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Comment by creshal | Hacker News Reader

If you are using MySQL, and need to manually fuck around with tables for whatever reason, it's really useful and beats most other options.

For us it sees plenty of use with poorly developed legacy software (e.g. Wordpress).

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If you need to make a manual database change then Adminer is often a better option[1].

It's doesn't have the featureset as PHPMyAdmin but it has a huge advantage in that it's a single PHP file you can upload, make the necessary changes, and then delete. If you're interested in maintaining a secure server but you don't have any better options than using a script, then it's better to upload something when you need it than trying to secure an online admin tool.

[1] https://www.adminer.org/

> It's doesn't have the featureset as PHPMyAdmin but it has a huge advantage in that it's a single PHP file you can upload, make the necessary changes, and then delete

The days of painfully slow FTP servers are long gone where "it's one file" would count as advantage.

This leaves a massively worse UX and featureset.

(We are using adminer for postgresql databases, because there's no better alternative, and it makes me wish phpmyadmin supported postgres every time I have to use it.)

Having a single file isn't an advantage from a speed perspective; the advantage lies in only having to upload a file, make a change and delete the file again. There's no install, no config, etc.

Didn't postgresql community just annouced pgadmin4 lately and it seems to come with a modern webclient https://www.pgadmin.org/

Do any of these web-based DB tools come with autocomplete? I'd say that's the feature I value most when using desktop DB tools.

TeamPostgreSQL[1] is a pretty good web interface for Postgres. It has SQL autocompletion too, with completion for schema objects as well as SQL keywords. It is free.

[1] http://www.teampostgresql.com

Thanks for the tip.

Latest version of PhpMyAdmin does, but not nearly as good as for example "Microsoft SQL Management" does for MsSQL.

My favorite feature is generally the graphical database relation view. Without it i am something like 500% less effective.

MySQL Workbench works fine though?

+1 for this.

The profiler (visual explain) of queries in MySQL workbench is a godsend.

Also, for general querying and table layout lookup in OSX (macOS, whatever) I recommend Sequel Pro. It has a slightly better UI when working with multiple databases (easier to switch).

Last time I tried it (about two years ago). It would crash all the time on Ubuntu. Went back to PHPMyAdmin.

Mine kept crashing on Mac when viewing table information, turns out it was some old subversion plugin that integrated into the OS shell.

You might like this: https://www.dbninja.com/

I can't think of much reason to use it over Workbench or Sequel Pro.

Some dev environments aren't local, and sometimes this is faster, especially if you have to document the changes for future updates that don't include your fancy tools.

Oh, if only were we using it only in dev environments…

Sequel Pro's built-in SSH tunnel has worked for me in every remote development situation I've encountered.

It seems like a really bad idea to place a web-based database tool on a public-facing host when technology exists to route MySQL through SSH.

Even shared hosts support SSH these days. If yours doesn't, maybe it's time to find another shared host!

It's been a while but I'm pretty sure you can do so with PHPMyAdmin.

I seem to remember installing it on my own workstation, setting up the ssh tunnel and then pointing PHPMA to localhost.

It's not my favorite tool and I've avoided it due to security concerns but I've set it up for others as described and I recall it worked fine. Like I said though it's been a while and I'm fuzzy on the details.

Sequel Pro - No native linux support

Workbench - Massively unstable on linux. (Although I do like the visualizing tools assuming I'm willing to put up with it crashing every hour or so).

Workbench has some great features that I can't do without, but when it comes to just browsing around a DB I much prefer PhpMyAdmin's interface over it. That said I haven't really tried any of the other offerings in the space, so I expect that's a big part of my opinion.

I agree with this comparison but Navicat is well worth the price. I use their data backup and synchronization (data and/or structure) all the time and it works extremely well. The "find in database" text search is a life saver too.

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