes of Eclipse clearly stated that that particular version of Ubuntu was not supported. So maybe you are running into the same issue, maybe you are using a Linux distribution that is not amongst the list of officially supported (=tested) Linux distributions.
With respect to market place and plug-ins my experience is different from yours, but having worked on Eclipse plug-ins for years I am certainly a more expert user. As I already said, to me the worst aspect of Eclipse is the p2 package format. It probably solves many problems (e.g. it tries to guarantee that you don't end up with a broken Eclipse instance due to lack of dependencies), but I often think that they could have achieved the same by using plain-old Maven dependencies and BOMs.
[1] https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=492371
Edit: fixed typos
Eclipse started as a "reinvention" of IBM VisualAge for Java and went through at least one major rewrite (transitioning to OSGi). I guess it's the standard pattern for mature code bases.
Would love to learn how you installed these plugins and tested them. Have you written about this somewhere or can you point to some resources that can help people like me, who use dbeaver but can't customize them well.
It's straighforward - it doesn't have the Eclipse Marketplace installed so you have to use direct installation, which just means you have to find the plugin site yourself, which is usually on the web site or github page for the plugin.
So you go to Help => Install New Software and then put eg: the Vrapper update site in:
So you go to Help => Install New Software and then put eg: the Vrapper update site in:
http://vrapper.sourceforge.net/update-site/stable
I've used Vrapper with Eclipse for years, and I've used Dbeaver for years - yet it has never entered my mind before that I could use Vrapper with Dbeaver! Thanks!
> one of my favorite things about DBeaver is that because it is implemented on Eclipse you can install nearly any Eclipse plugin and they work
I like DataGrip for a very similar reason, relative to IDEA plugins.
I like DataGrip for a very similar reason, relative to IDEA plugins.
Potentially good info to know for someone using Eclipse.
Why start your comment by saying "I know probably 95% of HN will see it as a downside but"?
And this is irrespective of whether that 95% is right or not.
Google "father son and donkey story".
And re: that 95%:
See normal distribution aka bell curve.
And echo chamber and hive mind.
All of the above imply the same main point, just in different ways.
And this is irrespective of whether that 95% is right or not.
Google "father son and donkey story".
And re: that 95%:
See normal distribution aka bell curve.
And echo chamber and hive mind.
All of the above imply the same main point, just in different ways.
Unfortunately I pretty much have only ever seen negative comments about Eclipse on HN. It seems immensely unpopular and often the minute you mention it you'll get a bunch of often derisive replies. At this point I've had to come to terms with the fact that I'm the odd one out and own it, and that is how I do it. No disrepect meant, more acknowledgement of my own exceptionalism.
Interesting approach.
Sort of like defence against possible downvoters.
If OP went along the "father, son, and donkey story," then the OP won't have posted it at all.
If OP went along the "father, son, and donkey story," then the OP won't have posted it at all.
No, they could still have chosen to post it, even if they went along with that story.
My point was that there is no need to prepare a defence against downvoters, that too, up front. Not needed at all. Why is their opinion important to the OP? They can have their opinions, he can have his opinion of the same matter. What's the problem? The problem is only if one thinks that HN karma is important. It's totally unimportant.
My point was that there is no need to prepare a defence against downvoters, that too, up front. Not needed at all. Why is their opinion important to the OP? They can have their opinions, he can have his opinion of the same matter. What's the problem? The problem is only if one thinks that HN karma is important. It's totally unimportant.
>he can have his opinion
he or she (or they), sorry.
he or she (or they), sorry.
Karma is unimportant, but downvotes fade away the comment. There is little point in making a comment that will disappear anyway, since no one will see it.
>Karma is unimportant, but downvotes fade away the comment.
So what? IMO, HN comments are also unimportant.
In fact, HN is also unimportant. I said that here on HN recently.
Jeez. Does anyone think HN is important in the real world?
In the HN world, HN may be important (and even then, only to some), but then it is an echo chamber.
>There is little point in making a comment that will disappear anyway, since no one will see it.
Maybe. Maybe not. Do you rate the importance or value of your comments by the number of people who see them?
>There is little point in making a comment that will disappear anyway, since no one will see it.
So what? So comment anyway, without bothering about it disappearing, just to express yourself, or refrain from commenting if the disappearing of your comment is so important to you.
So what? IMO, HN comments are also unimportant.
In fact, HN is also unimportant. I said that here on HN recently.
Jeez. Does anyone think HN is important in the real world?
In the HN world, HN may be important (and even then, only to some), but then it is an echo chamber.
>There is little point in making a comment that will disappear anyway, since no one will see it.
Maybe. Maybe not. Do you rate the importance or value of your comments by the number of people who see them?
>There is little point in making a comment that will disappear anyway, since no one will see it.
So what? So comment anyway, without bothering about it disappearing, just to express yourself, or refrain from commenting if the disappearing of your comment is so important to you.
That makes sense.
Why are you here, though?
Why are you here, though?
Not sure of your meaning, but maybe you're confusing unimportant with uninteresting? HN may be unimportant, but it is (sometimes) interesting, because of those very comments. Go figure (pun intended).
>That makes sense.
First say which of my above statements you refer to.
Until then I cannot meaningfully reply to your question:
>Why are you here, though?
Also, why should I not be here? You have any problem with it?
See what I did there?
First say which of my above statements you refer to.
Until then I cannot meaningfully reply to your question:
>Why are you here, though?
Also, why should I not be here? You have any problem with it?
See what I did there?
> First say which of my above statements you refer to.
Nothing in particular.
> Also, why should I not be here? You have any problem with it?
Not at all.
You might be reading too much into my comment, though.
Nothing in particular.
> Also, why should I not be here? You have any problem with it?
Not at all.
You might be reading too much into my comment, though.
Dude:
>>First say which of my above statements you refer to.
>Nothing in particular.
>You might be reading too much into my comment, though.
I cannot be reading too much into your comment if you say that you refer to nothing in particular (out of my statements).
QED.
Be logical, like Spock:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Nimoy
kthxbye :)
>>First say which of my above statements you refer to.
>Nothing in particular.
>You might be reading too much into my comment, though.
I cannot be reading too much into your comment if you say that you refer to nothing in particular (out of my statements).
QED.
Be logical, like Spock:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Nimoy
kthxbye :)
> Karma is unimportant, but downvotes fade away the comment.
Preemptive defense against downvotes is a good way to attract them, so that's another reason not to do it.
Preemptive defense against downvotes is a good way to attract them, so that's another reason not to do it.
>so that's another reason not to do it.
Unless one doesn't care about downvotes, because, you know, one is not a slave to convention.
Unless one doesn't care about downvotes, because, you know, one is not a slave to convention.
I don’t know why it matters to me, but I’ve always been put off by it being ugly and using non-native widgets. That may be the only reason I’ve paid for TablePlus.
I’d probably be fine with a great TUI interface, too. So it’s really this intermediate UI that irritates me.
I’d probably be fine with a great TUI interface, too. So it’s really this intermediate UI that irritates me.
I find it absolutely baffling how often the prettiness of UI comes up as a HN comment.
If you asked me objectively "do you think it's pretty?" I'd probably say no, but never once has this even occurred me when using it since I'm usually just trying to get work done, which I find it very useful for. It's a productivity tool, not an art piece I'm hanging on my wall.
If you asked me objectively "do you think it's pretty?" I'd probably say no, but never once has this even occurred me when using it since I'm usually just trying to get work done, which I find it very useful for. It's a productivity tool, not an art piece I'm hanging on my wall.
I think it's less about aesthetics and more about cognitive load.
Nonstandard UIs aren't end of the world, but if possible I don't want the extra cognitive load of interacting with 5, 6, 7, whatever slightly different GUI paradigms.
Like most developers I'm using multiple applications at once. Typically I'm using a terminal, text editor, browser, Slack, email, and maybe a database GUI.
A developer's cognition and cognitive load are limiting factors. Increase my cognitive load by X% and there is going to be a Y% increase in how long it takes me to do something and/or a Z% decrease in the quality of the work. Even if X% is small, it adds up pretty quickly. After all if we are employed full time that is 2,000+ hours per year of work.
Again, not just aesthetics. It's little things like, "does this software support the standard keyboard shortcuts for my system?" If CMD+W closes a window in every app except one that's kind of a pain. Etc.
Nonstandard UIs aren't end of the world, but if possible I don't want the extra cognitive load of interacting with 5, 6, 7, whatever slightly different GUI paradigms.
Like most developers I'm using multiple applications at once. Typically I'm using a terminal, text editor, browser, Slack, email, and maybe a database GUI.
A developer's cognition and cognitive load are limiting factors. Increase my cognitive load by X% and there is going to be a Y% increase in how long it takes me to do something and/or a Z% decrease in the quality of the work. Even if X% is small, it adds up pretty quickly. After all if we are employed full time that is 2,000+ hours per year of work.
Again, not just aesthetics. It's little things like, "does this software support the standard keyboard shortcuts for my system?" If CMD+W closes a window in every app except one that's kind of a pain. Etc.
To be honest i find dbeaver well designed. Even though the interface is cluttered with a ton of functionalities, it has everything I need where I expect it to be! I don't recall googling "who to do X with dbeaver ?".
Counterpoint, I love DBeaver and have used it frequently. Did go through a scare with the schema viewer though where I thought that I had somehow deleted the entire table schema, after doing a backup of course. But it took some googling to find out that I had not committed the changes to the database, and also that there was an option to "lock" interactions with the database to prevent the kind of scare I had. So as an novice/intermediate SQL user, the clunky interface can be a detriment.
I'd generally agree with you. DBeaver interface is quite discoverable. I reach out for it whenever I need something more visual than pgcli - esp. things like ERD, inline editing, easy cross table navigation etc.
However, I'd also agree with the GP comment. Its use of SWT ui results in some rather weird oddities. The biggest one is that if we configure gnome to use dark mode in linux, we get this absolutely unusable UI with barely visible text in many places. It becomes very obvious in that case which of the widgets are coming from gtk and which are custom rendered - and the distinction between them is stark.
And there doesn't appear to be a clear way to fix it without actually disabling the dark mode at OS level. I'd be perfectly fine if it used some framework that rendered its own widgets that looked a bit different or even if it ignored the dark mode completely and stayed usable.
However, I'd also agree with the GP comment. Its use of SWT ui results in some rather weird oddities. The biggest one is that if we configure gnome to use dark mode in linux, we get this absolutely unusable UI with barely visible text in many places. It becomes very obvious in that case which of the widgets are coming from gtk and which are custom rendered - and the distinction between them is stark.
And there doesn't appear to be a clear way to fix it without actually disabling the dark mode at OS level. I'd be perfectly fine if it used some framework that rendered its own widgets that looked a bit different or even if it ignored the dark mode completely and stayed usable.
While your point is understandable there are various types of people. An important aspect about user experience is aesthetic and ease of use. Some people care purely about functionality and others have mixed opinions on this. It's not fair to call it petty when you guys are just two different customers and users with different needs.
People sometimes forget the importance of user experience and it's why some amazing software barely gets used.
Personally I care about aesthetic and consistency but willing to sacrifice depending on what I'm doing.
People sometimes forget the importance of user experience and it's why some amazing software barely gets used.
Personally I care about aesthetic and consistency but willing to sacrifice depending on what I'm doing.
Some applications are designed so well, it makes me look for excuses to use them. Other times the good UI makes it faster and easier to get the job done. An ugly UI makes me less likely to want to use an application, and a bad/confusing one makes it harder for me to get the job done, especially if it’s used infrequently.
UI and UX does matter, even when talking about productivity software.
There can also be an element of inspiration and influence. If all my tools are well designed, I’m more likely to set a high bar for whatever I’m building. If I’m using ugly and poorly designed tool. The bar for whatever I’m making will likely drop to the environment I’m around.
UI and UX does matter, even when talking about productivity software.
There can also be an element of inspiration and influence. If all my tools are well designed, I’m more likely to set a high bar for whatever I’m building. If I’m using ugly and poorly designed tool. The bar for whatever I’m making will likely drop to the environment I’m around.
Imo it's not just about being functional so I can get work done. It's also about enjoying what I'm doing and having aesthetic tools is important to me. It's still functionality the most important? Yes. Do I prefer non-ugly tools to ugly tools even if I had to trade a bit of functionality for a lot of prettiness? Yes, every single time (as long as I can still get done what I need to get done, ofc)
Just to add insight: to me, inspiration is important, and beauty inspires me. When I coded a lot back in the day, I changed the coding font from time to time, for example.
A fun representation of the need for such beauty is in the game of Rimworld. In this world, the characters you manage react to the beauty of their surroundings, they need it to be beautiful to a degree, similar to how they need comfort, and recreation. Mood is central to the game, and an easy way to improve it generally is to create a beautiful environment, even if the characters are going to do mundane work like butchering.
A fun representation of the need for such beauty is in the game of Rimworld. In this world, the characters you manage react to the beauty of their surroundings, they need it to be beautiful to a degree, similar to how they need comfort, and recreation. Mood is central to the game, and an easy way to improve it generally is to create a beautiful environment, even if the characters are going to do mundane work like butchering.
At the same time, I find it more pleasant to use other software. DBeaver does everything I need, but it’s hardly ergonomic.
I'd argue it's not really about prettiness but about fitting in, so that the UI isn't jarring or distracting. I think the situation would actually be similar if the rest of the system was ugly and one particular app's UI was pretty, rather than the other way around.
I have a PowerGrep license. It's UI is so cluttered that I almost always find ways to make due with less capable alternatives.
It's not about pretty so much as simple things like whitespace or other details. I would never release a UI that acted weird in any way. For instance, DB Browser doesn't scale when undocking. I have to close the app and open it up and then load the database again.
Another example is Total Commander. I would buy it if it worked they way I think and had proper whitespace instead of being infinitely configurable and using non-conventional UX defaults (hit R I should jump to the first file staring with R, FFS).
If I have to suffer through this shit then so be it. If I don't have to suffer through it...delete.
Another example is Total Commander. I would buy it if it worked they way I think and had proper whitespace instead of being infinitely configurable and using non-conventional UX defaults (hit R I should jump to the first file staring with R, FFS).
If I have to suffer through this shit then so be it. If I don't have to suffer through it...delete.
Underscoring the "HN comment" part. This is a userbase who are presently interfacing with a wall of text, some tasteful greytext and a coloured bar. This appears to be a crowd with low visual needs.
Ugliness is something I found to be quite common in Java based apps. I never understood why, though.
None of major Java/OpenJDK contributors (Oracle, Red Hat, SAP etc) care about desktop GUI Java libs. Jet Brains do care, but they are not major. All Java progress is concentrated on backend cloud services for 10-15 years already. This can explain why Swing is so underdeveloped and JavaFX was thrown away. Basically much more effort is required to make Java GUI look and behave nicely, comparing to Delphi/Lazarus or .NET GUI libs or Qt.
Swing underdeveloped? You have been misinformed. The entire JetBrains suite is built in Swing and is top of the line. Swing is under active development, has a strong third party ecosystem, and is rock solid. You can do anything you want to do in Swing, and it is a joy to develop with (unlike any/all of the web front end nightmares).
What .NET GUI libraries are you referring to because anything other than WPF is tetering on "not a good idea." Have you built anything in Swing, WPF, Winforms, Xamarin Forms, or MAUI? You should give them all a serious test drive and get back to us with some informed comments.
What .NET GUI libraries are you referring to because anything other than WPF is tetering on "not a good idea." Have you built anything in Swing, WPF, Winforms, Xamarin Forms, or MAUI? You should give them all a serious test drive and get back to us with some informed comments.
I just had to pick up and build a UI product in java recently and picked up javafx for the first time. With Kotlin, I actually found it while using my the standard you builder to be quite intuitive and sorta dynamic enough to make development snappy. Definitely the best attempt at GUIs for java, but sad that only smaller shops are actually investing any real effort into the space. Oh and java native + javafx is a pain in the ass until I discovered Bellsoft NDK, which made building a binary from source 100% so much easier.
DataGrip does look visually better than Dbeaver, but I've found Dbeaver has much better performance.
I'm ignorant about this all. Can't you use something like Qt in Java?
You can, but anything in java that needs to step down into c/c++ ends up being a major pain in the ass so it's usually implemented half baked at best. Platform ergonomics are hard and you usually find that what works great in some languages / paradigms just don't flourish in others. It'd be nice to see some good language bindings that feel right for java.
There are Qt bindings for Java, but I’m not familiar with them
Jet Brains care? Do they? In my experience their tools are some of the ugliest out there. Granted, that's highly subjective, but there is "something" off about IntelliJ that I can't really put my finger on. Maybe the lack of whitespace. Maybe the weird tabs.
I meant that Jet Brains do care about GUI support in OpenJDK (mainstream Java), their flagship products depend on this, they employ a number of ex-Oracle GUI devs and contribute fixes upstream. Just there are no new major projects in GUI area in OpenJDK for years, because none of big contributors is interested in it. Compare this to improvements in non-GUI areas like Java 21 Threading and also the whole Graal thing.
Oh I see, I misunderstood what you meant, thanks for clearing that up.
There was a talk [1] at Devoxx 2023 by an Oracle which gave an overview of the current state of the UI ecosystem, and it wasn't too bad, though it seems like it's mainly JavaFX these days. Support for fractional zooming on HiDPI screens on Linux is still shit, unfortunately, which is something that drives me nuts.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afehjldx4yM
There was a talk [1] at Devoxx 2023 by an Oracle which gave an overview of the current state of the UI ecosystem, and it wasn't too bad, though it seems like it's mainly JavaFX these days. Support for fractional zooming on HiDPI screens on Linux is still shit, unfortunately, which is something that drives me nuts.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afehjldx4yM
+1, except for Jetbrains IDEs that have polished UI
Dbeaver has quite a few Java annoyances. Windows don't resize properly, the tree list often requires multiple clicks and most annoying of all is running out of heap space on Java, especially if one tries to run more than one task at a time.
DBeaver uses SWT toolkit, its widgets are as platform-native as Java can do. Some of them can be much faster with long text editing than default Java Swing widgets.
Yup, SWT is a wrapper for actual native widgets, similar to wxWidgets. Some widgets are custom though, like the horrendously ugly tab widgets, which might be what the other commenter is reacting to. And the spacing and alignment usually doesn't look great in most SWT-based apps I've seen, for some reason.
At least on Apple platforms, I don’t think SWT uses Apple’s layout algorithms and so you end up with Cocoa controls with slightly wrong spacing
It is free tool with gobbles of functionality. I use it occasionally and it works great. Whatever set of widgets it uses does not concern me at all. It does what I need and is convenient enough. Maybe it would matter more if I was spending all my work time with it but in reality I use it very occasionally.
So thank to the developers.
I also use another DB admin tool: HeidiSQL. This one is lightning fast. Most likely because it is native application. Written in Delphi btw
Same thanks to the developer
So thank to the developers.
I also use another DB admin tool: HeidiSQL. This one is lightning fast. Most likely because it is native application. Written in Delphi btw
Same thanks to the developer
The default DB tool where I work is Heidi and I switched to DBeaver because I found Heidi to be horrendously unstable. Dozens of random exceptions on a daily basis, and because it’s single-threaded a long-running query will just lock up the entire UI to the point where it triggers the “this program is not responding” dialog on Windows.
A free and open source DB management tool is still an impressive feat, but I absolutely would not trust it with anything where blowing up would have consequences.
A free and open source DB management tool is still an impressive feat, but I absolutely would not trust it with anything where blowing up would have consequences.
>"I found Heidi to be horrendously unstable."
As already said DB admin tools are not my daily driver. I either did not use Heidi intensively enough to uncover all the problems you mentioned or they've fixed those.
As already said DB admin tools are not my daily driver. I either did not use Heidi intensively enough to uncover all the problems you mentioned or they've fixed those.
No Heidi is pretty unstable compared to what it used to be. I get 2 or 3 exceptions that require me to restart daily, the good thing is that the exceptions are caught, and you can copy out any SQL you have been working on which means you rarely loose work.
I still prefer it as it is fast and has a nice UI and if they can sort the crashes, I would be a convert.
I still prefer it as it is fast and has a nice UI and if they can sort the crashes, I would be a convert.
This complaint has been levelled against Java (and small talk earlier than that) since forever and it made no sense back in the 1990s either. Nobody complains about the Wild West of interfaces on web apps.
On a mobile I kind of get it because having apps work in similar ways eases the learning curve (I.e burger menus etc), but all the UI paradigms being used in dbeaver are the same as any other desktop app.
I appreciate the fact that it works identically on Linux as it does Windows (and presumably MacOS). Not even Microsoft maintain consistent use of widgets within their operating system, you still stumble across windows 3.0 looking screens in windows 11.
I say…it’s good that dbeaver eschews native widgets
On a mobile I kind of get it because having apps work in similar ways eases the learning curve (I.e burger menus etc), but all the UI paradigms being used in dbeaver are the same as any other desktop app.
I appreciate the fact that it works identically on Linux as it does Windows (and presumably MacOS). Not even Microsoft maintain consistent use of widgets within their operating system, you still stumble across windows 3.0 looking screens in windows 11.
I say…it’s good that dbeaver eschews native widgets
I tried tableplus, liked it, it just feels right. I reported a minor error in docs, got a friendly message and a year of license. 10/10
I am in the same position. I used Postico in the past, but unfortunately it doesn't offer support for non-Postgres databases. TablePlus has really good native UI and I wish more apps went that route as you can definitely feel a difference between a native app and something like DBeaver.
https://harlequin.sh/ is a nice SQL IDE for you terminal (TUI)
HN post:
Harlequin: SQL IDE for Your Terminal (github.com/tconbeer)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38882526
Huh, the utilitarian UI is part of why I like it
I've tested it since you recommend it but it seems it can't do Postgres local connection (via socket-file = the default). Not great UX on linux.
I have been using it for 3 years with Postgresql and it still buggy. When the db is throwing out an error dbeaver just say that there was an error on line xx followed by java exception stactrace forcing me to login into the db via command line and figure out what is wrong myself.
If you want to write and debug a stored procedure then good luck!
The ui had many issues and only recently seems to be just usable.
At least with Postgresql, I can't really recommend for anything too complex.
For me it's buggy when it has to reconnect to something... eg. i work on something, close the laptop (suspend to mem), and the next day open it up, wait for an hour or two doing other stuff (so there's enough time to notice that the tcp session is down), and dbeaver shows a progress bar and gets stuck there, until i restart it, and click a zillion times to get to the proper psql table.
Also, the annoying 'new version,...' popups are annoying.
Otherwise, a great gui.
Also, the annoying 'new version,...' popups are annoying.
Otherwise, a great gui.
There is a fix regarding connectivity as per the latest release notes:
https://dbeaver.io/2024/03/03/dbeaver-24-0-0/
> Connectivity: closing timeout for an idle connection was increased and disabled for embedded
> Connectivity: closing timeout for an idle connection was increased and disabled for embedded
> Also, the annoying 'new version,...' popups are annoying.
And the weird wording when you finish restoring a database with the button "next" highlighted, asking for one more ride.
And the weird wording when you finish restoring a database with the button "next" highlighted, asking for one more ride.
Agreed, I've had mostly the same experience. There was about a month where I wasn't able to run a particular query on Oracle SQL but that's fixed now.
[deleted]
DBeaver is amazing. As someone who needs to do adhoc querying / extracting / loading of data from any hosts of system on a daily basis - this tool has saved me over and over again.
My beef is there doesn't seem to be a way to contribute $$$ to the OS version -- except for buying/subscribing to the commercial version. Maybe I've missed some web page that explains how to do contribute -- so if anyone knows if there's a way to do that --- post it here.
My beef is there doesn't seem to be a way to contribute $$$ to the OS version -- except for buying/subscribing to the commercial version. Maybe I've missed some web page that explains how to do contribute -- so if anyone knows if there's a way to do that --- post it here.
I swear I donated to them via paypal once long ago, but I think they've since removed all those donation links in favor of the EE.
Presumably any profits they make from merch goes into their pockets, so you could buy something from there that's in the price range you want to donate I suppose https://www.redbubble.com/people/DBeaverCorp/shop
Presumably any profits they make from merch goes into their pockets, so you could buy something from there that's in the price range you want to donate I suppose https://www.redbubble.com/people/DBeaverCorp/shop
t-shirt ordered.. thx!
Out of curiosity, why not buy/subscribe to the commercial version then, if this is the clear path for how to support the primary developers of the software?
I don't like the subscription options they offer. I just want to throw them $50 a year for the CE version -- which I would think is better than $0 a year I'm giving them now.
From my POV, $50/year is not necessarily better than $0. Open source "donations" to open core / commercial OSS businesses typically don't amount to much in total. It's basically a rounding error for most businesses, with the extra downside of accounting/tax tracking. And although many FOSS financial contributors understand that this is a no-strings-attached type of situation, a small portion become very demanding and have unreasonable expectations due to being a supporter.
I mean I kind of get where you're coming from, but on the other hand... outside of software, would you ever praise a product as an amazing life-saver, but express a beef with the makers' lack of a pocket-change GoFundMe?
I mean I kind of get where you're coming from, but on the other hand... outside of software, would you ever praise a product as an amazing life-saver, but express a beef with the makers' lack of a pocket-change GoFundMe?
Also they made a browser database client (cloudbeaver) which is much better than pgdamin IMO. I set it for my company, so people can easily access database without creating tunnels, sharing passwords, etc. I tried pgadmin before, but it was incredibly buggy, almost unusable as a shared installation (often server would just hang until restart).
For desktop I, personally, prefer Idea Database plugin, because it's just SQL editor, but incredibly powerful one.
For desktop I, personally, prefer Idea Database plugin, because it's just SQL editor, but incredibly powerful one.
> For desktop I, personally, prefer Idea Database plugin, because it's just SQL editor, but incredibly powerful one.
I also quite like DataGrip (essentially a standalone of the IDEA database plugin, or maybe the plugin is a plugin version of the standalone, not sure which came first).
I also quite like DataGrip (essentially a standalone of the IDEA database plugin, or maybe the plugin is a plugin version of the standalone, not sure which came first).
List of db clients I have bookmarked
https://dbeaver.io/
https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/1800-database-navigator
https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/sql-devel...
http://squirrel-sql.sourceforge.net/
https://dbgate.org/screenshots/
TUIs:
https://harlequin.sh/
https://terminaltrove.com/gobang/
Not free:
https://www.jetbrains.com/datagrip/
https://dbeaver.io/
https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/1800-database-navigator
https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/sql-devel...
http://squirrel-sql.sourceforge.net/
https://dbgate.org/screenshots/
TUIs:
https://harlequin.sh/
https://terminaltrove.com/gobang/
Not free:
https://www.jetbrains.com/datagrip/
Some other tools I have also enjoyed:
DBVisualizer: https://www.dbvis.com/ (for exploring the schema)
Jailer: https://wisser.github.io/Jailer/ (for data browsing)
Aside from that, it's usually just been a mix of using specialized tools like MySQL Workbench, SQL Developer, pgAdmin and others, or something that tries to do it all like DataGrip.
Didn't actually find anything particularly amazing about DataGrip, but if I'm paying for the JetBrains Ultimate subscription, might as well use it because it's pretty okay.
DBVisualizer: https://www.dbvis.com/ (for exploring the schema)
Jailer: https://wisser.github.io/Jailer/ (for data browsing)
Aside from that, it's usually just been a mix of using specialized tools like MySQL Workbench, SQL Developer, pgAdmin and others, or something that tries to do it all like DataGrip.
Didn't actually find anything particularly amazing about DataGrip, but if I'm paying for the JetBrains Ultimate subscription, might as well use it because it's pretty okay.
https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/1800-database-navigator
This looks good. Anyone have experience with it?
This looks good. Anyone have experience with it?
I'll add:
CLIs: https://www.mycli.net/ https://www.pgcli.com/
CLIs: https://www.mycli.net/ https://www.pgcli.com/
I use dbeaver extensively at work. I like that you can graphically edit rows and it will start those changes as a transaction, so you can hit ctrl+s to commit the changes
> I like that you can graphically edit rows and it will start those changes as a transaction, so you can hit ctrl+s to commit the changes
One of my favorite features too. I don't doubt this has saved me from some bad mistakes since you can use a methodology of "select rows to change" and manually set their value, then review, then Save, rather than issuing an update that tries to change them with SQL. For small scale ad hoc maintenance it's great.
One of my favorite features too. I don't doubt this has saved me from some bad mistakes since you can use a methodology of "select rows to change" and manually set their value, then review, then Save, rather than issuing an update that tries to change them with SQL. For small scale ad hoc maintenance it's great.
I like dbeaver for browsing DDL, list of tables, examples of schema, data types. also, to edit a few rows here and there as a quick test/fix to something. because its easier to click around than write many 2 line sql to do the same thing.
But, I often use jupyter notebooks for the DML aspect of hard queries and data anlysis, for the power of dataframes and repeatable cells mixed with documentation and sharing.
So all that to say, anyone know if there is a DDL browser equivalent ideal for jupyter notebooks / ipywidgets?
But, I often use jupyter notebooks for the DML aspect of hard queries and data anlysis, for the power of dataframes and repeatable cells mixed with documentation and sharing.
So all that to say, anyone know if there is a DDL browser equivalent ideal for jupyter notebooks / ipywidgets?
same, except I use emaacs org mode instead of jupyter (and have record keeping / backup implemented with git-auto-commit-mode as well)
DBeaver is great, but it's so heavy/clunky on OSX. Also, 99% of the time I want 1. tables+data 2. data structure+index of table 3. search 4. sql query
DBeaver aims to be a full admin system and simply getting to the data makes me drill 3-4 levels deep in a tree and it's quite annoying that only adds to the "clunky-ness".
DBeaver aims to be a full admin system and simply getting to the data makes me drill 3-4 levels deep in a tree and it's quite annoying that only adds to the "clunky-ness".
There’s an option, simple view on connection or something, that eliminates much of the hierarchy.
OH WOW. This makes it significantly more usable. Thanks for it!
I'm going to give it another serious go. I like TablePlus but I prefer open source options.
I've been using PostBird which fails pretty hard at any "large" data inside a single cell. The columns just bleed everywhere. I'm sad it's not true OSS because I know the community really wanted to take it much further but the original maintainer didn't want to. Their right, I get it, still sad.
I'm going to give it another serious go. I like TablePlus but I prefer open source options.
I've been using PostBird which fails pretty hard at any "large" data inside a single cell. The columns just bleed everywhere. I'm sad it's not true OSS because I know the community really wanted to take it much further but the original maintainer didn't want to. Their right, I get it, still sad.
Yeah, to me TablePlus feels much better to use than anything else honestly, even if it's not open source.
On Mac OS I use Sequel Ace for MariaDB/MySQL, it's a spiritual successor to Sequel Pro. Native UI. Works great. https://sequel-ace.com/
I’m sure some other clients do this too, but one of my favourite DBeaver features is that it will display geospatial column values in an embedded OpenStreetMap pane.
This is what keeps me coming back to DBeaver as well. I don't know of any other clients that support display of PostGIS geometry types.
It's a great client and used it for years. But I have some issues. Sometimes the cursor disappear and ctrl-enter stops working. Anyone experienced something similar and know what it could be? I run on a rather minimalistic UI environment and might lack some desktop festures.
Yep, same. A recent update introduced a bug where the entire editor window contents disappear on a diagonal. No idea why. Sometimes adding a newline foxes it, sometimes it doesn’t.
It's a decent free and cross platform UI. Doesn't have all the DB specific features of a tool like PG admin or MySQL Workbench. Still, I like having the same tool for all my basic needs, and only use a more specialized one where I really need it.
Can you elaborate on what DB specific features are missing?
Pgadmin has some in depth stats about the server and can export COPY statements, among other things. MySQL Workbench has some nice planner visualisations.
I use this successfully with different versions of postgres, SQL server, MySQL, redshift and others. Does the job.
I use HeidiSQL for my SQL databases
I was forced to switch to DBeaver as HeidiSQL isn't allowed at my current employer. I miss how light Heidi is, but I'm not sure I'd switch back now I'm used to all the features DBeaver has.
This is a windows program written in delphi. A fitting choice, because Delphi provides both the necessary data grid component and the syntax highlighting editor, as well as connectors to several sql databases.
A cross platform version could be written in Lazarus, with the idea that it uses less system resources than a large java program.
A cross platform version could be written in Lazarus, with the idea that it uses less system resources than a large java program.
I also use HeidiSQL almost daily. Besides MySQL / MariaDB it also can connect to MSSQL and Postgres.
I recently had to import a CSV with some million rows into MariaDB. Neither HeidiSQL nor DBeaver could do it (tried various settings). IntelliJ worked like a charm.
I recently had to import a CSV with some million rows into MariaDB. Neither HeidiSQL nor DBeaver could do it (tried various settings). IntelliJ worked like a charm.
Have they fixed the awful stability issues and the fact that a query that takes longer than ~5s will lock up the entire application until it completes?
I use a mac and linux now. I think HeidiSQL is the thing I miss most from Windows.
Someone started a cross-platform rewrite at https://github.com/ragnar-lodbrok/meow-sql which has made incredible progress.
Does DBeaver have a feature similar to PGAdmin's schema diff(https://www.pgadmin.org/docs/pgadmin4/development/schema_dif...)?
I use this feature quite a bit, if DBeaver has a similar feature. I might try to make the jump.
I use this feature quite a bit, if DBeaver has a similar feature. I might try to make the jump.
Yes but not in the community version:
https://github.com/dbeaver/dbeaver/wiki/Schema-compare
https://github.com/dbeaver/dbeaver/wiki/Schema-compare
Great tool. Would be nice of it associating it with .parquet files on Windows allowed DBeaver to connect to them with a double-click.
I use the duckdb connector as an intermediary for parquet in Dbeaver - it works quite well.
I just create views like:
Create or replace view parqtable as select * from /pathtoparquet/*.parquet;
I just create views like:
Create or replace view parqtable as select * from /pathtoparquet/*.parquet;
I love dbeaver, but there's a thing that bugs me every single time. I constantly recreate databases during development, so I have to disconnect databases, then connect, then go dig inside the database tree to where I was before recreating. Am I missing some feature I don't know about?
Maybe improve your organization of database connections into folders to dig more easily?
I use it regularly for accessing PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQLight. Very happy so far. It’s regularly updated also.
Dbeaver is generally great. Sometimes I have weird issues where it just can’t load data after losing connection with Postgres. It’ll act like it’s reconnecting but will invariably fail. I need to manually disconnect and reconnect to get it to work.
But otherwise it does everything I need. I install it on all of my computers.
But otherwise it does everything I need. I install it on all of my computers.
I work primarily with Teradata, and prefer Toad over DBeaver. I've tried to use DBeaver but for some reason when creating objects or performing DML, it looks like the command successfully completed when it actually did not. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong...
This tool is my daily driver for all database stuff I touch. My only complaint is that the update dialog is quite a noisy nag. But that's not a real problem.
https://dbgate.org/ is also great db client
I mainly use Postico but I’ve noticed coworkers using DBeaver. I like how the tabs are named whereas in Postico I have to leave comments at the top of the query for later. I had to use DBeaver to access a non-Postgres database. I may end up trying it out as my primary tool for a bit.
I absolutely love Postico. For postgres, there really is no comparison for a Mac native db client. DBeaver seems so clunky in comparison, but I use that for everything non postgres.
DBeaver is somewhat clunky, yes, but for me that's a minor downside since it acts as a Swiss army knife, regardless of what DB I'm trying to access. That saves cognitive load from having to learn multiple tools. Pretty much anything with a JDBC driver is fair game. It being cross platform is a big boon as well since I use all 3 major OS fairly regularly - Mac at work, Windows and Linux at home.
Functionally it is very good, I like it very much. it does show that not all dark modes are created equal however. I think it takes an especially good designer to do dark mode well.
A good example of a well done dark mode (in my opinion of course) is Grafana.
A good example of a well done dark mode (in my opinion of course) is Grafana.
DBeaver is great and has been in my arsenal of dev tools for at least 5 years.
I've been using it for 5+ years! So much functionality for a free tool
The viewer for geospatial data is much better than most other GUI clients (and CLI clients are often not very useful for geospatial data).
As much as I want to like it, having used both this and free version of postico for a couple of months I overwhelmingly prefer the latter.
I use Adminer, very minimal
https://github.com/vrana/adminer
https://github.com/vrana/adminer
I'm looking for a tool like this that converts the schema to Laravel model files. Why? Because I'm lazy.
I only wish that I don't have to re-install my plugins each time dbeaver gets update
Which the team that created kaleidoscope would create a database app.
the different formats you can export data out in is pretty great, especially the export sql option.
Like most Java software, it's incredibly memory hungry.
Since I used navicat, almost every other db tools feels incomplete.
Worst UI experience. Prefer SQuirreL. Personal opinion.
Eh honestly I found it super cumbersome to use after coming from Sequel Pro (mysql), never really found a better alternative for Postgres though. Perhaps I would use Navicat
> Perhaps I would use Navicat
Navicat has Data Synchronization feature which you can use to compare and sync data across two databases. I dont think any other DB tool has that feature which also works on a Mac
Navicat has Data Synchronization feature which you can use to compare and sync data across two databases. I dont think any other DB tool has that feature which also works on a Mac
+1
It's your general swiss army knife for DB tools
It's your general swiss army knife for DB tools
It’s fine, but I maintain that spending a day or three learning SQL will pay dividends far beyond your initial time investment.
That’s not to say you can’t write SQL with a GUI, of course, but judging by the replies it seems like they’re more often used to look at or change tuples via clicking.
That’s not to say you can’t write SQL with a GUI, of course, but judging by the replies it seems like they’re more often used to look at or change tuples via clicking.
[1] https://babelfishpg.org/