[HN Gopher] Show HN: Outerbase Studio - Open-Source Database GUI
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       Show HN: Outerbase Studio - Open-Source Database GUI
        
       We just launched Outerbase Studio, the open-source version of our
       core database offering. It works in your browser or as a desktop
       app and supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite.  What it does:  *
       Connects to MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite databases. * Spin up
       local databases directly through the UI, even if you don't have one
       running. * Manage and query your data in a lightweight, intuitive
       interface. * Completely open source.  Why we built it: We wanted to
       share the core Outerbase experience with the developer community as
       a free, open-source tool. It's simple, fast, and removes the
       barriers to working with databases locally.  GitHub:
       https://github.com/outerbase/studio  Release Blog:
       https://www.outerbase.com/blog/outerbase-studio-open-source-...
       Try it out: studio.outerbase.com  Would love the HN communities
       feedback, please try it out and let me know what you think!
        
       Author : burcs
       Score  : 327 points
       Date   : 2024-12-04 17:55 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | burcs wrote:
       | Happy to answer any questions around this! As far as next steps
       | we are going to be adding in more database support as well as
       | bringing in some of Outerbase Cloud's AI features.
        
         | drewp wrote:
         | Are there comparisons to related projects somewhere?
         | 
         | E.g. I've use DBeaver before. Is there some reason I should try
         | Outerbase next time?
        
           | johtso wrote:
           | Don't think DBeaver supports libsql databases? I think the
           | goal here is to be able to working with Turso / Cloudflare D1
           | databases etc.
        
             | burcs wrote:
             | Yeah that's been another big part of this too, making sure
             | it's a simple way to support these new and lightweight but
             | powerful databases!
        
             | avinassh wrote:
             | it does now: https://github.com/dbeaver/dbeaver-jdbc-libsql
        
           | burcs wrote:
           | I put together this in related to our cloud offering, it's
           | still somewhat relevant for Outerbase Studio even though some
           | features are different:
           | 
           | https://www.outerbase.com/blog/the-5-best-database-
           | managemen...
           | 
           | Our goal is to make data accessible through good user
           | experiences and focus. Whether that is being able to spin up
           | a local database directly from the app, or simply making the
           | query experience as intuitive as possible, we are really
           | pushing on making the database usable.
        
             | vunderba wrote:
             | That page mentions support for noSQL databases, but it
             | looks like this open source version only supports SQL. Just
             | want to call that out for clarification.
             | 
             | Is the long term intent eventually to have parity between
             | the open source desktop app and the cloud version (at least
             | in terms of database type support)?
        
               | brayden_wilmoth wrote:
               | Correct. Our goal is to have all of our data sources
               | across all Outerbase products powered by our SDK -
               | https://github.com/outerbase/sdk. Currently the Studio
               | product is not powered by it but our cloud and other
               | offerings are.
        
       | stronglikedan wrote:
       | I downloaded it, fired it up locally, _was presented with a login
       | screen_ , closed it, and uninstalled it. Sorry, but I don't log
       | into local software.
        
         | giancarlostoro wrote:
         | I saw that it was AGPL licensed, which was odd to me for
         | something that's supposed to be a client. I don't like the AGPL
         | license because of how overbearing it is, I avoid downloading
         | AGPL'd software, unless its a pure compiled binary. I am
         | probably a little too strict about software licenses, but I
         | rather always have the freedom to keep any forks to myself,
         | don't force me to share code for my one-off project.
        
           | freeone3000 wrote:
           | AGPL still only requires you to share the code if you're
           | sharing the fork in some form (binary or networked).
        
             | giancarlostoro wrote:
             | "or networked"
        
               | freeone3000 wrote:
               | Yes, it prevents the AWS case where you take a GPL
               | product, put it behind an API gateway, and suddenly
               | you're under no obligation to share your changes even
               | though they're still sharing the product. This product in
               | particular would excel as SaaS, and Outerbase already
               | sells one of those -- they're not going to give you their
               | product, white-label! You'd have to also share your mods,
               | or link to the original.
               | 
               | You can still do the above, and even charge for it!
               | You're just in the "hosted software" business, not the
               | embrace-extend-extinguish business.
        
               | burcs wrote:
               | Thank you for explaining this so clearly. We were very
               | cautious in choosing the license for this exact reason!
               | 
               | We love open-source and want to give back fully to the
               | community. The AGPL felt like the most open license that
               | still protects against outright theft -- something we've
               | unfortunately experienced in the past.
        
               | freedomben wrote:
               | You have done very well, thank you! I completely agree.
               | 
               | AGPL is perfect for this IMHO. The fact that so many
               | people seem to think that even looking at the github page
               | for an AGPL product will mean everything on Earth
               | suddenly has to be AGPLed is their problem, not yours.
        
             | benatkin wrote:
             | Um, no. That isn't sharing it. That isn't even having users
             | run it. It's just letting others use it via the network.
             | 
             | It's Freedom Zero because you certainly have the freedom to
             | use it, along with a lot of other freedoms. But you have to
             | adopt the license for the code it touches if you involve
             | others in your Freedom Zero use of it.
        
               | freedomben wrote:
               | I think 99% of usage of the acronym FUD is dumb, so I
               | don't use this lightly, but this is some pretty seriously
               | bad FUD.
               | 
               | If you connect to your database using an AGPL licensed db
               | client, you don't have to change all your codebases to
               | AGPL. Unless your code is a modification to the tool,
               | _and_ you are going to distribute it to others, it
               | imposes no obligations whatsoever. It wouldn 't even make
               | logical sense. If you write a new browser or even a curl
               | replacement and license it AGPL, and use it to curl
               | Google, would G have to AGPL their entire giant monorepo?
        
           | RadiozRadioz wrote:
           | This is an incorrect interpretation of the AGPL. You do have
           | the freedom to keep forks to yourself. You're only required
           | to present source code to people who can use your program
           | (directly or via the network).
        
           | Brian_K_White wrote:
           | AGPL does not prevent anything that anyone has any right to
           | want. The more someone cries that agpl (or gpl3, or gpl-any)
           | is "overbearing", the more they expose how they wish they
           | could steal. You can't say one without saying the other, they
           | are the same statement. And it's an extra level of amazing to
           | need to steal something that's already free.
           | 
           | You can absolutely not only use agpl software, for free, you
           | can even sell access to it. SO OVERBEARING
           | 
           | If you can't stand the burden of having to share with the
           | next guy that which you yourself were given for free, there
           | is no reason for anyone else to feel the tiniest bit of
           | sympathy.
           | 
           | Feel free to write your own software and set whatever terms
           | you like. Surely the need to write it and develop it to the
           | point of actually being any good is not overbearing at all.
           | 
           | Or feel free to license software from someone selling it.
           | Surely Oracle or IBM terms will not be overbearing at all.
           | 
           | Do people even hear themselves?
        
             | giancarlostoro wrote:
             | I mean I just avoid the software altogether, and yes I
             | would rather pay for proprietary software than use a
             | license that could somehow wind me up in any sort of
             | lawsuit should I ever make similar software. No thanks.
             | 
             | People say that but I remember when Mongo changed their
             | license to some custom one that was similarish to AGPL and
             | it didnt even matter because China just does not care.
        
               | RadiozRadioz wrote:
               | > a license that could somehow wind me up in any sort of
               | lawsuit should I ever make similar software
               | 
               | You think that paid proprietary software does not have
               | this property?
        
               | Brian_K_White wrote:
               | I worked for a small software shop for about 20 years and
               | then the owner sold us to a big multinational company.
               | People from the new company were telling us that they had
               | just recently come through a big MS audit and were
               | pleased with themselves that they had come through ok.
               | 
               | I was boggled that they were pleased to have been audited
               | and blessed by fucking Microsoft.
               | 
               | Talk about "wind up in a lawsuit..." I am just trying to
               | imagine freaking auditors from Gimp or Apache showing up
               | and demanding to rifle through all your computers to make
               | sure you aren't violating Gimp's GPL license.
               | 
               | But GPL or AGPL is overbearing.
               | 
               | People have somehow just lost any sense of rational
               | perspective about just what is reasonable and
               | unreasonable.
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | Sorry I am assuming you downloaded our cloud based client,
         | which yes is a bit different, here is the correct download link
         | for our open-source client:
         | 
         | https://github.com/outerbase/studio-desktop/releases
         | 
         | Apologies for the confusion here!
        
           | stronglikedan wrote:
           | Now we're cookin' with gas! Sorry I can no longer edit my
           | original comment, but hopefully it and your reply help orient
           | some others. Nice work on this, thanks!
        
       | johtso wrote:
       | Outerbase Studio is great! Been happily using it to experiment
       | with queries over my Turso database, and see how many rows are
       | being read when optimising.
       | 
       | Excited to hear that some AI stuff is going to be brought over,
       | currently do a lot of switching back and forth with ChatGPT, and
       | having your database schema automatically be part of the prompt
       | would be great.
       | 
       | I'm guessing visualisation stuff is going to stay part of the
       | paid offering?
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | Thank you Johtso! Glad you have been enjoying it :)
         | 
         | Yeah definitely it's been a challenge to think about how we
         | want to bring it over, probably going to do a bring your own
         | key experience for the AI that way we're not eating the costs
         | on an open-source project. Have been thinking about bundling a
         | Llama type experience as well, but I'm not sure if people would
         | want that, would you?
         | 
         | Yeah for now it is, although we've talked about also releasing
         | a lightweight version of that haha!
        
       | kiwicopple wrote:
       | congrats on open sourcing
       | 
       | i didn't try it locally yet but it looks like the cloud version
       | can create SQLite databases inside the browser? Assuming the open
       | source version does too, can you also "connect" to those
       | databases somehow?
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | Thank Paul -- Supabase has always been such a huge inspiration
         | for us!
         | 
         | Yes you can spin up sqlite directly in the browser, and on the
         | local studio version you can actually spin up both MySQL and
         | Postgres instances. You have to have docker running as well,
         | and we will automatically spin up the containers for you,
         | making it a completely hands-off experience!
         | 
         | You can connect through them instantly through the GUI without
         | needing to configure anything. We are actually going to be
         | releasing something later this week that will really help with
         | the local dev story by making those local databases accessible
         | from the web
        
           | thruflo wrote:
           | Would be nice to add support for PGlite [0] to have the same
           | "spin up in the browser" experience with Postgres.
           | 
           | Let me know if we can help with it!
           | 
           | [0] https://pglite.dev
        
             | burcs wrote:
             | That would be really cool, let's chat!
             | 
             | Can you email me brandon [at] outerbase [dot] com?
        
               | kiwicopple wrote:
               | you can also find some code for "pglite in the browser"
               | here: https://github.com/supabase-community/database-
               | build
        
               | burcs wrote:
               | Awesome, I'll check it out!
        
       | nandosobral03 wrote:
       | The mac desktop icon looks huge compared to the standard macOS
       | apps
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | Whoops I'll get that updated, for some reason it didn't crop
         | the bounding box when I exported it!
        
           | nandosobral03 wrote:
           | Thank you! I've tried using outerbase within turso for my
           | last few proyects and the experience has been great. Looking
           | forward to using the app
        
       | teddarific wrote:
       | i hate working with DBs via command line, so this looks really
       | cool. curious if your product resonates with a specific segment
       | of developers, e.g. frontend vs backend? Hoping this can entirely
       | replace me needing to do anything DB related in the comamnd
       | line...
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | Yes! I too am not a huge command line fan (unless it's git for
         | some reason), my background is actually in design so it was
         | really painful trying to access DBs at first and the only
         | options were the CLI or tools that look like they were built 20
         | years ago.
         | 
         | That was actually the catalyst for creating Outerbase! We have
         | all types of people using us today, honestly we resonate really
         | well with anyone who needs access to a DB. Frontend folks love
         | us because we're a more modern way to do it and we line up
         | really well with other modern frontend stacks, backend folks
         | like us because we are really focused and make it
         | straightforward to manage your data, and non-technical teams
         | love us because they can actually get the data they need
         | without needing to be a DBA.
        
       | jaimehrubiks wrote:
       | Does it will it support management of users and permissions? I
       | always struggle with those on the cli
        
         | invisal wrote:
         | Adding user and permission support shouldn't be hard. What
         | database are you using? We can put it on our next roadmap.
        
           | jaimehrubiks wrote:
           | I've used multiple but recently PostgreSQL is what we are
           | using more. I think it's also the kind of task Platform or
           | devops engineers, who are not usually experts in databases,
           | are often asked to manage along with its deployment, so
           | creating users and permissions is very common.
        
       | Lord_Zero wrote:
       | Support MSSQL please
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | So we support it in Outerbase Cloud, and we will get to work on
         | adding support for it to Studio as well.
         | 
         | In the meantime if you want you can check out our cloud-
         | offering, we have a very generous free tier!
        
       | srameshc wrote:
       | This is neat. I love the support for both Postgresql and Sqlite
       | and explicit support for Cloudflare D1.
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | Yeah - we love all of these new databases, we actually partner
         | with Cloudflare, Turso, etc... to make sure we can provide the
         | best experience possible.
        
       | j1mmie wrote:
       | For years I've wondered why a general purpose, high quality, good
       | UX, browser based DB browser has not existed. I've implemented 3
       | such (not general-purpose) browsers in my career. But I'd be
       | really happy to _stop_ doing that and use this instead.
       | 
       | I would love to see a Firestore driver implemented (maybe I'll
       | take a crack at it some day), as I'm stuck in GCP land for the
       | time being.
        
         | amazingamazing wrote:
         | PouchDB and CouchDB already exist
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | Thank you, I hope you can stop building those and use us
         | instead as well :)
         | 
         | I've never used Firestore directly, but I did see Firebase's
         | recent announcement about Data Connect. It seems like it could
         | act as a bridge to bring your data into Outerbase. Do you think
         | that would work?
        
         | vunderba wrote:
         | Because it does exist, but it's not free. Jetbrains Datagrip
         | has been around for a decade and has connectors for _most_
         | database archetypes (mongo, sql, redis, duckdb, etc).
         | 
         | Biggest limitation right now is its lack of support for vector
         | style databases like Lance, qdrant, etc.
        
           | wiseowise wrote:
           | > Browser based
        
             | vunderba wrote:
             | Missed that - I am a little unclear how being wrapped in
             | electron as an app is necessarily an advantage - I guess it
             | could be valuable if it were pulled out electron, and you
             | could host it as a service.
        
               | burcs wrote:
               | Yeah you can definitely do that, I referenced how we do
               | it in another comment. The electron app and running it
               | locally allows you to use TCP protocol which isn't
               | available directly in the browser.
               | 
               | It's mostly just a nicely bundled way to run it if you
               | aren't very technical but still want a easy to use
               | database client.
               | 
               | You can also run commands like this to connect to your
               | database if you want:
               | 
               | npx @outerbase/studio \ --port=5000 \ --user=admin
               | --pass=123 \ mysql://root:123@localhost:3306/chinook
        
               | brayden_wilmoth wrote:
               | You can connect to your SQLite databases from the browser
               | too without the Electron app if you wanted:
               | https://studio.outerbase.com/connect
        
             | leononame wrote:
             | Still a valid counterargument. A good browser based DB GUI
             | might just not exist because the existing desktop ones are
             | so good already.
             | 
             | I personally also vouch for DataGrip, a fantastic tool. No
             | browser based tool is going to come close to the experience
             | of an actual desktop app imo
        
               | wiseowise wrote:
               | > No browser based tool is going to come close to the
               | experience of an actual desktop app imo
               | 
               | Why?
        
               | chrisfowles wrote:
               | Sandbox constraints. Windowing. Browser compatibility
               | issues. Plugins and Integration compatibility.
        
               | radicality wrote:
               | Another +1 for Datagrip!
        
           | atombender wrote:
           | Datagrip is fantastic. You can also get the same
           | functionality if you buy the IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate Edition,
           | which includes many of the languages and tools that are also
           | separately productized. I recommend this because the database
           | tools integrate so well with the editor. For example, you can
           | have a scratch file open that contains multiple SQL snippets.
           | You can hit cmd-Enter when inside one snippet, and it will
           | execute it and render the results either as a panel or inline
           | inside the editor, notebook-style. Plus, full schema
           | validation and autocompletion in the editor, and support for
           | many, many databases including Postgres and ClickHouse.
           | 
           | Not only that, but the SQL support works for embedded strings
           | in programs written in other languages such as Go. So it
           | knows that some statement conn.Exec("SELECT ...") is SQL and
           | syntax-highlights it, performs schema validation and
           | autocompletion _inside_ the string literal. Not only _that_ ,
           | but you can open the string literal as a separate editor and
           | edit it, including doing things like "reformat", which was an
           | unexpected delight when I discovered it.
           | 
           | It's this kind of "feature stacking", which features working
           | organically with each other, that makes Jetbrains IDEs so
           | damn good.
           | 
           | But the basic database tools are also superb. Its table view
           | is really fast. It has syntax highlighting (e.g. if a column
           | value is JSON), live editing (including the ability to open a
           | column value as an editor, in which case you get all the
           | usual syntax tools), and even graph rendering with support
           | for multiple data series and grouping in a single graph.
           | 
           | There is also excellent support for exporting data. You can
           | mark a bunch of result rows and copy them as CSV or as SQL
           | INSERT statements, or you can save the entire result to a
           | file. This is how I often export data from BigQuery, as it's
           | much more convenient than Google's own tooling (the web UI is
           | particularly bad, requiring that you export the query result
           | to a GCS bucket first).
           | 
           | These database UIs aren't technically difficult to do. But
           | somehow nobody else seems capable. The closest I can think of
           | is Microsoft's tooling around SQL Server, which is pretty
           | slick, albeit MSSQL-specific. I often wonder how Jetbrains,
           | which is a pretty small company, can be so effective and
           | produce such an incredibly feature-rich product portfolio.
        
         | carlosjobim wrote:
         | I remember I used TablePlus, which was what you described. Very
         | pleasant program. Not browser based, though.
        
           | slaucon wrote:
           | Yeah, my last company paid for a subscription to this.
           | Enjoyed using it. Don't think there's a massive market, but
           | definitely lots of devs who want easy DB access and would pay
           | $5/month.
        
             | eirikbakke wrote:
             | The average true cost to acquire a single customer is in
             | the hundreds of dollars, to pay for sales & marketing
             | labor, advertising etc. So $5/month is nearly equivalent to
             | "free" from a business perspective.
             | 
             | https://firstpagesage.com/marketing/average-cac-for-saas-
             | bus...
        
               | eviks wrote:
               | Why not closer to dozens of dollars like for ecommerce,
               | so about annual revenue per customer?
        
               | eirikbakke wrote:
               | Databases are B2B products, not consumer products. They
               | are commercially useful only when placed in the context
               | of some larger business process (e.g. tracking customers/
               | orders/goods/users/batches/events/patients/filings etc.).
        
               | eviks wrote:
               | We're talking about database viewers/editors, not
               | databases in general. But also databases are used plenty
               | in consumer products, e.g., some sqlite file that stores
               | your app's config
               | 
               | And these are consumers:
               | 
               | > definitely lots of devs who want easy DB access and
               | would pay
        
               | eirikbakke wrote:
               | For CAC statistics purposes, if a database is used in a
               | consumer product, then the customer of database-related
               | products is the company that makes the consumer product,
               | not the consumer themselves.
               | 
               | "Software developer" typically refers to an occupation
               | (whether self-employed or working for a corporation), so
               | products for developers would also be classified as B2B
               | rather than B2C.
        
           | yesthisiswes wrote:
           | I used to love table plus. My favorite part was that you
           | could hook a query up to a chart. Then you could have the
           | query fetch fresh data every second to give you a live
           | dashboard.
           | 
           | At the last company I worked for I made a command to ssh into
           | our servers and extract job data. I saved the data in a local
           | SQLite database. Then I made a dashboard in table plus to
           | show the it in a chart that would refresh every second.
           | 
           | I had a real-time dashboard in about an hour once I figured
           | out all the job info I wanted to capture. It was really cool!
        
         | mritchie712 wrote:
         | I think it's because there's no business model in the pure "DB
         | browser" product. People don't seem willing to pay enough for
         | it to build a good business around it.
         | 
         | Everyone I've seen either pivots to a Retool competitor or a BI
         | tool.
         | 
         | Source: I've tried it twice.
        
           | mistrial9 wrote:
           | small teams and individuals have failed to make enough money
           | selling technical tooling products since forever;
           | enthusiastic engineers keep building them. source: the 1990s
        
           | debarshri wrote:
           | I think DB Browser is not a product but a feature. It is
           | fairly challenging to monetize it. It can be an entry point
           | for a developer's workflow, and then you can upsell something
           | else.
        
           | RyanHamilton wrote:
           | For 12 years I got banks to pay for an editor I created. But
           | yeah to grow the audience I made the database client free as
           | others wouldn't pay. I have also created a separate BI tool
           | so you're totally correct.
        
         | mayli wrote:
         | dbeaver? it has dbeaver community edition, and supports tons of
         | database.
        
           | wiradikusuma wrote:
           | DBeaver's UI/UX is.. functional.
        
             | Aeolun wrote:
             | I can't immediately say what I dislike about the dbeaver
             | UI, but I fully agree with your statement.
        
           | irunmyownemail wrote:
           | dbeaver is my preference as well.
        
         | ndrake wrote:
         | This isn't bad: https://github.com/sqlpad/sqlpad/tree/master
        
           | abraxas wrote:
           | It's quite nice and really lightweight but it's also very
           | basic. So basic you can't even click on the table name in the
           | side panel to see a preview of the data. I use it every day
           | but yearn for a few more features.
        
         | anon291 wrote:
         | Seriously... not only a browser but also something akin to
         | access. It's crazy to me that it's 2024 and no/low code tools
         | online are all still worse than MS access.
        
           | dspillett wrote:
           | It seems odd that there is nothing like Access (or the other
           | couple if similar DB tools that were around in the heyday of
           | Access and before), but I think it is because the demand is
           | relatively small. I've seen several projects start in that
           | direction then pivot elsewhere or just die an unsupported
           | death.
           | 
           | I think the problem is that demand/interest is not sufficient
           | to keep a self-hosted project going, nor monetisable enough
           | for a hosted one. People wanting to self-host end up going
           | with something more specific, possibly self-made, for their
           | needs, rather than a generic solution, and a hosted solution
           | has a couple of significant costs to cover:
           | 
           | 1. Resource use when people load a large amount of data then
           | run under-optimised queries on it (or impossible to optimise,
           | if they've chosen a bad structure for what they want out of
           | the data). This can be mitigated by throttling individual
           | users' IO/memory/CPU use but then the product gets a
           | reputation for being slow.
           | 
           | 2. The support that many people will expect (especially if
           | they are paying, but even if they are not) which could
           | consume a lot of time. A project that is very lucky might end
           | up with a community that takes on a good amount of this load,
           | but you can't bank on being that lucky.
           | 
           | 3. Resource to keep available all the hardly used, or even
           | never used, projects that will sit around if the service is
           | free. Mitigating this with cold storage will help, but as
           | with throttling active use this will make the service appear
           | slow generally (people will remember the tens-of-seconds
           | startup time more than they will notice subsequent actions
           | being more than fast enough).
           | 
           | Getting people to pay will be an uphill struggle, and money
           | from advertising is unlikely to cover the above, especially
           | with many people like me blocking commercial stalking which
           | also blocks a lot of advertising.
        
             | slightwinder wrote:
             | > It seems odd that there is nothing like Access
             | 
             | There are many commercial services and tools. Like Notion
             | and Airtable and all their clones. For more advanced users
             | and usecases there are those like Metabase, Retool and all
             | their clones. But they are more focused on specific
             | domains. And today it's quite easy to just barf up some
             | CRUD-interface with webstack, especially now that AI is
             | good enough for simple stuff.
        
           | paulryanrogers wrote:
           | How about LibreOffice Base?
        
         | evantahler wrote:
         | SequelPro for me!
        
           | paulryanrogers wrote:
           | Isn't it unmaintained? Have you tried SequelAce?
        
         | KronisLV wrote:
         | > browser based
         | 
         | For whatever reason, this is the main limiting factor, local
         | software can already be really good, for example:
         | 
         | * DBeaver - pretty nice and lightweight local tool for a
         | plethora of databases https://dbeaver.io/
         | 
         | * DataGrip - commercial product, but you'll feel right at home
         | if you use other JetBrains products
         | https://www.jetbrains.com/datagrip/
         | 
         | * HeidiSQL - haven't really used this myself but the version
         | graph on the page is cool https://www.heidisql.com/
         | 
         | * DbVisualizer - really cool tool that helps you explore messy
         | schemas https://www.dbvis.com/
         | 
         | * Jailer - something for exploring datasets, a bit niche, but
         | can be useful https://wisser.github.io/Jailer/
         | 
         | There's also some solutions that are specific to certain
         | databases, like:
         | 
         | * pgAdmin - for PostgreSQL https://www.pgadmin.org/
         | 
         | * MySQL Workbench - for MySQL/MariaDB, sometimes a bit buggy
         | but I really like the reverse engineering and forward
         | engineering functionality
         | https://www.mysql.com/products/workbench/
         | 
         | * Adminer - one of the somewhat rare web based solutions for
         | the likes of MySQL/MariaDB, actually pleasant to use as long as
         | you use it securely, this I think is a good example of web
         | based DB tools https://www.adminer.org/
         | 
         | (out of respect for my own sanity, not mentioning SQL
         | Developer, even though it sort of works)
        
           | RyanHamilton wrote:
           | QStudio. Editor and notebook in one, works on all os with 30+
           | databases and is Free: https://www.timestored.com/qstudio/
           | disclaimer: I'm the author
        
             | wazoox wrote:
             | Looks great, how come I didn't know it? :)
        
               | RyanHamilton wrote:
               | I'm bad at marketing and poor at product decisions. For
               | 10 years it only worked with one database. It took 30
               | lines of code to work on many more databases but I waited
               | 10 years to do it. Don't make my mistake! I am trying to
               | get better.
        
               | earthnail wrote:
               | The chart feature looks amazing. I'd try making a landing
               | page just around charts and see if it sticks.
        
               | nativeit wrote:
               | A nerd's nerd. I am exactly the same, I think it's
               | because folks like a lot of the people that hang out
               | around these comments are easily excited and self-
               | motivated for the creative, engineering challenges
               | involved, but struggle to produce the same kind of get up
               | and go when it comes to the basic, fundamental packaging
               | and presentation involved with marketing and/or sales.
               | 
               | As a graphic artist, I even get enthusiastic for a lot of
               | the marketing, but as a freelance IT consultant, I tend
               | to lose all motivation for selling my services the
               | nanosecond I achieve sufficient income to get by, and
               | revert to spending my time exploring and tinkering. We
               | all have our own blind/weak spots.
               | 
               | I have often thought that some kind of service to pair
               | creatives/engineers with professional
               | development/managers would be really useful. I think
               | that's just called "LinkedIn", but something more
               | explicitly about entrepreneurial endeavors would be nice.
        
             | anbotero wrote:
             | Looks interesting. Have you thought about providing it as a
             | Homebrew Cask? Anyways, looking into it.
        
           | kennethh wrote:
           | Great list.
           | 
           | Azure Data Studio is pretty good and free to use.
           | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure-data-studio
           | 
           | Supports of course most MS products but also: PostgreSQL
           | MySQL MongoDB Apache Spark Apache Cassandra
        
           | bbkane wrote:
           | Two more tools I really enjoy:
           | 
           | - https://www.beekeeperstudio.io/ - electron based and I find
           | it really simple to use.
           | 
           | - https://github.com/k1LoW/tbls - generate markdown docs from
           | databases (similar to DbVisualizer, but it's a static binary
           | and you can just push the md files - see
           | https://github.com/bbkane/envelope/tree/master/dbdoc for
           | example)
        
           | asmith11 wrote:
           | Jailer is awesome and really not "niche". Also, it's not
           | something for exploring "datasets", but for tables and
           | relational databases in an innovative way. I think it would
           | be fantastic if more people knew about it.
           | (https://wisser.github.io/Jailer/)
        
           | gondo wrote:
           | There is also an old school browser based phpMyAdmin
        
         | jgrpf wrote:
         | DbGate might fit your needs: https://dbgate.org/
         | 
         | It even has a demo: https://demo.dbgate.org/
        
       | sirjaz wrote:
       | Any plans to use tauri? That way you can use the native os web
       | view, plus cut the overhead of electron
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | Great point, I am a big fan of how lightweight Tauri is. We
         | have used it in the past but have got hung up on some of the
         | browser APIs not being supported.
         | 
         | I'll have to look into it again, it could have just been a
         | skill issue.
        
           | brayden_wilmoth wrote:
           | Tauri when we last tried it was using your default browser to
           | power it, which is great in theory. When we went to use newer
           | API's such as the Popover API then browsers like Safari had a
           | subpar user experience for a number of reasons of its own.
           | 
           | As much as the performance and lightweight aspects of Tauri
           | are great we also have to weight the consistency of user
           | experience which Electron gives having Chromium built into
           | it. All that said... it's worth us taking a second look to
           | see if Tauri will work for us in this use case!
        
       | shreddit wrote:
       | Can i put it inside a docker container alongside my pg container
       | and serve it under a path like "/dbadmin" with password
       | protection? That's my current workflow with pgadmin.
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | Definitely! We actually embed studio as part of another one of
         | our offerings. It's actually iframed in, but you could achieve
         | similar results if you wanted to dockerize it.
         | 
         | https://github.com/Brayden/starbasedb/blob/main/src/studio/i...
        
           | tronikel wrote:
           | Any plans to add a dockerfile or push images so we could
           | easily launch a container with 0 config?
        
       | delduca wrote:
       | I would use it if it weren't based on Electron. In recent months,
       | I've replaced all Electron apps with native versions, and not
       | only are they more performant, but my RAM is now saved for more
       | important tasks.
        
         | distrill wrote:
         | it runs in the browser
        
       | ingen0s wrote:
       | Kudos! Following this
        
       | d0100 wrote:
       | Would be nice to have an option of choosing a "compact" interface
       | 
       | When you contrast web UI with native GUI, the realspace you lose
       | in the web accumulates fast
       | 
       | All that padding makes it hard to see the actual information,
       | especially for power users
       | 
       | Compare this with Navicat, or even DBeaver, their native tabs,
       | buttons and cells are almost half the height of Outerbase Studio
       | GUI
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | This is great feedback thank you, we will work on adding in a
         | compact mode!
        
           | tangoman wrote:
           | totally agree with this comment, a desktop UI should give me
           | all the screen real state I can get, waste as little as
           | possible in empty space.
        
       | bottled_poe wrote:
       | Could you please add an option to enforce the use of transactions
       | within the SQL input?
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | Great idea, I'll get it added to the roadmap!
        
       | maxloh wrote:
       | For similar projects, check out:
       | 
       | - Supabase Studio (open source, Postgres only)
       | https://github.com/supabase/supabase/tree/master/apps/studio
       | 
       | - Prisma Studio (closed source, supporting most popular
       | databases) https://www.prisma.io/studio
       | 
       | - Drizzle Studio (closed source, supporting most popular
       | databases) https://orm.drizzle.team/drizzle-studio/overview
        
       | maxloh wrote:
       | It would be great if we could self-host it with pre-defined
       | credentials (perhaps using an .env file). This would be useful
       | for demo projects with Docker Compose.
       | 
       | For production use, we'll need some form of OAuth support, or
       | users will have to implement their own authentication gateway in
       | front of the Studio server.
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | We support adjusting the JSON config file so you can update it
         | with your credentials!
         | 
         | outerbase.json { "driver": "mysql", "connection": { "database":
         | "chinook", "host": "localhost", "port": 3306, "user": "root",
         | "password": "123456" } }
        
       | hahn-kev wrote:
       | I'd love to try it out, but I get an error about an invalid URL
       | in the console when I try to open a database. Also it does not
       | support Firefox
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | Apologies you had such a subpar experience, I'll look into what
         | is going on here!
        
       | pkphilip wrote:
       | Good project. The only thing I don't like about it is the
       | dependence on Electron.. because it slows down everything.
        
       | 8mobile wrote:
       | Congratulations on your work! I tried Outerbase Studio and really
       | appreciate the clean and visually appealing design. However, I
       | noticed that it occasionally slows down during use. Looking
       | forward to seeing future updates to make it even smoother!
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | Appreciate the kind words! Will dig into performance and see
         | what we can do to further optimize it!
        
       | ibrothergang wrote:
       | Great, I'm going to try it
        
       | dav43 wrote:
       | Looks nice and make be helpful. Keep in mind I can't and most
       | people can't install this in a corp environment. If you get a pip
       | install or npm install I'd be able to use it through corporate
       | mirrors internally.
       | 
       | Make it as easy to run as something like datasette.
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | Would the browser version suffice? If not we support running
         | commands like:
         | 
         | $ npx @outerbase/studio \ --port=5000 \ --user=admin --pass=123
         | \ mysql://root:123@localhost:3306/chinook
        
       | vasvir wrote:
       | What I found invaluable is the use of Kate (yes the editor) SQL
       | plugin. It can connect to MySQL/MariaDB, Postgres and others.
       | 
       | The main benefit is that you can organize your SQLs in files or
       | even better in markdown files.
       | 
       | God knows how many times I had to retype the same or a very
       | similar SQL in the past.
        
       | vollbrecht wrote:
       | It seams that you currently only support Windows and MacOS via
       | your electron wrapper. Are there plans to also release a Linux
       | version?
        
         | Vinnl wrote:
         | Would love to be able to use it to inspect my local databases
         | on my Linux machine, indeed!
        
           | burcs wrote:
           | Yes, I will add Linux support to the roadmap!
        
       | antman wrote:
       | Very nice! Are there any plans for a visual query builder? MS
       | Access had a very good experience on that and I am mot aware of
       | any opensource tools that do it.
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | We could definitely do something like that, question for you if
         | you've used any sort of AI -> SQL generator do you think it
         | replaces the need for something like a visual builder? Or is it
         | still nice to be able to construct them with visual blocks?
        
       | wcast wrote:
       | Really nice! The Web UI over DB is also the motivation of more BI
       | oriented tool https://github.com/metabase/metabase Writing to
       | tables is also possible via actions
       | https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/actions/introduction
        
       | L-four wrote:
       | All of the browser based database UI's I've tried have a lot of
       | issues when it comes to binary data and very large int's in ways
       | that will corrupt your data.
        
         | dspillett wrote:
         | The large ints thing is because people forget that numerics in
         | Javascript are all officially floating point. The optimisers
         | might often see that they can use real integers for
         | performance, but you can't depend on that so have to assume it
         | isn't happening.
         | 
         | Integer numbers are accurate up to 2^53-1 (and down to -2^53)
         | as the IEEE754 double precision type is used, which is
         | sufficient for a majority of tasks, but obviously not all.
         | 
         | Native BigInt (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
         | US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...) is widely supported these days
         | (has been since late 2020 IIRC, or early 2023 if you waited for
         | LTS releases without the feature to reach EOL) but is not yet
         | widely _used_ (many don 't seem to know it is there, or assume
         | it isn't widely supported, or are concerned about performance).
         | Performance isn't usually _bad_ (about 60% or the basis Number
         | type last time I compared) but there are other issues with JSON
         | or with many libraries only supporting Number not BigInt.
        
       | Dachande663 wrote:
       | We currently use Metabase for SQL reporting, so I've been looking
       | for something to allow actually changing values for a while. That
       | being said, I don't think I would want to touch this. Reading
       | through the code, it looks like a) it doesn't actually use
       | transactions which I just find mind blowing and b) the first two
       | files I looked at (api/database) has the schema for a database
       | defined twice so already I worry about the data model of the app,
       | let alone managing my own.
        
         | burcs wrote:
         | This is good feedback, we are working on adding in transaction
         | support to the open source version. For what it's worth, our
         | cloud product wraps everything in a transaction.
        
         | jadbox wrote:
         | I thought Metabase can change values?
        
           | matthewhefferon wrote:
           | Metabase does support actions for PostgreSQL and MySQL that
           | allow you to write back to your database.
        
       | betimsl wrote:
       | Adminer.
        
       | Alifatisk wrote:
       | Is there a plan to support collaboration? Like two or more users
       | work in the same workspace so that querying and getting the
       | result would happen in real time together.
       | 
       | I've had difficulties finding such application. The closest I've
       | been to achieving something like this is vscode + liveshare +
       | some sql management extension.
        
         | brayden_wilmoth wrote:
         | More of the collaboration features and team features have been
         | or are being built into the Outerbase cloud offering. You can
         | already invite teammates, share resources, see whose looking at
         | what databases, and more there.
        
       | bko wrote:
       | This looks great. I've built something similar. The important
       | thing that I'm not sure if you support is permissioning.
       | 
       | Consider you have some email list that you need to maintain and
       | ideally you want to let others maintain. Throw it in a table and
       | give them permission to add rows.
       | 
       | There are a ton of things that I consider 'configs' like that and
       | can't believe there aren't strong standards about how to do these
       | sort of maintenance things (or maybe there are but I'm unaware)
        
       | Usaz112 wrote:
       | good!
        
       | lacoolj wrote:
       | lets swap out pgadmin for this
       | 
       | replicate all its functionality, then imma stick this on all our
       | production servers
       | 
       | yeeeeeeeah boooooiiiiii
        
       | TripleChecker wrote:
       | Are you planning to release any 'end-user' features such as
       | reports and dashboards? BI tools like Metabase already offer
       | capabilities for SQL queries and database exploration, so I
       | wonder what additional features or advantages your tool might
       | provide to distinguish itself in the market.
       | 
       | Small typo in the footer - 'Compilance' (error report:
       | https://triplechecker.com/s/345418/studio.outerbase.com)
        
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