A modern SQL client
After searching for an alternative MySQL client to use on Ubuntu I came across one which is fairly new and pretty damn good as it’s packed with a lot of features that you would expect in alternative application that you would have to pay for.
As this application grows in popularity and use will it remain free?
According to their github page under the Philosophy section it seems like it will always remain free.
Some of the free MySQL clients that I’ve used are restricted to a speecific operating system, but not this one. Antares SQL is available on the big three operating systems Windows, MacOS and Linux.
In this guide I will give an overview on the application.
Features
Here is a list of most of the features I came accross while using the application.
Database support
This application has support for the following databases.
- MySQL
- MariaDB
- SQLite
- PostgreSQL
- Firebird SQL
The following databases are to be added in the future
- SQL Server
- DuckDB
There is also mention of more database technologies to be added, I think adding MongoDB would be a great additional considering how popular it is.
Modern looking and clean UI
Some of the MySQL clients that I have used have been around for years and as a result the design on them tend to stay the same. The problem with this is that they end up looking old and outdated as they are a product for it’s time rather than something you would want to use right now.
Autocomplete
When writing queries you can easily reference the field names of tables easily as shown in the below screenshot.
Import / Export
One feature that was missing from my previous MySQL client that I really wanted so its easy to back up the databases that I work with.
The export schema pop-up windows allows you to customize what gets exported such as the tables, filename, toggling between tables / data, deleting data before import, zipping backed up file etc.
You can also export database rows from written queries that aree run and can be exported as JSON, CSV, PHP array or SQL Insert statements.
Notes
When writing queries, sometimes it would be helpful if you could save queries as you may need to reuse them again later on. This can be done easily by clicking the save button (button with heart icon) which saves the query so that it can be added to the database runner rather than rewriting whole queries.
Not only queries can be saved but you can also write messages which are written in markdown format, messages can be in two types which are either note or todo. Both of them are the same except that todo can be marked as complete andd moved to an archived section.
Reasons why I use it
The operating systems that I have worked with the most recently has been Linux (Ubuntu) for my desktop PC and macOS (Macbook Pro) for when I want to work away from home.
Linux database usage
For Linux I orignally used Beekeeper Studio which comprises of a free community version and a paid ultimate version, I used the free version. One feature that I really needed at times was to export a database however that feature was restricted to the ultimate version and one issue I came accross is that you can’t connect to multiple databases simutanously in one application window.
Having said that Beekeeper does support more databases when compared with Antares SQL however for my personal usage I don’t need the extra support.
macOS database usage
On macOS I installed Sequel Ace which is a nice and simple MySQL / MariaDB client, one problem I ran into is that it had no SQLite support and I’ve had the tenancy to use it because its set as the default database for new Laravel applications so I switched because Antares SQL supports it as well as MySQL.
Final thoughts
Antares SQL is my top database client of choice if I were to use Windows, macOS or Linux as my operating system because as a free application it is that good.
Also it’s still being actively worked on so I’m confidant that it won’t end up getting dropped and not receive any support in terms of new features and bug fixes. As a matter of fact at the time of writing this article an update was released two weeks ago according to their releases page.
One killer feature that would be awesome if added is the ability to use query parameters, so you can inject values from text fields that map to dynamic values that are part of database queries.