[HN Gopher] Show HN: SQL Explorer - Open-source reporting tool t...
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Show HN: SQL Explorer - Open-source reporting tool that Just Works
I have been working on SQL Explorer, an open source, Django-based
reporting and query tool for (gulp!) almost ten years. It's a tool
that fits just right for me and many others, and I love and use
almost every day. Write SQL, share results, do some analysis, get
insight. No surprises. A live demo instance is here (no login or
anything required): https://demo.sqlexplorer.io/ And here's a
fairly unprofessional, but very enthusiastic, video tour:
https://sql-explorer.s3.amazonaws.com/Sql+Explorer+5.mp4 The UI is
constrained enough that there's very little to learn, while there
is still a surprising amount of functionality and flexibility to
address a lot of use cases. Some of the stuff I'm excited about in
the latest version: - Intuitive and obvious integration to ChatGPT
/ the AI API of your choice. Doesn't purport to be 'magic'. Good
prompting + relevant table scheme & data automatically injected
into the prompt. - Create a new connection by uploading a CSV or
SQLite DB as a new connection, and it's instantly queryable. CSVs
are parsed, types inferred, and a SQLite DB gets created (persisted
to s3). - New and improved SQL editor with strong autocomplete
(based on your schema), and some fancy keyboard shortcuts. Some of
the old stuff that is still great: - Pivot tables in-browser, so
you don't have to open results in Excel for basic analysis. Unique
URLs make everything shareable. - Expose queries (optionally) as
JSON endpoints. Great for prototyping APIs and scripts. - All of
the stuff you'd expect in a reporting tool (email reports, logging,
favorites, exporting, etc.) Hope you enjoy!
Author : numlocked
Score : 172 points
Date : 2024-07-02 15:26 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| bosky101 wrote:
| I spent 10 mins on your docs, website.
|
| Excellent effort overall.
|
| But I didn't know until I read your comment here about the
| uploading CSV, instant parsing that non technical people may find
| very interesting. This is something pgweb for example doesn't
| have.
|
| Your docs are also missing a complete sample env.
|
| See that you've integrated pivottable. Nice touch!
|
| If you can figure out minimal barcharts , you may even have an
| opensearch/log community interested.
|
| Another killer idea is uploading CSV/json and getting faceted
| search. No one does this! But maybe distracting to your roadmap.
|
| Keep up the excellent work!
|
| Good luck!
| numlocked wrote:
| Thanks so much! Can you expand on the idea -- what do you mean
| by faceted search? What would that look like?
| setr wrote:
| I think GP is referring to something like excel's filters,
| where the UI exposes filter options dynamically based on the
| data actually available after all existing filters have been
| applied.
| iAm25626 wrote:
| https://docs.datasette.io/en/stable/facets.html (almost like
| a group by)
| randlet wrote:
| Just wanted to say thank you for all your effort on SQLExplorer,
| I incorporated it into our open source radiotherapy quality
| assurance project (https://qatrackplus.com) years ago and it's
| been a great addition and is used in hospitals around the world
| :)
| numlocked wrote:
| That's amazing! Thanks so much for sharing. Happy to chat if
| there are specific features or functionality that would be
| useful. Always looking for more feedback.
| rlawson wrote:
| Very useful tool! I contributed a few features as a repayment for
| the ton of value I have gotten from it
| numlocked wrote:
| Amazing! Thanks so much!
| joelhaasnoot wrote:
| Hey look, its Redash! https://github.com/getredash/redash
| RyanHamilton wrote:
| That's a very harsh comment to give someone that has poured
| hours of their life into something trying to help others
| unpaid. You could at least politely ask what makes it different
| than redash.
| numlocked wrote:
| Perhaps a bit impolite, but no offense taken. It's a very
| crowded space and there are a ton of good tools! I work on
| SQL Explorer simply because I get to make the thing that
| works best for me.
|
| Redash is very focused on visualization. SQL Explorer is not.
| It is going more in the direction of in-browser analysis.
| joelhaasnoot wrote:
| Don't worry I was downvoted to oblivion for it! It wasn't
| meant snarky but I get that that's what it reads like.
| rlawson wrote:
| Redash is great and all but if you already have a Django app
| this is 10 min to have up and running inside that same app
| ds_opseeker wrote:
| Just discovered this and got the test project up and running...
| but wondering how to enable CSV import?
|
| The "upload csv file" box does not show up in the test project.
| numlocked wrote:
| You got it! You'll need three values set in settings.py:
|
| https://github.com/explorerhq/django-sql-explorer/blob/64170...
| def user_uploads_enabled(): return
| (EXPLORER_USER_UPLOADS_ENABLED and
| EXPLORER_DB_CONNECTIONS_ENABLED and S3_BUCKET
| is not None)
|
| It should be in the docs, but I'll make sure it's more
| prominent!
| tobilg wrote:
| Nice tool! I built https://sql-workbench.com/ which runs
| completely in-browser via DuckDB WASM, and enables querying of
| remote CSV, JSON, Parquet and Arrow data sources, as well as
| uploaded local files. Charts are supported as well, see the
| accompanying blog post https://tobilg.com/using-duckdb-wasm-for-
| in-browser-data-eng...
| andix wrote:
| This is awesome, I hope I get a chance to use it once.
|
| One thought: I think the effort should be put into the UI for the
| non-technical end users, instead of query builders/developer
| experience. I would be even fine with a tool doesn't even have a
| query tool and just executes SQL files from a folder/git repo.
| The important part would be for me to provide a perfect
| experience for the end users. Developers usually have a lot of
| tools at hand to create queries, no need for another one.
| numlocked wrote:
| Yep - that makes sense. The Query pane can be collapsed,
| effectively hiding the SQL from the end user. This is indeed
| how a number of people use Explorer. But it could certainly be
| more optimized, in the direction you suggested. I'll think
| about how this might be improved!
| andix wrote:
| It was just a thought based on a quick look at the
| screenshots. I didn't use it yet.
|
| I would use a tool like that as a low-code platform to
| quickly make data accessible. Might be a different use case
| than most users are looking for.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Been thinking Metabase could benefit greatly from AI integration.
| This kinda does that!
| mritchie712 wrote:
| If you're looking for AI in BI, I have something for you:
| https://www.definite.app/
| whalesalad wrote:
| not open source, lowest cost plan is 1k per month. lol. (for
| up to 5 million rows ... dealbreaker right off the bat)
| nirav72 wrote:
| I've been self-hosting this https://github.com/dbgate/dbgate for
| a few years.
|
| But I like some of the features in SQL Explorer interesting -
| like Pivot tables and exposing queries as JSON endpoints.
| psnehanshu wrote:
| Awesome project. But a somewhat irrelevant suggestion. OP could
| have shared the video via YouTube for better user experience
| (adaptive bitrate streaming) and also not had to worry about
| paying for S3.
| majkinetor wrote:
| I like the simplicity, and yet there is a lot of stuff to do.
|
| I know there are bunch of tools that do this (superset, redash,
| dbeaver web etc.) but there is a great value in the feature and
| UX choices of any particular tool.
|
| Keep it up m8.
| numlocked wrote:
| Cheers! Yes - lots of good options, and you said it well.
| brunoqc wrote:
| > * All content that resides under the "explorer/ee/" directory
| of this repository is licensed under the license defined in
| "explorer/ee/LICENSE".
|
| Not really open source. If you care about that.
| numlocked wrote:
| It's absolutely open source - and completely free for
| commercial use. That license simply encumbers that specific
| functionality from _resale_. I don't want anyone selling a SaaS
| version for profit (if someone wants to do that, they can
| contact me and we can talk about it).
| quectophoton wrote:
| Nothing wrong with making _source-available_ or _open core_
| software.
|
| But saying it's open source when its license does not follow
| OSI's definition is confusing at best, or misleading at
| worst.
|
| OSI doesn't have a monopoly on the term, but that's the
| generally accepted definition (at least IME).
| 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
| Fwiw I thought open source meant the source was available.
| "FOSS" or "MIT" mean do whatever you want with it
| lelo_tp wrote:
| loved the demo video! we need more enthusiasm like that, really
| shows how much you love the work you've put in :)
| josalhor wrote:
| Do you have a minimal docker image so we can start the service
| with a single command?
| numlocked wrote:
| Nope - but would love to do it. At the moment you can clone the
| repo and run start.sh which _should_ work but obviously is not
| bulletproof like a docker image. Feedback and PRs welcome!
| maille wrote:
| Intersting, can you generate _fancy_ printable reports from this
| tool?
| numlocked wrote:
| Hmm, depends what you mean by 'fancy'. There is a 'full screen'
| view of any given report:
| https://demo.sqlexplorer.io/50/?fullscreen=1&rows=1000&query...
|
| And it can do PDF export (with a plugin).
|
| Would love to hear what you have in mind?
| randyburden wrote:
| Great job! And congrats on actually getting something out there.
| I can really see this being useful for some organizations.
|
| I also envisioned this same type of tool around 10 years ago and
| it is still on my ever growing list of ideas to implement. I took
| the idea further to support not only SQL but other languages such
| as HTML, JavaScript, Python, C#, etc. You could then support
| returning different types of media based on the URL extension
| such as .html to return a webpage, .json to return a JSON API,
| .csv to return a CSV file, etc. As time marched on, many of these
| same ideas came to fruition in things like AWS Lambda, Jupiter
| Notebooks, Microsoft Monaco Editor, etc.
| greenchair wrote:
| I'm curious about how the project name was chosen considering
| there are existing tools with the same name.
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