[HN Gopher] DBeaver - open-source database client
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       DBeaver - open-source database client
        
       Author : saikatsg
       Score  : 183 points
       Date   : 2024-03-10 16:52 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | paulryanrogers wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | thunderbong wrote:
         | Can you elaborate on what DB specific features are missing?
        
           | paulryanrogers wrote:
           | Pgadmin has some in depth stats about the server and can
           | export COPY statements, among other things. MySQL Workbench
           | has some nice planner visualisations.
        
       | teaearlgraycold wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | vbezhenar wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | joshstrange wrote:
         | > 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).
        
       | htrp wrote:
       | +1
       | 
       | It's your general swiss army knife for DB tools
        
       | anonu wrote:
       | I use this successfully with different versions of postgres, SQL
       | server, MySQL, redshift and others. Does the job.
        
       | neals wrote:
       | I use HeidiSQL for my SQL databases
        
         | nurettin wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | bojan wrote:
         | 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.
        
       | cowmix wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | evanelias wrote:
         | 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?
        
           | cowmix wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | evanelias wrote:
             | 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?
        
         | worble wrote:
         | 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
        
           | cowmix wrote:
           | t-shirt ordered.. thx!
        
       | shortrounddev2 wrote:
       | 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
        
       | cbb330 wrote:
       | 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?
        
         | singingfish wrote:
         | same, except I use emaacs org mode instead of jupyter (and have
         | record keeping / backup implemented with git-auto-commit-mode
         | as well)
        
       | lucasfdacunha wrote:
       | Xxssss
        
       | xnx wrote:
       | Great tool. Would be nice of it associating it with .parquet
       | files on Windows allowed DBeaver to connect to them with a
       | double-click.
        
         | Nihilartikel wrote:
         | 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;
        
       | dfee wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | ramon156 wrote:
         | Not good at supporting GTK either, its the sole reason I do not
         | use it on gnome
        
           | trillic wrote:
           | What do you use?
        
           | dorfsmay wrote:
           | What?
           | 
           | I use it on gnome all the time and never run into an issue.
        
         | staticlibs wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | ptx wrote:
           | 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.
        
         | pachico wrote:
         | Ugliness is something I found to be quite common in Java based
         | apps. I never understood why, though.
        
           | yelsom wrote:
           | +1, except for Jetbrains IDEs that have polished UI
        
           | staticlibs wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | PlutoIsAPlanet wrote:
             | DataGrip does look visually better than Dbeaver, but I've
             | found Dbeaver has much better performance.
        
             | pachico wrote:
             | I'm ignorant about this all. Can't you use something like
             | Qt in Java?
        
               | gbear605 wrote:
               | There are Qt bindings for Java, but I'm not familiar with
               | them
        
         | FpUser wrote:
         | 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
        
         | worble wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | talhah wrote:
           | 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.
        
           | selfawareMammal wrote:
           | 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)
        
         | elAhmo wrote:
         | 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.
        
       | staticlibs wrote:
       | DBeaver works surprisingly nicely with less popular DBs. I work
       | with Babelfish for PostgreSQL [1], it supports connections with
       | SQL Server client libs. Most GUI client tools (like SSMS) expect
       | "real" SQL Server on the other end of the wire - depend on
       | various system views for DB introspection, so only partially work
       | with Babelfish. Even if client tool is based on JDBC (like
       | SQuirell SQL), it doesn't guarantee that this tool won't use
       | additional SQL Server-specific queries for introspection. DBeaver
       | is much better at this, I guess it is using JDBC API or DB-
       | neutral INFORMATION_SCHEMA views for introspection.
       | 
       | [1] https://babelfishpg.org/
        
       | osigurdson wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | 0x073 wrote:
       | Since I used navicat, almost every other db tools feels
       | incomplete.
        
       | i_am_a_squirrel wrote:
       | I've been using it for 5+ years! So much functionality for a free
       | tool
        
       | sdwvit wrote:
       | DBeaver is great and has been in my arsenal of dev tools for at
       | least 5 years.
        
       | tiku wrote:
       | I'm looking for a tool like this that converts the schema to
       | Laravel model files. Why? Because I'm lazy.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-03-10 23:00 UTC)