JackDB: A Relational Database GUI

If you've ever used PostgreSQL you may have run into this snag: there are no great GUI visualizers for your DB. Until now.

How I used to work with MySQL

I've used to use MySQL as my relational DB of choice. Though, as I've grown more fond of Heroku, sticking with MySQL has become a burden, requiring the ClearDB addon. Suboptimal connection limits have posed a problem when we've had traffic spikes, and setting up ClearDB isn't as simple as hooking up Heroku Postgres. All to say, I switched to Postgres for Gymsurfing.

When working with Mysql I used the absolutely wonderful Sequel Pro, which does everything really really well. It makes working with your data, and saving queries/connections a snap. The only problem is that it doesn't work with Postgres.

Working with PostgreSQL

There are some other options availible for working with Postgres, from Induction created by Mattt Thompson, to PG Commander created by Jakob Egger. I've been using PG Commander because it crashes less often than Induction—not the best reason to be using it though.

While PG Commander has record editing, connection saving, and table filtering. It lacks easy ways to explore my table's column datatypes, indexes. Neither Induction or PG Commander work with MySQL (bummer).

JackDB

JackDB works with MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MS SQL Server, MarinaDB, Heroku (oauth), Amazon Redshift/RDS, and SQL Azure, and it's all online, so it's OS independent. You can save connections, SQL snippets, as well as open multiple tabs for working with different queries. It also displays records from a given query very nicely, highlighting null values, and allowing you to change date/time display formats.

Wish List

However it's lacking a few core things, which I really look forward to seeing added (hopefully). Easy inline record editing—which is my favorite part of Sequel Pro. Record creation (without writing a query), and an easier way to explore tables data (again, without writing a query or right-click "view data").

Unfortunatly you can't easily select/copy data from query results either, hopefully this is fixed.

One Last Thing

While Sequel Pro is free (for now), and PG Commander is $40, JackDB costs $30/mo per user. This can add up quickly, but if it continues to support development on an awesome product it seems worth it. For me, working with my data needs to be hassle free and so far JackDB delivers.