Data has become an important part of the digital world, and as such, we need ways to manage and secure it so it can be used to its maximum effect. This is where databases—places where you can store, manipulate, and organize data, as the name implies—come in. And, as we’ve talked about before, you don’t want to spend a long time manually managing them. Your needs will dictate which SQL tool you’ll need, so today, we’re looking at five more SQL tools for 2020 and see which one is right for you. This is part two of a four series blog.
DB Comparer
DB Comparer is a free database comparison tool, and comes in handy when you’re in the rare situation where you must change a live database schema. Since production databases often contain sensitive data, it’s imperative to make sure you don’t encounter unsuccessful deployments and that your databases are synchronized.
The only downside is that it can only compare databases for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and 2005. And yes, even if you’re running those, you could always check your Production and Development databases manually. But DB Comparer is free and does that automatically, both of which are excellent reasons to hit their download button. They also provide a full walkthrough to help you get started.
DbVisualizer
Back to the universal database tools for management, you might also want to consider DBVisualizer. Its basic version is free for commercial and non-commercial use, and there’s an Enterprise version available for more demanding users. The free version is great, and will most likely be enough, but it’s the paid version that’s truly teeming with features. It connects to most databases (you can check out the listhere), but if you’re using one of the more popular databases (SQLite, <Oracle, <MySQL, <PosgreSQL), DbVisualizer has support that’s specifically dedicated to them.
HeidiSQL
HeidiSQL is also free, and puts a smaller learning curve ahead of you. Like above tools, it helps you see and edit your databases if they are MariaDB, MySQL, Microsoft SQL, or PostgreSQL.
It has several features, including connection to multiple servers via the interface or the command line, SSH tunnel connection, generates compressed SQL exports, exports servers and databases, and more. Here’s a list of all its features and screenshots.
ManageEngine SQL Health Monitor
ManageEngine SQL Health Monitor was created to help admins monitor the health of their SQL servers. ManageEngine checks for CPU, Memory, Disk, Bandwidth and database performance in real-time, and sends you alerts when any of those resources reaches their limit.
Other statistics it can check for are Logins/Logouts, Batch requests, SQL Compilations and Recompilations, Buffer Cache Hit Ratio, Checkpoint pages, Lazy writes, and more—all of these per second. You can check out the full list of features here, but all in all, it’s a great tool to monitor your servers, and is free.
Firebird
Our last tool for today is Firebird, which is also free and open-source. Its main features include relational database management, scalability, great performance, runs on Windows, Linux, MacOS, HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, and more, and on both 32 and 64-bit systems. It also has a multi-generation architecture, so you can develop hybrid OLTP and OLAP applications for both analytical and operational data storage. For a full list of features, you can check out their list here.
In the end, it’s another great free tool if you’re looking at those—especially if you need hybrid development.
If your needs still aren’t met by the tools we named, fear not! Another post is coming with more ten tools, including ones for server health and performance, and more free editors!
Stay tuned for part three of the Top SQL Tools series!