Hello again — it's Brandon, your friend from Outerbase, and today I'm back with another exciting deep-dive into the data world. Today we're going t...
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I really like this new trend and seeing new database tools emerge. It's simply painful as someone who appreciates a good UI and focus in user experience, to use old bugged out tools like PHPMyAdmin or worse, MySQL Workbench on Windows.
I recently tried Beekeeper Studio and it looked promising, but of course it quickly moved toward a direction where the free tier is greatly limited and the tool is not perfect by any means. My absolute favorite tool, however, is still Jetbrains Datagrip, as it is integrated in my PHPStorm IDE. I only have to pay 60$ a year for it, and it supports all the languages I need to build stuff for the web, while also providing me with a great database tool.
Outerbase looks promising, but I have great doubts that it'll remain fully open source once you get more feature complete. Right now it's lacking many features, based on the release comments (you just finished supporting variables in queries?). I prefer to have a more complete tool that supports a wide variety of drivers and settings.
I also do not like the idea of providing an online, browser-based platform, my database credentials and access to my data! Those credentials are to be kept under lock and key and the database behind a firewall, only accessible by specific servers. You should not allow public access to a database from a browser-based app. That is just a massive security concern here. I know you don't do this in your browser application, and instead redirect specific database types to download the app, but the hints are there as those connections are on the dropdown list and it might scare off some users.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. DataGrip is definitely a inspiring tool — I can see why you like it, especially with the tight IDE integration. (Just to clarify, though for everyone else reading and might not be familiar, DataGrip is not open source — it’s a commercial product from JetBrains.)
Also — I understand your concerns about security. Outerbase has an open-source core, so you can review and even self-host if you don’t want to connect anything externally. We’re actually pushing more features into our open-source product, not less. Of course, we do offer a paid managed service for those who prefer a cloud experience, but we fully respect that some folks want to keep everything behind their own firewall.
Regarding features, variables in queries are just one of many we’ve added recently, but we’re far from done. We already provide visual query explains (to help optimize queries), schema visualization, and connections to multiple databases (with more on the way), plus a litany of other features I can't cover in a short comment. That said, we absolutely want to hear which additional drivers or features you’re looking for. Community feedback helps us prioritize what to build next!
Lastly, I get the hesitation about browser-based tools and database credentials. We have been mindful of that and actually built out tunneling services for private VPNs and on-prem databases—so you’re not exposing your credentials publicly. If you’d rather keep it entirely self-managed, that’s where our open-source version can really shine.
I just want to say I really appreciate your input here, and the thoughtful response. This is why I love the data community and always want to give back where I can :)
Whats the difference to something like TablePlus (already paid for it, so price doesnt matter)?
Great question — first off, this is fully open-source meaning you can help steer the ship, additionally we are hyper-focused around UX. My issue with tools table plus, phpmyadmin, and dbeaver is that they are stuck in the early 2000s and don't feel like they've ever been given a lot of love. The goal of Outerbase is to make it so easy to use even non-technical people can come in and understand.
Additionally you mentioned paying for it, if you do sign up for Outerbase cloud you get a collaborative environment where you and your team can create charts, share queries, and use AI to better understand your data.
Would love to have you check it out!
Great! Keep up the good work!
Appreciate it, we will 🫡
If it is half as good as NaviCat it is worth it... NaviCat is not open source, but the price is well worth it.
Would love for you to give it a shot! Our goal is to be the best data tool on the market and I think we are well on our way.
What features of NaviCat do you like the most?
The title of this article is purely SEO Stealing, in my opinion. There is a tool called DB Browser for SQLite. It is true that they chose to have such a generic name for their tool, but I just do not believe that the fact that the title is exactly the same is a coincidence. I'm particularly talking about the choices to use the term browser, to shorten database to DB and to use the word for in the exact same way as that tool.
I cannot come to any conclusion than that you are trying to get your competing tool to show up in search engines when people are looking for that other tool.
Hey, I get why this looks intentional, but honestly, it wasn’t. I saw that "DB Browser for SQLite" was a popular search term and used it in hopes that I'd attract more readers, without realizing it was also the exact name of an existing tool. That was my mistake, it just felt like a generic term, so I never second guessed.
I wasn’t trying to mislead anyone or hijack search results — I just wrote about SQLite tools and picked a title that made sense at the time. I adjusted to make sure there’s no confusion. Appreciate you calling it out and keeping me honest.
Using the exact name of a competitor in the title and body for SEO, broad sweepingly shitting on all other tools out there, claiming to be "the best", beginning the article with false claims ("deep dive into data world", "talking about browsing sqlite databases" ) to make it seem as if it would give an objective look, a "conclusion" on what is obviously an advertisement to make it seem more objective / scientific...
At least they made it easy for me to see that I'm not going to want to have anything to do with these people or their software.
I already responded above, but commenting here too.
Yeah, I was promoting our project, but I wasn’t trying to mislead anyone or hijack traffic. I’ve updated the article to clear up any confusion.
I get that you’re frustrated about the wording, but this isn’t a competitor situation — just trying to draw more attention to an open-source project. Totally fair if it’s not for you!
Seems worthless. One can never truly admin or engineer a database effectly without an effect DB relationality diagram for the entire DB. DBs get big, and auto routed diagrams are to ineffective and messy, so one needs to be able to save the diagram and manage it as the/a source of the migration files. I'm forced to stick with MySQL workbench, still, 20 years later, the only tool that allows you to engineer a database... real engineers use diagrams for a lot.
Thanks for reading — I'm glad you found a tool like MySQL workbench that continues to serve you well!
When you want to trash something make sure you do your homework first, otherwise you can easily come across as arrogant and amature.
Well, who cares about the bulk? From your post it appears that you do not have a clue that "DB Browser for SQLite" is the name of an actual SQLite client. And it is definitely not the only up-to-date pro-level open-source SQLite client.
If all you need is to explore your data visually, you can simply drag-and-drop the SQLite file into Datagrok: datagrok.ai, then click on Launch, then drag-and-drop
Is this open source?
It's a mix. Datagrok platform is proprietary (but free for non-commercial individual use and academia).
SQLite plugin is open-source under MIT: github.com/datagrok-ai/public/tree...