Show HN: Simple but Powerful IDE for Databases | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Simple but Powerful IDE for Databases

sqlgate.com

89 pointscelinelee96 comments

It's hard to find information on this marketing website. Here is a summary gathered from the comments :

- It's for windows

- It's not open source

- They plan to build a cross-platform IDE using Electron

I think we have solid alternative in the open source world and I don't really see how this product is better (This is based on the information provided by the website).

What is the open source alternative?

There's DBeaver Community

I'm pretty sure the GUI developers of DBeaver are blind sadists who want to punish all database admins for their sins. It would be considered 'cruel and unusual' in any U.S. court of law. It's not just ugly, it's a crime against humanity itself. Small animals within 10 yards of a computer inexplicably die any time the program is started.

That said, it really is quite useful and usually the best tool to get db stuff done quickly. It's my go to dbadmin app.

Phew, it's not just me then. I use it in a clean room after locking the house up.

The fact I happened to save one ad-hoc SQL query now means every time I hit the "New script" button I have an interstitial step where I have to say, "No, not that script, a new one" is frustrating.

It's just a Eclipse skin, so this is accurate.

Played with that a bit a few days ago.

It's not going to replace the DB tools in intellij (which are basically DataGrip) but for nearly all my use cases it could.

It's really decent.

For use with Oracle, I switched after many years from Oracle SQL Developer to DBeaver; the latter is rather close, except for advanced Oracle-specific features.

SQL Developer caused me significant file system grief by creating recursive directory hard links in the settings folder (on Windows), so it's banned forever from my systems.

Serious question, what advantage do any of these GUIs have over the CLI provided by most databases? Or for something more fancy, the mycli family of tools.

Azure Data Studio maybe? https://github.com/Microsoft/azuredatastudio

SquirrleSQL

It's 2019 and not a single mention of which OS this runs on. I had to download it to find out it's for Windows.

Might want to make a note of that somewhere.

That's a very good point. Thank you for the comment! I'll mention it to my team and have that issue fixed. :) We are also currently beta testing a cross-platform IDE, so please stay tuned!

Can you give some info about the cross platform version - specifically the UI toolkit it uses? i.e. it is Java, QT, Electron, platform-specific UI with a C/C++ core, etc?

I'd be delighted to! We're using Electron, React and TypeScript. You can check out our development team's blog here for more information: - Cross-Platform Application Design with Electron, React, and gRPC (https://medium.com/p/c13a429b5346/) - Why Did We Choose React and TypeScript for QueryPie? (https://medium.com/p/56c9b2ab352)

This is Hacker News so you will get lots of people chiming in to remind you they won’t use your project because it’s Electron. The people like me usually don’t say anything but I know how disheartening it can be to only receive negativity so I’m going to chime in.

I’m currently running Slack and Discord and am happy with both desktop applications. I would absolute consider using any future electron based applications in the future.

10 or 15 years ago, people releasing desktop apps built on Java endured the same negativity.

Meanwhile customers happily used the apps without caring about what tech was used because the apps solved problems for them.

Likewise these days with Electron. If you app solves a real problem, people will use it regardless of the tech you use.

> Meanwhile customers happily used the apps without caring about what tech was used

People didn't care what tech was used and still do not care, but they do care if the programs are slow and resource hogs.

Note that thanks to all those Java apps at the past, Java still to this day has a very negative image about being slow regardless of how true that is (especially among people who do not know enough to judge its performance).

> If you app solves a real problem, people will use it regardless of the tech you use.

That doesn't mean people will like using it.

Also you do not see many desktop apps being made in Java nowadays. Or 10 years ago, for that matter.

> That doesn't mean people will like using it.

It is easy to assume that from the vantage point of being a developer and being able to notice an app that is native vs. something like electron. But for most users and even a lot of developers, they won't notice as long as the app functions.

I work on a team that encompasses both Tech and Business Associates and all the non-tech people love slack, and have no complaints about the app itself. Hackernews loves to get on its high horse and complain about electron and so many other trends, but as us developers love to forget, we are rarely the target audience for the apps in which we create.

People may say they love using Slack, but they certainly wont like their computers being slower and/or their laptop's batteries draining. And they wont blame Slack or any other Electron application for that, largely because they do not know why that happens! They'll blame their computer, perhaps Apple/Microsoft, their luck or whatever, but they do not have enough knowledge to judge Slack or any other misbehaving application unless the application makes it crystal clear that it is the reason.

It is up to the techies and developers to point out why that happens as they are the ones who have the necessary knowledge to figure out what is wrong. You cannot rely on users to figure out that stuff.

What Java apps became popular, other than Minecraft? The only things that got used were tools from companies like Cisco and IBM which everyone detested using.

People still complain about Java.

How about JetBrains’s entire suite of IDEs? They are Java (well, now probably mostly Kotlin, but still JVM) based and cross-platform and as a user of those and previously Vi/Emacs for three decades I can say totally belong in my toolkit.

I begrudgingly use IDEA because for some languages I cannot get nearly the same level of productivity with better tools, such as Vim or Sublime. But that doesn't mean I like using the damned thing. As soon as I can ditch it, I will and I do. Same goes for all the Electron rubbish.

Every time I have to wait a few seconds after clicking on something trivial, like the File top-level menu, I remind myself of how much my Intel i7 can do in 1 second, and my disdain for Java and Electron apps only increases.

I don't know if Windows or Mac OS have a battery usage chart by app, like Android does, with warnings for badly written software. If they don't, they should add it. Maybe that would clue more people in.

"I begrudgingly use IDEA because for some languages I cannot get nearly the same level of productivity with better tools" Hmm. That's an oddly worded complaint.

I wonder what's the metric used to call those other tools better, if not productivity?

I have used VI (and successors) since 1988, and Emacs since 1990, and have tried many other IDEs through the years (Eclipse, NetBeans, Sublime, VS Code, Atom, and tons of others). My go-to are the IDEs from JetBrains now, except for Common Lisp and Haskell (Emacs, although Haskell may be changing). Clojure, Java, Scala, Python, Ruby, Go, SQL, JavaScript, C#, F#, and many others, are all supported in one IDE (IDEA) or in multiple (my personal preference).

I personally have no performance problems with JetBrains IDEs, but maybe I have tuned them up after years of using them... (Or tuned down my expectations? Can't really say offhand.)

Totally forgot about that one. Eclipse scarred me for life on Java-based IDE's

I think VS Code is the gold standard for Electron.

Slack, not so much. On my work laptop, it uses 800mb over 5 processes, and is easily 5x slower to paste a screenshot into than Teams.

I wish VS Code wasn’t Electron. It’s noticeably laggier that native editors, and its performance under load is a lot worse.

The question is, could any of the native editors keep the pace of new features/improvements?

Sure, why not? It's not like most of the features are strongly tied to VS Code being a browser app. Implemented against a different platform they'd probably look different. Maybe a bit less shiny, but likely a bit more performant.

> Sure, why not?

I was being facetious.

I'm not a fan of electron either, but when it comes to just HTML/CSS/JS, nothing beats it in developer productivity. The business logic is (of course) a sep discussion.

By the way, I have professional experience in HTML/JS/CSS/WPF/WinForms/Qt/Android/UIKit.

I can detect no lag in my vscode. I do have a very powerful desktop.

Would you prefer no one said anything, and the OP wasn't aware that their technical choices will affect whether potential customers use their app?

This isn't like "I don't like .Net so I'm not going to use any web app or service that runs on the Microsoft stack". The technology choices they make affect how it runs on each individual user's computer, and that will affect some people's decision to use (or not) the app.

It's not that you're wrong to point out the shortcomings of Electron, but it's boring and it leads to endlessly repetetive threads that derail what could have been interesting conversations.

Perhaps it's better to assume that people who are working with Electron understand its limitations and have made an informed decision to use it because it suits their requirements.

To be fair - I didn't go on a long rant about it, I didn't really say anything about it originally. I asked what it was (as they mentioned they'd be going cross platform), and as they were kind enough to answer, I assumed they'd appreciate a response.

The only reason I went further is because someone specifically asked.

I agree it can get repetitive, but I also think it's naive to assume the developers using it know all its limitations.

I might be a pessimist, but i believe it is way more likely that people who are working with Electron are doing it on powerful workstations, mostly worked with the web stack and want to reuse their knowledge and many of them have no idea (or forgot) about the performance differences between an Electron application and a native application on a mid-range (let alone low end) computer.

With that in mind, even if nothing will change for those who already have invested their time in Electron, this repetition might at least steer some who are at the edge towards better solutions than Electron.

I might be even more pessemistic than you. The people who want to use Electron are, as you point out, mostly web developers who want to try their hand at a desktop app. I don't think any number of "Electron sucks" warnings are going to cause those people to abandon JavaScript and learn Objective-C or Swift or C#.

Most people care about the features, there's a really small amount of people for which the tech stack matters. Negligible, I'd guess.

So no, you're not doing anyone any favours here, just spreading negativity.

Most people do not care about how something was made, but they do care if their computer feels sluggish, their hard disk fills up and - if they are using laptops - their battery drains fast.

same here,for most cross platform desktop gui I too consider electron is the best choice,though may not be the perfect one.

You lost me at Electron.

Good luck, but I'm not your target market.

Why is there all this hate for Electron here?

Because it's terrible.

But why is it terrible? Just because it's a bulky, but cross-platform solution?

It uses ridiculous amounts of resources, introduces security issues (when you remove a bunch of the sandboxing a browser does, but then still execute content that comes from the web, bad things are gonna happen), and generally the apps don't conform to any desktop norms for any platform.

This is supposed to be a full-fledged IDE. Those tend to be resource hungry anyways.

Plus the interface is looking pretty straightforward and native to me - no bootstrap-ish/whatever website-looking-thing shenanigans disguised as a native application.

Same. I’ll stick with SSMS.

Screenshots.

This. It's a piece of software yet nothing on the homepage even shows it!

There's some videos if you click on "Product":

https://www.sqlgate.com/product

However they're of a Korean language version...

I'm not sure the "free" version of the product exists. After installing from here https://www.sqlgate.com/product/download and handing over a lot of personal information, I received a time-limited trial version. Uninstalled.

I guess dbeaver is much better, more powerfull and open source IDE for databases.

I just needed a DB-client with which 1) I could have multiple SQLs in a single page/file (hope you know what I mean) and 2) execute single ones based on where the cursor is positioned, 3) without a delimiter at the end of each SQL, and 4) see as well execution plans (for some DBs e.g. MariaDB) and 5) to work with multiple databases (MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Clickhouse, DB2, MonetDB, Oracle, generic JDBC) and DBeaver totally saved me and I don't see any alternative (which I now anyway don't need).

I would pay for the "enterprise edition", but for a fixed amount not limited by usage but based on SW-versions (e.g. get upgrades for 1 year and after that to be able to keep using "the old version XYZ" until I have a reason to upgrade for which I would have to pay again). The 149$/year ( https://dbeaver.com/ at the bottom) sounds like it would stop working after 1y no matter which version I'm using :(

I use dbeaver and it's great. I've got sql server, postgres dbs, and even an old TakeStock / Progress DB working nicely with it.

I also switched, pgAdmin4 is terrible and using pgAdmin3 with new PostgreSQL versions wasn't officially supported (manual driver upgrade mostly worked).

One-time fee okay. 40$ a month? Hell no.

DataGrip is $20 a month for more features. However, after you've paid for 12 months you get perpetual access, so you can essentially pay for 12 months (or yearly at $199) and it essentially becomes a one-time license to that version if you'd rather not keep paying.

(I've been a DataGrip customer for a couple of years now)

Also gets cheaper on 2nd and 3rd year.

If you have IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, try the Database plugin. It essentially turns IntelliJ into DataGrip (their dedicated database IDE).

Now if only they'd do this with clion.

/yeah, I know that it went the opposite way; it just bugs me that I can't have great C/C++ support in IntelliJ like you used to get with the plugin that no longer works...

I use Datagrip every day and SQLGate looks very similar.

Would be nice to be able to see some high-res screenshots without having to go through watching several videos.

I've been using Toad for a long time and looking for something better, less buggy, more performant. Watching the video this looks very promising. Looking at the limitation of the Free version, it's too limiting to really give it a try. For example, only one connection at a time, limit to two tabs, no data import and export, clipboard size limit. I need to see how it handles my everyday usage before I can determine if I want to switch.

Tried this for a few minutes at work (very heavy SQL Server shop). It doesn't play well with databases that have different schemas but the same table name.

schema1.users

schema2.users

schema3.users

schema4.users

The auto-complete seems to always choose the last one and it displays it as 'users' with no indication of the schema. This alone makes this unusable for me at the present time

If on Mac, try Tableplus. Free version is already great. I use it for Postgres and Redis. Recommended

Whoa. Proprietary IDE for _Windows_ in 2019.

One of the team members is on this post stating cross-platform is coming via Electron.

is "Show HN:" a paid way for companies to advertise on hacker news? If not, awesome, otherwise, I feel a bit naive in thinking HN was a more pure approach to content and would be very disappointed.

Well the guidelines say that "Show HN is a way to share something that you've made on Hacker News." but it looks like the community is satisfied to have marketers promoting (which is what OP does) instead of builders discussing with other hackers.

I share your disappointment and would like to know how the admins see this.

I love the music for the demo video. Especially the second part. Oracle never sounded better.

Joke aside. Looks like a pretty useful tool. Seems to be focused on workflows.

Glad to hear you like the music! Hahaha. Thanks for taking a look at the video/tool. Always good to get feedback. :)

Postgres listed twice on the main page:

“Use SQLGate and raise your work productivity from Oracle to SQLServer, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Tibero and PostgreSQL!”

Oh! Nice catch! Thanks for letting me know. I'll fix it right away.

$15-25 a month? (or $40 a month for all?) (The free version doesn't support basic things like import and export, so it's really not viable for professionals)

DataGrip is $20/month, for all databases, and includes additional ones this product doesn't support. Nor does it have limits like the number of tabs you can have open. And it's cross platform today.

ER design, Query builder, Query Debugger, Query planner, DB Report generation are some best features to me comparing to pgAdmin.

On the Frontpage, "Start your Subscription" inside the Description for the Free Version there is the Link [0] which leads to a broken "403 forbidden" page.

[0] https://cms-alpha-www.sqlgate.com/pricing/subscription

Featurelist vs. DataGrip?

My main annoyance, so to say, with DataGrip is their certificate handling. It ignores the root certs in MacOS keychain and I have to add those in the app.

But other than that I love it. It's replaced all other SQL tools/ide/admin I've used.

403 Error on this page: https://cms-alpha-www.sqlgate.com/pricing/subscription

What language is the demo video in ?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/AqHlNy8nnJc?autoplay=1

That looks like Hangul...so Korean.

Interesting, I think this is the first time I’ve seen a ShowHN from Korea.

Any screenshots of postgres execution plan exploration? This is 99% of what I'd consider a new tool for. (Other tool suggestions also welcome.)

SQLGate sounds like what the news will call the data breach that happens when everyone who switched to this DBMS gets back door'ed

Is the video in Korean for everyone or just me?

....The entire video is in Japanese.

That isn’t Japanese, it looks more like Hangul than Kanji. So my guess would be Korean.

Hmm, thanks for letting me know!

how is this better than DataGrip?

Why does this look so much like IntelliJ with SQL plugin :/

FWIW, JetBrains has an IDE for SQL things. https://www.jetbrains.com/datagrip/?fromMenu

(I've no affiliation with JetBrains).

Been using Data Grip as my regular database client for a couple of years, very happy.

Doesn't this look exactly same to you?

The logo is very similar to Office 365's...

Written in Delphi

For crying out loud why is your site in english and your videos in whatever asian language that is. Gradeschool level mistakes her, wtf.

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