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Show HN: PSequel – a free PostgreSQL GUI Tool for Mac OS X

247 points by yliang 12y ago

Happy Cyber Monday!

laveur 12y ago
Personally I will just keep using PGSQLAdmin 3 for this kind of stuff. It supports pretty much everything PG Supports already.
radimm 12y ago
Thanks for sharing. Will give it try - but so far been happily using https://eggerapps.at/pgcommander/ https://eggerapps.at/pgcommander/
- backwardm 12y ago
  I've also really enjoyed PGCommander. Updates often and works well with remote connections via SSH.
  - gerry_shaw 12y ago
    Remote connections via SSH is the killer feature for PGCommander. Still nice to see another good looking app in this field.
- sleepyhead 12y ago
  +1. Recently bought PG Commander. Works really well.
msvan 12y ago
Very cool! Any plans on open sourcing it?
- cheshire137 12y ago
  I myself would either like to see the source or have the developer pay the $99 to get Apple to review the code and make it more trustworthy. As it is, I'm a little nervous running the app and letting it auto-update daily when I have no idea who the dev is or what's in the app.
  - yliang 12y ago
    Currently the auto-updating feature only reminds you to download an update. It doesn't update itself silently. And you shouldn't edit your production data directly anyway (or at least you should try on a dev server first), right?
  - foodstances 12y ago
    You do realize that Apple doesn't review code, right? An application in the App Store can issue malicious or accidental "DROP TABLE" statements just as easily as an application you downloaded from GitHub. Apple only reviews apps (in binary format) to make sure they mostly do what they say they do, and that they don't violate Apple's distribution guidelines (porn, trademarks, etc.)
    - empthought 12y ago
      The code signing mechanisms that Apple employs in the App Store removes the risk that a third-party software update server will be compromised and distribute malicious code to an otherwise trustworthy application. (Probably not a high risk in this case, but on principle...)
    - josephlord 12y ago
      They do at least in theory establish a legal entity that is responsible. It also provides a mechanism for removing the app if malicious behaviour is detected and reported. You are right about "DROP TABLE" risk in this case but some other threats are mitigated by the sand boxing of apps.
- yliang 12y ago
  Maybe. But I would like to see how it goes before open sourcing it.
  - projuce 12y ago
    I wouldn't be installing apps from an unknown author, but if it was on github and I could review and compile it myself I'd be a bit more inclined to try it.
  - josephlord 12y ago
    Like others I would probably install if open source or in the store. Of course you are entitled to do as you choose and this isn't a complaint. How are you liking Swift by the way? I'm really enjoying it.
stevepike 12y ago
I'm still on the hunt for an OSX PostgreSQL client with a table editor as awesome as aqua data studio's [0] (their java client doesn't work great on mac). With ADS you can edit the results of any query as if it was a spreadsheet, hit "save", and ADS will generate the correct insert/update statements for you and run them. It handles copy/paste across multiple rows pretty well, even with thousands of update/inserts, and I haven't found any other editors (I've tried pgadmin, jetbrains thing, navicat, this PSequel, and some others) that do this. http://www.aquafold.com/aquadatastudio/table_data_editor.html http://www.aquafold.com/aquadatastudio/table_data_editor.htm...
- bsg75 12y ago
  DbVisualizer has a similar feature, and works as well on a Mac as the Win and Linux versions - subject to occasional issues common to the JRE on your machine. http://www.dbvis.com/ http://www.dbvis.com/
  - stevepike 12y ago
    Thanks, just tried it out. This is almost there - it doesn't seem to handle copy/pasting multiple rows from excel into the grid.
- yliang 12y ago
  Thanks for your suggestion! The feature of editing query results is actually the second highest priority item in my todo list. (The first one is Query Bookmarks.)
- captainchaos 12y ago
  The latest PyCharm 4.0 IDE from JetBrains support just this feature, and it's great. I am guessing that the upcoming 0xDBE will support this in a standalone app if you don't need a full blown IDE for another language outside of SQL. https://www.jetbrains.com/dbe/ https://www.jetbrains.com/dbe/
  - stevepike 12y ago
    Looking forward to trying it out! I've got the evaluation version of Intellij IDE and it doesn't handle copy/paste across multiple cells.
bshimmin 12y ago
This looks nice - Sequel Pro is great for MySQL but for working with PostgreSQL the only GUI I could find for the Mac, last I checked, was Valentina Studio, which, whilst it does pretty much everything you would probably want of a DB GUI, also satisfies every stereotype of cross-platform applications (ie. it doesn't offer a very Mac-like experience). Looking forward to giving this a try.
attheodo 12y ago
UI looks promising but unfortunately performance was sluggish. Will have it under my radar for future, for now sticking to pgcommander.
- bm5k 12y ago
  I'd never heard of pgcommander, thanks!
- yliang 12y ago
  I just received a few complaints about its performance for displaying large tables. I'm working on a fix.
- rotten 12y ago
  Performance for everything under Yosemite is terrible for me. I won't upgrade my main work-mac until I'm convinced they've gotten Yosemite more stable and better performing. This looks like a promising tool, but its limit platform support kills it for me, for now.
joshstrange 12y ago
This looks really neat! Another Sequel Pro inspired client that was posted to HN recently was pgweb [0] which is open source that you all might want to check out as well. [0] https://github.com/sosedoff/pgweb https://github.com/sosedoff/pgweb
bsg75 12y ago
What I wish some of these projects would focus on are DBA features that only PgAdmin performs today. The market (both OSS and commercial) is filled with data editors, but none that focus on schema, user, and object management. PgAdmin does handle these functions, but the UI can be buggy, and is subject to problems with slow network connections - forced restarts can be common.
- yliang 12y ago
  Thanks for your suggestions. My plan is to support most features in Sequel Pro (but for PostgreSQL of course) which do include schema and user management. This release is just a start.
- needusername 12y ago
  Why would you want to do these in a UI instead of scripting/automating them?
  - coldtea 12y ago
    Because. Plus the two things are not contradictory. You can do them in the GUi and get the resulting SQL / DDL code to automate them later.
  - psychometry 12y ago
    Because it's not a good use of time for one-off modifications. Plus, the GUI is nice for visualizing, so there's a decent chance you're spending a lot of time in there anyway.
    - needusername 12y ago
      One-off modifications, because development, qa and production schemas don't have to be in sync.
      - psychometry 12y ago
        It's possible to run a query to modify the contents of a database without changing the schema. You may already be familiar with the UPDATE statement, for instance. And not every database in existence is part of a larger stack. I don't care much about automating a task I'll only do once in a throwaway DB that exists only on my computer.
timetraveller 12y ago
Navicat Premium is complete and fantastic GUI for PostgreSQL.
- JoshGlazebrook 12y ago
  I always found it overly complicated and sluggish (java based I think?)
  - timetraveller 12y ago
    Yes, it's based on Java and far from perfect but it's the best Postgres client available today.
maslam 12y ago
Looks interesting, thanks for sharing. Does not work with Amazon Redshift.
- yliang 12y ago
  Thanks for your reply! Never used Amazon Redshift. I'll try to find out what is so special about it. Edit: Amazon Redshift is based on PostgreSQL 8.0.2 but PSequel uses libpq 9.3. I'll work on supporting Redshift if it gets enough demands. Anyone who wants a specific feature could fire a request at http://www.psequel.com/report_bugs http://www.psequel.com/report_bugs
  - jakobegger 12y ago
    Supporting Redshift is actually pretty simple. The only problem is that you need to pay for a cluster for testing. However, since it's pay-by-the-hour you can keep charges minimal (don't forget to delete the cluster when you are done testing!) Here are a few gotchas with redshift: 1) OID and CTID columns show up in the catalog, but you can't access them. 2) Primary Keys and unique indices aren't actually enforced!! You can insert two rows with the same primary key. 3) Make sure you only access catalogs that exist in 8.0, eg. there is no pg_matviews before 9.3, there's no typcategory before 8.4 etc. (fortunately the PostgreSQL docs are very helpful) 4) When setting the "application_name" connection parameter, PostgreSQL will have to connect twice to a Redshift server. Recent versions of libpq do so automatically, but you should keep this in mind (eg. when using SSH tunnels, or when validating SSL certs) However, all in all, it's pretty easy to add support for Redshift. (I know because I'm the developer of PG Commander)
- sehrope 12y ago
  Most Postgres clients have issues connecting to Amazon Redshift. The wire protocol is the same so basic interactions (ex: connect via psql and run a SELECT) usually works but things get hairy when you start doing more complicated things or even just querying the data dictionary (the basic information_schema is there but Redshift has it's own tables for it's specific features). My company[1] makes a database client that runs in your web browser that has explicit support for Redshift (as well as Postgres, MySQL, and more). I encourage you to check it out. [1]: https://www.jackdb.com/ https://www.jackdb.com/
pablosanta 12y ago
Looks neat! Won't display metadata correctly on PosgreSQL 8.3 or earlier versions though. This is the error I'm getting: "column "typcategory" does not exist". UPDATE: added 8.3 version number.
- yliang 12y ago
  Thanks for the reply! It's using libpq 9.3 under the hood. I'll work on supporting earlier versions if it gets enough demands.
  - onyxraven 12y ago
    It'd be awesome to get 8.x support for working with quick Redshift queries. As is, there isn't a graphical interface to Redshift which is a bummer.
Danilka 12y ago
This is so needed. Thank you for working on the project! Will try out later today.
ankushio 12y ago
I have been using PG Commander so far and it's very similar to SequelPro
- BradRuderman 12y ago
  pgcommander sucks. It is slow, its interface is horrible, and query window is strange!
  - sleepyhead 12y ago
    I don't find it slow. Which parts of it is slow? I'm not a huge fan of the query window and yeah the continual view can be a bit confusing.
    - BradRuderman 12y ago
      The slowness I find I think its related to the continual view. What happens is I ran I ton of large queries, and then the window lags when I scroll. I should be better about limiting my queries when I only want to see a few records, however I am so use to sequel pro where it shows you the first 1000 by default.
      - jakobegger 12y ago
        If you get too many queries you can hit Cmd-L to clear the display in Terminal. I recently also added a cancel command to stop queries when you forgot a limit clause. I know the Terminal in PG Commander isn't for everybody; maybe I'll change it in a future version.
raquo 12y ago
Thanks for building this, looks very clean. I'm sorely missing a PostgreSQL client similar to Sequel Pro. Valentina Studio is okay but the UI is too clumsy.
- psychometry 12y ago
  PG Commander has a better UI. Not as good as Sequel Pro for MySQL, but it's something.
Void_ 12y ago
What does it matter that it's written in Swift if it's not open-source?
- robotvert 12y ago
  Since it's a developer oriented tool, how it's been made is always good trivia IMHO. Also helps legitimating the "Mac OS X only" part I guess.
psychometry 12y ago
Is there a technical reason why it's only for Yosemite or greater? Programs compiled from Swift are supported on OS 10.9 (I'm on Mountain Lion) and it would be great to try this.
- yliang 12y ago
  Because it uses some APIs introduced in 10.10.
sauce71 12y ago
I'm new to PostgreSQL and get nervous twitches from using pgAdmin. At the moment I run my queries in Toad. Tried PSequel, connected but it say (no schema) in the dropdown top left. Hope It will move forward, would be great if it came close to Sequel Pro. Think the uptake of Postgre among novices and webdesigners would increase if there at least was an easy way to connect and backup restore a db.
- yliang 12y ago
  Did you delete all schemas in your db, including the "public" schema? Could you report a bug at http://www.psequel.com/report_bugs http://www.psequel.com/report_bugs? Thanks!
  - sauce71 12y ago
    Hope not! Connected to a live DB :-) I'll try to post a bug report tomorrow (GMT+1).
BradRuderman 12y ago
Thank god someone has done this. I have spent so much time looking for a halfway decent psql tool, I currently use 0xDBE, and still not happy. My favorite was Sequel Pro (currently only mysql) and I think its not supported any more.
- dguaraglia 12y ago
  Navicat provides a really nice tool for Postgres. It's paid, but the OS X 'starter' (or something like that) version can be bought for $15 or so. It's by far the best client I've used on OS X.
  - BradRuderman 12y ago
    I haven't see that software for less then $100. Also I think its java based which will have laggy performance.
    - robin_reala 12y ago
      Navicat feels snappy to me. I only use the features in the ‘Essential’ version which is £10: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/navicat-essentials-for-postgresql/id466725643 https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/navicat-essentials-for-postg...
  - justkez 12y ago
    Seconded. It took me a while to bite the bullet and buy it, but if you're needing any kind of reliability from a PG GUI, Navicat is by far the best option. I don't find the lag too noticeable; certainly not when you're in query mode. I do find the lack of Materialized View support lacking, though! They don't materialise anywhere..
CodeWriter23 12y ago
:( No support for SSL connections. I'll be eagerly awaiting an update.
- yliang 12y ago
  Just released a new version with SSL support. Please try it out.
k_sze 12y ago
Where the fork is the forking "fork me on github" ribbon? (i.e. is it going to be FOSS?)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
aren55555 12y ago
brew cask install psequel
interstateone 12y ago
I always end up searching for something like this every few months. Congratulations on the launch! Some feedback for you, though: "I don't want to pay Apple for delivering a free app." I can understand this out of context, but I don't think it's a reasonable answer to the question of why the app isn't code-signed (i.e. that has nothing to do with distribution). It's quite the favor to ask of your users for a closed-source app.
- drivingmenuts 12y ago
  So don't use it. Problem solved.
thejerz 12y ago
SequelPro is the gold standard. I've used it for years, and I love it. Unfortunately, like many developers, I'm slowly moving away from MySQL to PostgreSQL, and none GUI tools measure up. Instead of making YAPC (Yet Another Postgres Client), I wish a developer would just write a PostgreSQL adapter for SequelPro[1]. I'd happily contribute $50 or $100 towards a Bountysource. https://github.com/sequelpro/sequelpro/issues/362 https://github.com/sequelpro/sequelpro/issues/362
- yliang 12y ago
  Writing a PostgreSQL adapter for Sequel Pro is a good idea. I don't know how an adapter can fit into Sequel Pro's architecture though. I'll take a look at Sequel Pro's codebase and consider this approach. Any help would be appreciated!
- krat0sprakhar 12y ago
  Can't emphasise this enough. SequelPro is absolutely the best part of using MySQL. I'd to would love to pitch in for a SequelPro-esque GUI tool for PostgreSQL
- lauriswtf 12y ago
  Sadly it looks that SequelPro was never built as a platform for cross-database support. After glancing through the source the integration with MySQL seems really tight. Also SequelPro is OSX only which is a shame because I think that Sequel is better than most of the alternatives. Hopefully Datazenit[0] will solve this and provide great cross-database, cross-platform support. Currently it is beta stage and supports MySQL/PostgreSQL, but other database systems are on the way. [0] https://datazenit.com/ https://datazenit.com/
  - iSnow 12y ago
    >Also SequelPro is OSX only which is a shame ... I don't think so. Actually, IMO it is better than the alternatives exactly because it does not try to be everything for everyone but keeps focus. That said, I really would like it to support other DB-engines like Postgres and SQLite too.
- 12y ago
Chris911 12y ago
I see "Query bookmark" in the TODO list. I've been looking a simple, clean PostgreSQL "bookmark manager" that will just hold and execute my saved queries. Would really like to see this feature implemented.
fndrplayer13 12y ago
Very cool, like that its in swift. I still feel like I've never had a very compelling reason to move away from psql itself, though?
sandGorgon 12y ago
One lesser known tool is PGStudio, which can be run as a web tool using jetty on your machine. as a side note, everyone seems to be on a Mac... And nobody on desktop Linux. Didn't really think that possible that from a postgres (or a mysql) crowd.
- burke 12y ago
  There are exactly two things that always dissuade me from using desktop linux: 1. The font rendering is bad on linux. Especially non-anti-aliased monospace fonts, for some reason, which is what I spend 90% of my day looking at. 2. Multimonitor support is a real pain to configure, whereas on OS X you just plug and go. I have cinema displays at home and at work, and I move around between them a lot. That's really painful on linux.
  - simoncion 12y ago
    > 2. Multimonitor support is a real pain to configure... Are you using a somewhat recent KDE? At least on the three machines that I regularly use, the management UI looks like [0], and works at least as well as the one in Windows 7. [0] http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9XFAUJBqajo/TrrwUNlBE3I/AAAAAAAAGYE/GCUyXGKWh9Q/s1600/kde-display-settings.png http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9XFAUJBqajo/TrrwUNlBE3I/AAAAAAAAGY...
    - burke 12y ago
      Likely my problem is that I really like tiling WMs, so end up trying to make my world work with something like xmonad or even dwm. It's entirely possible multimonitor is satisfactory with KDE, and maybe I should give that another shot. I do, however, know that OS X does font rendering so much better that I have trouble with pretty much any alternative.
      - phaemon 12y ago
        Well, if by "better" you mean "much worse". OSX font rendering is basically inconsistent, blurry blobs (yes, I've used OSX for years as well as various Linux distros). That's fine if that's what you like, but don't try and pretend that it's in any way objectively "better".
coleifer 12y ago
For SQLite users, I've released a web-based, python-powered database browser: https://github.com/coleifer/sqlite-browser https://github.com/coleifer/sqlite-browser
- pestaa 12y ago
  Quite clean, nice job! I might have a use for this.
asnyder 12y ago
Looks like a good start. Though in my experience the best PostgreSQL GUI is EMS SQL Manager (http://www.sqlmanager.net/en/products/postgresql/manager http://www.sqlmanager.net/en/products/postgresql/manager), bar none. As someone who's been using PostgreSQL for over 10 years now, nothing comes close. Honestly, every other GUI/manager feels pretty basic in comparison, even Navicat. If you're on a Mac, it's most definitely worth using it in VMWare Fusion, or Parallels. An aside: I don't work for them, and yes, I do buy their licenses.
gknapp 12y ago
I've used SQLWorkbenchJ on the daily for the last year and a half for postgres (on OSX). It gets a lot of flak because it's java based, can be a bit buggy, and doesn't have the nicest interface. However, if you look past those items, it has some really great features: - DB Explorer (tab for exploring schema, allows you to search through large sets of tables and other items very easily - primo) - SQL Formatting - Well thought out user shortcuts for executing queries - Intelligent auto-completion Really, they essentially loaded it with every feature imaginable, which may make it feel clunky, but it's a total Clydesdale in terms of functionality. http://www.sql-workbench.net/ http://www.sql-workbench.net/
- radiowave 12y ago
  Agreed. It's not my main tool (pgAdmin usually works well enough for my purposes), but I fire up SQLWorkbenchJ once in a while when I need something that pgAdmin won't do. Also it's scriptable data import function works nicely - we have it running here every 15 minutes, loading data from other systems into postgres.
pestaa 12y ago
If you're looking for a Postgres (and general) database frontend, check out DBeaver. Not exactly a thin app, but comes with all the batteries included. It's been indispensable in my day-to-day work.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Looks great, thanks!
ckorhonen 12y ago
Am I missing something? I don't appear to be able to do anything on the main screen. https://www.dropbox.com/s/4zlhcun6w26512s/Screenshot%202014-12-02%2009.34.40.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/4zlhcun6w26512s/Screenshot%202014-...
abruzzi 12y ago
Nice starting point, a few comments/suggestions: 1. When I first make a connection, the application window jumps to full screen size. This is very annoying. I running on a 4k screen with 1:1 pixels, so that is far more real estate than the application needs. Even on smaller screens, I would immediately have to resize the window after I connect. 2. I would like to be able to not provide the database name and allow me to switch from one DB to another using the same connection. (also, currently if you leave DB blank and attempt to connect, it crashes.) 3. 80% of the time I directly connect to my databases with a tool like this, it is not to look at the data, it is to create/drop/modify tables and other design and admin stuff. I'll occasionally use it to test complex queries before putting them in my code, but most of my queries are simple enough that they don't need testing prior to coding. So I'd see this as more useful if it had the ability to simplify the admin stuff. As it is, since I'd need to use pgAdmin 80% of the time, its not compelling to us something else for the other 20%.
- yliang 12y ago
  Thanks for your suggestions! To replay, 1. I'll fix this. 2. When you switch from one DB to another in postgres, you are essentially making a new connection instead of reusing the same connection[1]. In PSequel, you could create different connection bookmarks for different databases and open multiple connections at the same time in multiple windows. 3. In my company, we write migration scripts (activerecord migration) to modify table structures. We usually don't modify them directly/manually. 80% of the time we use GUI tools just for viewing data and testing out complicated SELECT queries. I didn't realize that many other people's usage patterns are different. Anyway, the feature of modifying table structures is in PSequel's roadmap. [1] http://stackoverflow.com/q/10335561 http://stackoverflow.com/q/10335561
yliang 12y ago
Just released v1.0.2. Now supports SSL connections. Use the "Check for Update..." menu item to download the update.

247 points by yliang 12y ago

Happy Cyber Monday!

Personally I will just keep using PGSQLAdmin 3 for this kind of stuff. It supports pretty much everything PG Supports already.

radimm 12y ago

Thanks for sharing. Will give it try - but so far been happily using https://eggerapps.at/pgcommander/ https://eggerapps.at/pgcommander/

backwardm 12y ago
I've also really enjoyed PGCommander. Updates often and works well with remote connections via SSH.
- gerry_shaw 12y ago
  Remote connections via SSH is the killer feature for PGCommander. Still nice to see another good looking app in this field.
sleepyhead 12y ago
+1. Recently bought PG Commander. Works really well.

msvan 12y ago

Very cool! Any plans on open sourcing it?

cheshire137 12y ago
I myself would either like to see the source or have the developer pay the $99 to get Apple to review the code and make it more trustworthy. As it is, I'm a little nervous running the app and letting it auto-update daily when I have no idea who the dev is or what's in the app.
- yliang 12y ago
  Currently the auto-updating feature only reminds you to download an update. It doesn't update itself silently. And you shouldn't edit your production data directly anyway (or at least you should try on a dev server first), right?
- foodstances 12y ago
  You do realize that Apple doesn't review code, right? An application in the App Store can issue malicious or accidental "DROP TABLE" statements just as easily as an application you downloaded from GitHub. Apple only reviews apps (in binary format) to make sure they mostly do what they say they do, and that they don't violate Apple's distribution guidelines (porn, trademarks, etc.)
  - empthought 12y ago
    The code signing mechanisms that Apple employs in the App Store removes the risk that a third-party software update server will be compromised and distribute malicious code to an otherwise trustworthy application. (Probably not a high risk in this case, but on principle...)
  - josephlord 12y ago
    They do at least in theory establish a legal entity that is responsible. It also provides a mechanism for removing the app if malicious behaviour is detected and reported. You are right about "DROP TABLE" risk in this case but some other threats are mitigated by the sand boxing of apps.
yliang 12y ago
Maybe. But I would like to see how it goes before open sourcing it.
- projuce 12y ago
  I wouldn't be installing apps from an unknown author, but if it was on github and I could review and compile it myself I'd be a bit more inclined to try it.
- josephlord 12y ago
  Like others I would probably install if open source or in the store. Of course you are entitled to do as you choose and this isn't a complaint. How are you liking Swift by the way? I'm really enjoying it.

stevepike 12y ago

I'm still on the hunt for an OSX PostgreSQL client with a table editor as awesome as aqua data studio's [0] (their java client doesn't work great on mac). With ADS you can edit the results of any query as if it was a spreadsheet, hit "save", and ADS will generate the correct insert/update statements for you and run them. It handles copy/paste across multiple rows pretty well, even with thousands of update/inserts, and I haven't found any other editors (I've tried pgadmin, jetbrains thing, navicat, this PSequel, and some others) that do this. http://www.aquafold.com/aquadatastudio/table_data_editor.html http://www.aquafold.com/aquadatastudio/table_data_editor.htm...

bsg75 12y ago
DbVisualizer has a similar feature, and works as well on a Mac as the Win and Linux versions - subject to occasional issues common to the JRE on your machine. http://www.dbvis.com/ http://www.dbvis.com/
- stevepike 12y ago
  Thanks, just tried it out. This is almost there - it doesn't seem to handle copy/pasting multiple rows from excel into the grid.
yliang 12y ago
Thanks for your suggestion! The feature of editing query results is actually the second highest priority item in my todo list. (The first one is Query Bookmarks.)
captainchaos 12y ago
The latest PyCharm 4.0 IDE from JetBrains support just this feature, and it's great. I am guessing that the upcoming 0xDBE will support this in a standalone app if you don't need a full blown IDE for another language outside of SQL. https://www.jetbrains.com/dbe/ https://www.jetbrains.com/dbe/
- stevepike 12y ago
  Looking forward to trying it out! I've got the evaluation version of Intellij IDE and it doesn't handle copy/paste across multiple cells.

bshimmin 12y ago

This looks nice - Sequel Pro is great for MySQL but for working with PostgreSQL the only GUI I could find for the Mac, last I checked, was Valentina Studio, which, whilst it does pretty much everything you would probably want of a DB GUI, also satisfies every stereotype of cross-platform applications (ie. it doesn't offer a very Mac-like experience). Looking forward to giving this a try.

attheodo 12y ago

UI looks promising but unfortunately performance was sluggish. Will have it under my radar for future, for now sticking to pgcommander.

bm5k 12y ago
I'd never heard of pgcommander, thanks!
yliang 12y ago
I just received a few complaints about its performance for displaying large tables. I'm working on a fix.
rotten 12y ago
Performance for everything under Yosemite is terrible for me. I won't upgrade my main work-mac until I'm convinced they've gotten Yosemite more stable and better performing. This looks like a promising tool, but its limit platform support kills it for me, for now.

joshstrange 12y ago

This looks really neat! Another Sequel Pro inspired client that was posted to HN recently was pgweb [0] which is open source that you all might want to check out as well. [0] https://github.com/sosedoff/pgweb https://github.com/sosedoff/pgweb

bsg75 12y ago

What I wish some of these projects would focus on are DBA features that only PgAdmin performs today. The market (both OSS and commercial) is filled with data editors, but none that focus on schema, user, and object management. PgAdmin does handle these functions, but the UI can be buggy, and is subject to problems with slow network connections - forced restarts can be common.

yliang 12y ago
Thanks for your suggestions. My plan is to support most features in Sequel Pro (but for PostgreSQL of course) which do include schema and user management. This release is just a start.
needusername 12y ago
Why would you want to do these in a UI instead of scripting/automating them?
- coldtea 12y ago
  Because. Plus the two things are not contradictory. You can do them in the GUi and get the resulting SQL / DDL code to automate them later.
- psychometry 12y ago
  Because it's not a good use of time for one-off modifications. Plus, the GUI is nice for visualizing, so there's a decent chance you're spending a lot of time in there anyway.
  - needusername 12y ago
    One-off modifications, because development, qa and production schemas don't have to be in sync.
    - psychometry 12y ago
      It's possible to run a query to modify the contents of a database without changing the schema. You may already be familiar with the UPDATE statement, for instance. And not every database in existence is part of a larger stack. I don't care much about automating a task I'll only do once in a throwaway DB that exists only on my computer.

timetraveller 12y ago

Navicat Premium is complete and fantastic GUI for PostgreSQL.

JoshGlazebrook 12y ago
I always found it overly complicated and sluggish (java based I think?)
- timetraveller 12y ago
  Yes, it's based on Java and far from perfect but it's the best Postgres client available today.

maslam 12y ago

Looks interesting, thanks for sharing. Does not work with Amazon Redshift.

yliang 12y ago
Thanks for your reply! Never used Amazon Redshift. I'll try to find out what is so special about it. Edit: Amazon Redshift is based on PostgreSQL 8.0.2 but PSequel uses libpq 9.3. I'll work on supporting Redshift if it gets enough demands. Anyone who wants a specific feature could fire a request at http://www.psequel.com/report_bugs http://www.psequel.com/report_bugs
- jakobegger 12y ago
  Supporting Redshift is actually pretty simple. The only problem is that you need to pay for a cluster for testing. However, since it's pay-by-the-hour you can keep charges minimal (don't forget to delete the cluster when you are done testing!) Here are a few gotchas with redshift: 1) OID and CTID columns show up in the catalog, but you can't access them. 2) Primary Keys and unique indices aren't actually enforced!! You can insert two rows with the same primary key. 3) Make sure you only access catalogs that exist in 8.0, eg. there is no pg_matviews before 9.3, there's no typcategory before 8.4 etc. (fortunately the PostgreSQL docs are very helpful) 4) When setting the "application_name" connection parameter, PostgreSQL will have to connect twice to a Redshift server. Recent versions of libpq do so automatically, but you should keep this in mind (eg. when using SSH tunnels, or when validating SSL certs) However, all in all, it's pretty easy to add support for Redshift. (I know because I'm the developer of PG Commander)
sehrope 12y ago
Most Postgres clients have issues connecting to Amazon Redshift. The wire protocol is the same so basic interactions (ex: connect via psql and run a SELECT) usually works but things get hairy when you start doing more complicated things or even just querying the data dictionary (the basic information_schema is there but Redshift has it's own tables for it's specific features). My company[1] makes a database client that runs in your web browser that has explicit support for Redshift (as well as Postgres, MySQL, and more). I encourage you to check it out. [1]: https://www.jackdb.com/ https://www.jackdb.com/

pablosanta 12y ago

Looks neat! Won't display metadata correctly on PosgreSQL 8.3 or earlier versions though. This is the error I'm getting: "column "typcategory" does not exist". UPDATE: added 8.3 version number.

yliang 12y ago
Thanks for the reply! It's using libpq 9.3 under the hood. I'll work on supporting earlier versions if it gets enough demands.
- onyxraven 12y ago
  It'd be awesome to get 8.x support for working with quick Redshift queries. As is, there isn't a graphical interface to Redshift which is a bummer.

Danilka 12y ago

This is so needed. Thank you for working on the project! Will try out later today.

ankushio 12y ago

I have been using PG Commander so far and it's very similar to SequelPro

BradRuderman 12y ago
pgcommander sucks. It is slow, its interface is horrible, and query window is strange!
- sleepyhead 12y ago
  I don't find it slow. Which parts of it is slow? I'm not a huge fan of the query window and yeah the continual view can be a bit confusing.
  - BradRuderman 12y ago
    The slowness I find I think its related to the continual view. What happens is I ran I ton of large queries, and then the window lags when I scroll. I should be better about limiting my queries when I only want to see a few records, however I am so use to sequel pro where it shows you the first 1000 by default.
    - jakobegger 12y ago
      If you get too many queries you can hit Cmd-L to clear the display in Terminal. I recently also added a cancel command to stop queries when you forgot a limit clause. I know the Terminal in PG Commander isn't for everybody; maybe I'll change it in a future version.

raquo 12y ago

Thanks for building this, looks very clean. I'm sorely missing a PostgreSQL client similar to Sequel Pro. Valentina Studio is okay but the UI is too clumsy.

psychometry 12y ago
PG Commander has a better UI. Not as good as Sequel Pro for MySQL, but it's something.

Void_ 12y ago

What does it matter that it's written in Swift if it's not open-source?

robotvert 12y ago
Since it's a developer oriented tool, how it's been made is always good trivia IMHO. Also helps legitimating the "Mac OS X only" part I guess.

psychometry 12y ago

Is there a technical reason why it's only for Yosemite or greater? Programs compiled from Swift are supported on OS 10.9 (I'm on Mountain Lion) and it would be great to try this.

yliang 12y ago
Because it uses some APIs introduced in 10.10.

sauce71 12y ago

I'm new to PostgreSQL and get nervous twitches from using pgAdmin. At the moment I run my queries in Toad. Tried PSequel, connected but it say (no schema) in the dropdown top left. Hope It will move forward, would be great if it came close to Sequel Pro. Think the uptake of Postgre among novices and webdesigners would increase if there at least was an easy way to connect and backup restore a db.

yliang 12y ago
Did you delete all schemas in your db, including the "public" schema? Could you report a bug at http://www.psequel.com/report_bugs http://www.psequel.com/report_bugs? Thanks!
- sauce71 12y ago
  Hope not! Connected to a live DB :-) I'll try to post a bug report tomorrow (GMT+1).

BradRuderman 12y ago

Thank god someone has done this. I have spent so much time looking for a halfway decent psql tool, I currently use 0xDBE, and still not happy. My favorite was Sequel Pro (currently only mysql) and I think its not supported any more.

dguaraglia 12y ago
Navicat provides a really nice tool for Postgres. It's paid, but the OS X 'starter' (or something like that) version can be bought for $15 or so. It's by far the best client I've used on OS X.
- BradRuderman 12y ago
  I haven't see that software for less then $100. Also I think its java based which will have laggy performance.
  - robin_reala 12y ago
    Navicat feels snappy to me. I only use the features in the ‘Essential’ version which is £10: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/navicat-essentials-for-postgresql/id466725643 https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/navicat-essentials-for-postg...
- justkez 12y ago
  Seconded. It took me a while to bite the bullet and buy it, but if you're needing any kind of reliability from a PG GUI, Navicat is by far the best option. I don't find the lag too noticeable; certainly not when you're in query mode. I do find the lack of Materialized View support lacking, though! They don't materialise anywhere..

CodeWriter23 12y ago

:( No support for SSL connections. I'll be eagerly awaiting an update.

yliang 12y ago
Just released a new version with SSL support. Please try it out.

k_sze 12y ago

Where the fork is the forking "fork me on github" ribbon? (i.e. is it going to be FOSS?)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

aren55555 12y ago

brew cask install psequel

interstateone 12y ago

I always end up searching for something like this every few months. Congratulations on the launch! Some feedback for you, though: "I don't want to pay Apple for delivering a free app." I can understand this out of context, but I don't think it's a reasonable answer to the question of why the app isn't code-signed (i.e. that has nothing to do with distribution). It's quite the favor to ask of your users for a closed-source app.

drivingmenuts 12y ago
So don't use it. Problem solved.

thejerz 12y ago

SequelPro is the gold standard. I've used it for years, and I love it. Unfortunately, like many developers, I'm slowly moving away from MySQL to PostgreSQL, and none GUI tools measure up. Instead of making YAPC (Yet Another Postgres Client), I wish a developer would just write a PostgreSQL adapter for SequelPro[1]. I'd happily contribute $50 or $100 towards a Bountysource. https://github.com/sequelpro/sequelpro/issues/362 https://github.com/sequelpro/sequelpro/issues/362

yliang 12y ago
Writing a PostgreSQL adapter for Sequel Pro is a good idea. I don't know how an adapter can fit into Sequel Pro's architecture though. I'll take a look at Sequel Pro's codebase and consider this approach. Any help would be appreciated!
krat0sprakhar 12y ago
Can't emphasise this enough. SequelPro is absolutely the best part of using MySQL. I'd to would love to pitch in for a SequelPro-esque GUI tool for PostgreSQL
lauriswtf 12y ago
Sadly it looks that SequelPro was never built as a platform for cross-database support. After glancing through the source the integration with MySQL seems really tight. Also SequelPro is OSX only which is a shame because I think that Sequel is better than most of the alternatives. Hopefully Datazenit[0] will solve this and provide great cross-database, cross-platform support. Currently it is beta stage and supports MySQL/PostgreSQL, but other database systems are on the way. [0] https://datazenit.com/ https://datazenit.com/
- iSnow 12y ago
  >Also SequelPro is OSX only which is a shame ... I don't think so. Actually, IMO it is better than the alternatives exactly because it does not try to be everything for everyone but keeps focus. That said, I really would like it to support other DB-engines like Postgres and SQLite too.
12y ago

Chris911 12y ago

I see "Query bookmark" in the TODO list. I've been looking a simple, clean PostgreSQL "bookmark manager" that will just hold and execute my saved queries. Would really like to see this feature implemented.

fndrplayer13 12y ago

Very cool, like that its in swift. I still feel like I've never had a very compelling reason to move away from psql itself, though?

sandGorgon 12y ago

One lesser known tool is PGStudio, which can be run as a web tool using jetty on your machine. as a side note, everyone seems to be on a Mac... And nobody on desktop Linux. Didn't really think that possible that from a postgres (or a mysql) crowd.

burke 12y ago
There are exactly two things that always dissuade me from using desktop linux: 1. The font rendering is bad on linux. Especially non-anti-aliased monospace fonts, for some reason, which is what I spend 90% of my day looking at. 2. Multimonitor support is a real pain to configure, whereas on OS X you just plug and go. I have cinema displays at home and at work, and I move around between them a lot. That's really painful on linux.
- simoncion 12y ago
  > 2. Multimonitor support is a real pain to configure... Are you using a somewhat recent KDE? At least on the three machines that I regularly use, the management UI looks like [0], and works at least as well as the one in Windows 7. [0] http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9XFAUJBqajo/TrrwUNlBE3I/AAAAAAAAGYE/GCUyXGKWh9Q/s1600/kde-display-settings.png http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9XFAUJBqajo/TrrwUNlBE3I/AAAAAAAAGY...
  - burke 12y ago
    Likely my problem is that I really like tiling WMs, so end up trying to make my world work with something like xmonad or even dwm. It's entirely possible multimonitor is satisfactory with KDE, and maybe I should give that another shot. I do, however, know that OS X does font rendering so much better that I have trouble with pretty much any alternative.
    - phaemon 12y ago
      Well, if by "better" you mean "much worse". OSX font rendering is basically inconsistent, blurry blobs (yes, I've used OSX for years as well as various Linux distros). That's fine if that's what you like, but don't try and pretend that it's in any way objectively "better".

coleifer 12y ago

For SQLite users, I've released a web-based, python-powered database browser: https://github.com/coleifer/sqlite-browser https://github.com/coleifer/sqlite-browser

pestaa 12y ago
Quite clean, nice job! I might have a use for this.

asnyder 12y ago

Looks like a good start. Though in my experience the best PostgreSQL GUI is EMS SQL Manager (http://www.sqlmanager.net/en/products/postgresql/manager http://www.sqlmanager.net/en/products/postgresql/manager), bar none. As someone who's been using PostgreSQL for over 10 years now, nothing comes close. Honestly, every other GUI/manager feels pretty basic in comparison, even Navicat. If you're on a Mac, it's most definitely worth using it in VMWare Fusion, or Parallels. An aside: I don't work for them, and yes, I do buy their licenses.

gknapp 12y ago

I've used SQLWorkbenchJ on the daily for the last year and a half for postgres (on OSX). It gets a lot of flak because it's java based, can be a bit buggy, and doesn't have the nicest interface. However, if you look past those items, it has some really great features: - DB Explorer (tab for exploring schema, allows you to search through large sets of tables and other items very easily - primo) - SQL Formatting - Well thought out user shortcuts for executing queries - Intelligent auto-completion Really, they essentially loaded it with every feature imaginable, which may make it feel clunky, but it's a total Clydesdale in terms of functionality. http://www.sql-workbench.net/ http://www.sql-workbench.net/

radiowave 12y ago
Agreed. It's not my main tool (pgAdmin usually works well enough for my purposes), but I fire up SQLWorkbenchJ once in a while when I need something that pgAdmin won't do. Also it's scriptable data import function works nicely - we have it running here every 15 minutes, loading data from other systems into postgres.

pestaa 12y ago

If you're looking for a Postgres (and general) database frontend, check out DBeaver. Not exactly a thin app, but comes with all the batteries included. It's been indispensable in my day-to-day work.

icebraining 12y ago
Looks great, thanks!

ckorhonen 12y ago

Am I missing something? I don't appear to be able to do anything on the main screen. https://www.dropbox.com/s/4zlhcun6w26512s/Screenshot%202014-12-02%2009.34.40.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/4zlhcun6w26512s/Screenshot%202014-...

abruzzi 12y ago

Nice starting point, a few comments/suggestions: 1. When I first make a connection, the application window jumps to full screen size. This is very annoying. I running on a 4k screen with 1:1 pixels, so that is far more real estate than the application needs. Even on smaller screens, I would immediately have to resize the window after I connect. 2. I would like to be able to not provide the database name and allow me to switch from one DB to another using the same connection. (also, currently if you leave DB blank and attempt to connect, it crashes.) 3. 80% of the time I directly connect to my databases with a tool like this, it is not to look at the data, it is to create/drop/modify tables and other design and admin stuff. I'll occasionally use it to test complex queries before putting them in my code, but most of my queries are simple enough that they don't need testing prior to coding. So I'd see this as more useful if it had the ability to simplify the admin stuff. As it is, since I'd need to use pgAdmin 80% of the time, its not compelling to us something else for the other 20%.

yliang 12y ago
Thanks for your suggestions! To replay, 1. I'll fix this. 2. When you switch from one DB to another in postgres, you are essentially making a new connection instead of reusing the same connection[1]. In PSequel, you could create different connection bookmarks for different databases and open multiple connections at the same time in multiple windows. 3. In my company, we write migration scripts (activerecord migration) to modify table structures. We usually don't modify them directly/manually. 80% of the time we use GUI tools just for viewing data and testing out complicated SELECT queries. I didn't realize that many other people's usage patterns are different. Anyway, the feature of modifying table structures is in PSequel's roadmap. [1] http://stackoverflow.com/q/10335561 http://stackoverflow.com/q/10335561

yliang 12y ago

Just released v1.0.2. Now supports SSL connections. Use the "Check for Update..." menu item to download the update.