So apparently this has been around for 15 years? I would have bought this years ago, but it never showed up on any of my searches... google, reddit, producthunt, alternativeto... feel like I just shifted into another dimension where this has apparently... always existed?
I love this model of software development, which I think of as "artisanal", as opposed to open-source or enterprise. A small team, maybe just one person, who invests deep effort into a product that does one thing very well.
It would be amazing if it could display UUIDs. SQlite doesn't support them natively, but many people store them as binary blobs.
Jetbrains products realize that these binary values are UUIDs and let me edit them easily.
What does this offer over sqlitebrowser? https://sqlitebrowser.org/
It might just be me, as I don't use a Mac, but there is something inherently beautiful in terms of design of Mac applications. Something simple yet elegant. I highly assume that it is driven bei the OS (or the company behind it). Sometimes, I wish that Windows applications would share the same design philosophy.
I've just tried it out, looks nice!
I've been using TablePlus a lot, but there are some SQLite-specific features I'd really like to have in an app:
- Foreign keys enabled by default, so I don't have to remember to enable that in every session.
- Support for loading extensions automatically. I'm using sqlite-vec for example. Right now, browsing virtual tables for that just doesn't show that much, and executing a query just results in "no such module: vec0"
I'll keep an eye on the project. :-)
Today, I was searching for a nice and native SQLite browser for Mac. I went with "DB Browser" because that's what came up in my searches for "sqlite browser mac". I tried GitHub and went a bit deep in Google, but I didn't find this.
I'm glad I see this now. I guess it's time to switch.
Still can't believe this was created 15 years ago...
> without it turning into a massive IDE-style app
Is that another way of saying you don't want to make MS Access?
I still use Access quite a bit and I think it's pretty great. It's too bad that nothing like that exists for modern databases.
I wished it had some more quality of life features like "DB Browser for SQLite" has
- JSON formatted view - tabs for multiple queries - triggers visible - font selection for the list views (SQL query output, data query)
I bought your app in 2010 and use it regularly. Thanks for making it!
Looks great! I'm tickled that you revived a 10 year old account to post this. I am also thrilled to learn about cow magnets today :)
Can somebody recommend a similar tool that works with DuckDB files?
I was looking for something like this a few months ago and was having trouble surfacing anything. This looks nice. My work is pretty conservative on allowing me to use something like this, but I will definitely be noting it down for my next personal project where this would be helpful.
I've always found database structure diagrams to be useful, and I like tools that synchronize editing the structure via the diagram or the SQL code.
I believe the macOS app OmniGraffle can do this, like Microsoft Visio on Windows.
I currently have a copy of Database Designer installed on an Android tablet, it's quite effective for my simple projects.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.klim.dbdes...
Database Designer developer says the app is "free forever", which is nice. App stores note in-app purchases; these are voluntary donations like "Buy Me a Coffee".
The app also has some brief demo videos that are linked as online help.
Looks super nice. Congrats on the launch. Personally I use Harlequin, the TUI SQL tool, which works best for me. I don't really GUI for these kind of tools, but I can understand the value for some. Wishing you all the success with this new version.
Happy Base user for almost ten years now. Hands down the best SQLite editor on macOS.
I first bought this app 15+ years ago (before the logo was glowing). It was an incredible piece of software then, and I’m sure this is a worthy upgrade. Absolutely a delightful product.
Thank you for offering a purchase option outside of the MAS. It sucks that Apple is trying to force everyone to identify themselves to install apps and some of us prefer not having an Apple ID.
I saw the post on DF and bought it through the App Store. Nice tool! I have about 4TB of small-ish SQLite DBs and this is great for cracking them open and looking around.
The goal of this app is to provide a comfortable native GUI for SQLite, without it turning into a massive IDE-style app.
As an aside, feature bloat is a massive problem with macOS database tools.
I'd happily pay for something basic, native, and pretty like Sequel Ace†, but all of the other options are Swiss Army knives for power users who need to tweak every little thing. I just want to do some queries.
† I'd pay for Sequel Ace, too, if it didn't crash every time I close a tab.
I use Base everyday but it's leaps and bounds behind Postico for Postgres in terms of UX.
Copy pastes, duplicate rows, sorting and filtering. Sadly postico does not do SQLite.
But for SQLite as native app, there is no better than Base.
Look forward to the upgrade thank you.
Edit: thanks for row edit, that's great. What about duplicating rows or copying between tables of the same structure?
May I ask what you are using on the backend for verifying the web purchases? Is it a key, or online activation once downloaded?
I have been a happy Base user since 2011. I don't use it all that often, but anytime I need to explore a database file or take a CSV and turn it into a database for some investigation it is the first tool I turn to. Happy to be able to be able to pay for an upgrade after this long!
This looks great, installing now. I've been using DBeaver, but it's not optimized for SQLite. Common issue with DBeaver is having to refresh the global connection to see changes.
EDIT: Very minor nitpick but noticed I changed my icon to dark, but not taking effect. Still using light icon.
As much as I don't want LLMs shoved in every product I use, writing or tweaking SQL queries with knowledge of the database schema is one of the LLM uses that work well for me. I don't know if I could jump ship from Cursor/VSCore which gives me that + Vim mode.
I have used Base quite a bit in the past but switched to SQLitePro as Base was quite crash-happy (and I never managed to understand why). Might give it a second try since it seems the Base development is progressing, while SQLitePro is stagnating.
Does apple allow you to to sell both through App Store and direct through another payment echo system? I thought they are more strict than that.
I am missing an archive of old versions, so I can run it on Mac OS 10.14.
Customer here, from previous versions. Could you expand on the reasoning of not offering an upgrade price? Is it just to messy nowadays on the technical side, especially with the Mac App Store?
Will be upgrading in the future, congratulations on the launch!
Off-topic, irrelevant question: does anyone need a local first version of Airtable? That uses SQLite under-the-hood and plugs into files and data with syncing across computers.
I’m curious (as a solo dev) if there’s a market for such a product.
This is great, I've been needing a tool like this. I just bought a Pro license.
Been looking for something like this, I also wish there was a way for multiple users to collaborate and interact with the same database.
Think like MySql Workbench but for multiple users, that would be incredible
Those who prefer web-based interfaces can try Visual DB: https://visualdb.com/sqlite/
Looks like the homebrew formula is one behind the latest, 3.0.0 vs 3.0.1 on your site - is the homebrew formula maintained by you or someone else?
With a tool like this, what's the recommended approach to deal with schema changes (migrations) for my apps/deployments using this db?
It's crazy how expensive these small utilities are.
And worse, because they're paid you don't even get the source code to fix issues yourself :/
> Create and modify tables with ease using Base's visual table editor. No need to write complex CREATE or ALTER statements.
I'm trying to understand who your target audience is? Normally, I think of SQLite as something that only a programmer would use. (And thus these kind of statements happen within an application.)
What kind of use cases are you handling where someone is manually creating / changing a schema?
> Import data from CSV and SQL dump files. Export your results to SQL, delimited text, JSON, and Excel formats.
IE, who's using SQLite in this way, and what are they using it for?
Why does it need Sequoia? That’s a no-go for me.
Nice. I used to use Sequel Pro back in the day. Now, I just use my IDE.
I like these kinds of things though. Minimal purpose built tools.
How have I never heard of this before? Been looking for a sleek, minimal SQLite client for more than a year now.
This is so nice. This feels like Postico for sqlite. Definitely switching from TablePlus to this.
Is there a proton/wine-like thing that lets me try MacOS apps on Linux or Windows?
Have you created any other apps? I hope the last 15 years has been kind to you. :)
It would be super duper cool if it can connect to DuckDB as well.
Would be cool if this could connect to Cloudflare SQLite DBs.
Needed this for developing my Tauri app, been working great.
Nice. I wish I had this during my university years.
I've never had the need for a gui in sqlite. It's just sqlite3 for me and once I get to a complexity where I'd need a gui I mostly just switch to postgres
Wait doesnt DBeaver work on MacOS aswell?
if I purchase, am I required to scream "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US !!" ?
can someone tell me what are some common use cases of such a tool? may be i'm not the intended customer base, but am curious to know what others are using it for.
Nice.
Disappointed to see it's built with macOS 15.0 as minimum target.
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40 USD is way too expensive for this
Why is it MacOS only though? Surely this can cross-compile for Linux and Windows perfectly fine?
I've been using Base for [checks... considers retirement] about 15 years!? It's ALWAYS been great, AND has improved over time.