Now that we’re kicking into high gear I thought it would be important to elaborate on our SQL tooling choices and alternatives.
In the realm of SQL new tools pop up all the time and depending on the environment you will end up working in it’s important to know outside of the tools we chose what’s out there!
When it comes to SQL we wanted to give you all the versatility of a tried and true software. Something that is well-regarded and easy to get up and go. Some people will expect "true" experts to use command line and PGAdmin - however our choice was based on multiple criteria:
Is it cross-platform
Is it easy to use
Is it free
Can it be extended to multiple database providers
We want our students to be able to get comfortable with a tool and use it with whatever database provider they end up trying or learning later on.
Valentina DB is just that, it has the ability to connect to a multitude of different databases, as well as give you the visual tooling and ease of use you would want when starting out.
It also doesn’t hurt that this entire suite of features is free to use! That said there are many alternative out there that boast the exact same feature sets and we would like to highlight those as well.
When you look at the landscape of SQL tooling it can be a bit overwhelming to see the forest through the trees!
That’s what we're here for! Here’s a curated list of tools that we believe are best in class!
pgAdmin is the most popular and feature rich Open Source administration and development platform for PostgreSQL, the most advanced Open Source database in the world. pgAdmin may be used on Linux, Unix, Mac OS X and Windows to manage PostgreSQL 9.2 and above.
This is certainly the most common tooling you will see available, however although our course uses Postgres the majority of the concepts you will learn can be applied to any number of database providers and so we chose not to lock in your knowledge to the Postgres specific tool suite.
For those of you that been around the coding block, you’ve probably heard of JetBrains. JetBrains is a company that creates best-in class tooling for many programming languages and such.
On the front of SQL there tooling is no-joke either! Datagrip is widely regarded as a powerhouse when it comes to database management.
With great power comes a great price tag however, as their subscription-based model is no joking matter.
However for the suite of features they offer the cost is often quickly forgotten for the performance you gain as a user!
Feel free to check them out at DataGrip: The Cross-Platform IDE for Databases & SQL by JetBrains
DBeaver is straight up one of the most comprehensive free database management studios you will find and has a strong and loyal community backing them.
When it comes to a well-rounded, well-oiled piece of software that can stand the test of time, DBeaver is definitely in that category.
Check them out at DBeaver Community | Free Universal Database Tool