How do you differentiate from, say, dbeaver, or any similar database management software? What's the main reason to get Mathesar instead of DBeaver?
I love it personally and it looks pretty good so far. Also, amazing that the team started it as an open source project under a 501c3 nonprofit as well.
Having a more "spreadsheet" (or I would say, MS Access-like) UI is quite cool for certain use cases (e.g. low/no-code but backed by the full power of regular old Postgres). Can allow pretty agile development, although - it can get out of control if not managed with care... but nice to see the access controls/permissions there to help a bit.
All interesting choices, looks cool!
All the language is DB: it's tables not spreadsheets, records not rows, etc... It also doesn't hide things like 'schema' button or metadata like table description.
Maybe this project could do things like integrations with web services, easy actions on groups (like paste a list of ids and do something to all those records), and publicly available web pages (surveys, donations, pretty event pages.)
Every app has some terminology you need to learn to use it effectively, we just think that terminology should actually map to how databases work, rather than being an arbitrary abstraction. Instead of inventing our own terms, we stick to tables, records, schemas, and relationships so that users who learn Mathesar are also learning concepts that translate directly to Postgres (or relational databases in general).
Making software approachable isn’t about hiding complexity, it’s about presenting it well. The UI patterns you use determine whether a system feels intuitive, not whether the underlying mental model is simple. A well-designed interface can make even complex concepts feel natural, while a bad one can make simple tasks frustrating. Mathesar doesn’t make databases approachable by pretending tables aren’t tables, it makes them approachable by using familiar interactions, and progressively exposing functionality as you need it.
We do want to work on surveys ("forms") soon, and we're definitely thinking about bulk actions and integrations as well. Please feel free to open a feature request on https://github.com/mathesar-foundation/mathesar/issues for anything that would particularly help your use case.
This could not have been better said.
Metabase adds an abstraction layer with concepts like questions, segments, and metrics, while Mathesar works directly with Postgres tables, schemas, and permissions. Mathesar is deeply integrated with Postgres, so it supports Postgres-native features like role and privilege based access control, which aren’t possible in products designed for multiple database backends.
I hope that helps!