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TablePlus – Modern, Native Tool for Database Management

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Re: TablePlus – Modern, Native Tool for Database Management

#21

Post by jacurtis »

jackschultz wrote: post #13

Don't know if the person who posted this has an affiliation, I do not, but I'm a huge fan of TablePlus so feel it's still worth it for me to comment about this. It offers so many features that seem so natural. Quick editability which in some cases saves a ton of time. Tabs for different tables, plain text editing for queries with highlighting for ease of reading. There are other database interactors, that do the same…

I've been using TablePlus for a long time now as well. I don't have any affiliation but started with their mac app. It was easily the best DB GUI out there. I like that you can use the same GUI for PostgreSQL, MYSQL, Redis, MongoDB, and SQLite (there are even more than this, but these are the ones I use).

It is awesome to have one very powerful and well-maintained program for all my database needs. I can get proficient at one tool and use it for everything. In addition, I can pay 1 licensing fee and get access to a powerful tool for working with all of these databases, instead of needing a separate tool for each one (which was the case in the past).

The pricing model is EXTREMELY FAIR in my opinion. First of all, it is free to use in its entirety forever, with only a small handful of limitations. New devs will easily be satisfied with the free version. You can upgrade to support them and to remove the few limitations in the free version for just $60. This is well worth any developer's time as it accounts for only an hour or two of their wages most likely. I also like that it is a perpetual license, so you don't need to "subscribe" if you don't want to. You do need to renew if you want newer versions, as the $60 license only covers 1 year of updates. But i think that this is a great balance between being fair (it is perpetual at the version + 12mos that you bought it at), while also incentivizing and allowing to support further development. Finally offering a generous free version supports newbies and the dev community.

Lastly I need to point out an often-overlooked reason to consider TablePlus. They offer tools on every platform (Mac, Windows, Linux). And MOST IMPORTANTLY, this isn't an electron application. Each version is maintained by a seperate team (from my understanding) within their business and it is built on the native language and frameworks for that platform.

About 1.5-2 years ago I started a discussion on their forum about bringing a version to Linux (at the time it was only Windows and Mac). The forum post quickly started gaining momentum from other Linux users who discussed how there is quite literally NO good DB GUI on Linux (other than the CLI). Let alone something as easy to use and powerful as TablePlus. The team eventually committed to a Linux version, and after a year of development updates I was invited to the beta and had been using it ever since.

This team really is great and I highly recommend trying their tool for free and upgrading to the paid version if you find it useful, which I think any developer will.

Re: TablePlus – Modern, Native Tool for Database Management

#23

Post by _qbjt »

planetjones wrote: post #20

Been using the open source dbeaver for a while now. On the whole very impressed with it, so worth a look as a free alternative.

+1 for DBeaver. It doesn’t have a pretty UI like TablePlus but it’s FOSS, cross platform and has all of the same features (maybe more).

Re: TablePlus – Modern, Native Tool for Database Management

#24

Post by jolmg »

Kudos wrote: post #8
nerdbaggy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have 2 computers just buy 2 licenses?

I don't condone pirating software, but this is the kind of licensing that makes me understand it to a degree.

Right, it's not like their cost of production is proportional to the number of computers the software is used in. It's like trying to buy a vacuum cleaner and being charged per room you plan to use it in.

Re: TablePlus – Modern, Native Tool for Database Management

#26

Post by jacurtis »

cwhiz wrote: post #18
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #5

I love the licensing model. No crappy "pay us for the privilege of using the software every month and year" like Adobe does. Just plain perpetual licence like Affinity. We need more projects like that.

Perpetual license but not perpetual updates. And you have to pay per device instead of per seat. I think the pricing is low enough to overcome these annoyances but I’d rather pay double and not have to be concerned with buying another license when I dual boot another OS.

I do agree, that it would be nice to pay per seat, not per computer.

I develop on Mac 95% of the time, so I own a license on Mac, but on Windows I just use the free version because I don't use it on Windows enough to justify paying for it on that device, despite the fact I am a paying customer. This is an annoyance for me. However, I rarely run into any of the free-version limitations on Windows since I am usually just logging in quickly to check on something on Windows and not doing anything major. If I need to do some hardcore work I pull it up on my mac, which has a better dev environment. But it is extremely annoying the few times when I do go to open several tabs on WIndows and remember that despite being a paying customer, I can not use these paid features because I am using it on the wrong platform.

I don't have a problem with the perpetual license that doesn't include perpetual updates. To me, if you are using the tool that often, you can support the team that builds something that you most likely make money off using. One year of updates for TablePlus is nearly equivalent to a month of updates from Adobe. At $60 a year we are talking about $5 a month. Which is very little to most developers, who purchase $6 coffees and $15 salads without batting an eye.

But I would like to see a per-seat option. Especially because I most likely wouldn't/couldn't use two different computers at the same time, it seems fair to let me install it on a few OS's if I desire.

Re: TablePlus – Modern, Native Tool for Database Management

#27

Post by detaro »

planetjones wrote: post #20

Been using the open source dbeaver for a while now. On the whole very impressed with it, so worth a look as a free alternative.

> Advanced cryptography algorithms for SSL/SSH connections.

as a feature limited to the enterprise version sounds kind of scary.

Re: TablePlus – Modern, Native Tool for Database Management

#28

Post by wenc »

I work with SQL Server. I really like general multi-db GUI tools like this, but also wonder if one is giving up a lot of power.

SQL Server's free native tool is SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio), which is one of the most powerful SQL clients I've ever used. (despite my carryover reservations with MS products from the 1980s-90s, SQL Server is indisputably an innovative and solid piece of technology -- MS did something right with their database group). One can interact syntactically with the database via pure SQL, but SSMS lets you access the deep corners of the database quickly via a GUI (SQL is a great query language, but many admin/ops tasks are much more easily done via a GUI -- writing SQL every time you want make a simple change is tedious plus nobody remembers the syntax for infrequently used features). Some of the features I use regularly: row/column/covering index creation, linked servers, user management, live query plans, create/alter script generation from existing objects (stored proc, view, index, table, etc.). I've never seen these features exposed in any third party SQL GUI client.

Postgres has a bunch of very powerful features too, and I've never seen these exposed in GUI tools.

Jetbrains' DataGrip comes the closest, but because it needs to support lowest common denominator features across databases, it doesn't expose deep features either.

I wonder if folks are giving up deep feature discovery by using an generic GUI SQL client.

Exception: Oracle SQL Developer. It's native to Oracle but is quite unpleasant to use.

Re: TablePlus – Modern, Native Tool for Database Management

#30

Post by oefrha »

HHad3 wrote: post #2

The application looks and feels nice, but the per-device pricing/licensing model seems severely outdated to me. I will not make a purchase unless named licenses, which enable me to use the application on all devices and operating systems I use (with reasonable limits if DRM is needed for some reason), are available.

You can also get TablePlus though a Setapp[1] subscription. (Unfortunately Setapp is also licensed on a per device basis, but you get 2 Macs out of box and you could buy extra seats at $5/mo/seat.[2] I think named licenses are hard to offer because a lot of people abuse them by sharing with coworkers and friends.)

Having used TablePlus for a couple months with both Postgres and SQLite, I only have positive things to say.

[1] https://setapp.com/

[2] https://setapp.com/news/setapp-launches-extra-seats

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