Just tried this out, and although it visually looks ok it doesn't seem to even support basic connectivity options like unix sockets.
eg the hostname field for new connections must be a hostname or IP address, and can't take things like `/var/run/postgresql`.
That's super unfortunate. :(
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As a data point, the program seems to create config files (on Linux) under `~/.config/PgManage` and `~/.pgmanage`. If you delete the application after testing, you might as well nuke those two dirs as well.
> libpq normally connects to a unix socket by being given 'localhost' as the hostname or no hostname at all.
'localhost' for a unix socket doesn't sound right. 'localhost' is a specific network address and has a default configuration in pg_hba.conf (127.0.0.1) for itself. It's different to the 'local' entry in pg_hba.conf that's specifically for unix sockets.
And yeah, the field validation in the IDE required some kind of value in the hostname field, and wouldn't take a path (ie /var/...etc), so no kind of fallback behaviour seemed workable. :(
This is great! OmniDB, which PgManage is based off of, was one of the very few free SQL IDEs that supported a debugger. Granted, the debugger UI was pretty clunky, but it did work.
Is there an existing comparison between pgManage and pgAdmin somewhere?
At first glance, it seems they serve the same purpose. Am i missing something? (besides the support for some other DBs - but pgManage states to target postgres primarily)
The main difference is that PgManage supports other databases too (although being mostly focused on Postgres support).
Some new features introduced originally in Postgres get ported to other databases too (table structure editor and ER diagam tools for example)
DBeaver is the best free (with a paid option) DB client in my experience and I have tried many. I have used it with many databases: DB2 (MVS), DB2(linux), Postgres, ISeries, MySQL and SQLite. Datagrip is better IMO, but I have the JetBrains Ultimate Edition for other reasons so it is "free" to me in a sense.
Well, since it is wrapped withing nw.js it looks and feels like any other desktop app and does not need a separate browser to use it. However technically you're right - it is a web-based app, built with web-oriented technology stack (javascript, vue.js, django, http etc)
It doesn't, though: from the very start, you don't need to enter credentials on a desktop app, let alone create a 8-character password. And it doesn't look anything like my other desktop apps either, in regards to GUI elements.
Lastly, if things go wrong, like when you follow the README and don't run the needed "manage.py migrate", … error reporting is by exceptions thrown in one of the 2 processes running in the background. The browser interface is just stuck.
> A "graphical" database client would be running as a standalone application outside any browser
Could you link that definition of graphical excluding visual systems like browser? My understanding was graphical differentiated between CLI and TUI/GUI.
My goto these days is TablePlus https://tableplus.com. Native desktop client (no electron). UI is pretty standard, polished, and IMHO great. Supports PG really well (amongst other RDBMSes and some NoSQL dbs).
Yes it's not open source but its free version is still great.
Just tried it and, apart from the UI being highly confusing (you just get a blank workspace basically, and it's unclear how to see other DBs and objects in them) it seems to have no support for PG schemas. When I did manage to connect to my DB it showed me the tables in the "public" schema only.
That's an interesting stack choice. A desktop client that uses Django as a backend. I kept wondering how this is rendered client side. TIL about NW.js.
IntelliJ's database client is excellent too (available in many of their IDEs, cross platform - but only available in the paid versions I believe). Auto complete, many export options, editing, record views, results diffing, vast amounts of supported engines, and so much more
I don't think I've ever encountered a bug in 5 plus years of using it
> I don't think I've ever encountered a bug in 5 plus years of using it
I have. There was a time a few years ago when the PG connection library it used to download would crash the whole IDE. The problem went away after a while (few weeks?), but I don't remember the details.
This is a fork and the new developers have no companies or social media profiles linked from their GitHub profiles. After the attempted XZ Utils backdoor attempt, that is a major red flag for me.
While I don't personally think this'll be useful for me as it doesn't seem to support unix socket connections, the company that's providing it is Command Prompt, Inc.
They've been involved with the PostgreSQL Community for at least 2 decades (as have I), so it's super unlikely this is something malicious.
Dbgate looks really interesting, do you know if it supports debugging (especially in postgres)? I didn't see anything on their site, but maybe it is offered via a plugin or something?
My biggest issue with it is how everytime I open it, it asks me to install a new version. Like, I am glad they're working on the software, but I'm getting fatigued from the inevitable popup
Mostly great, but I had an intermittent key remapping bug on the Mac not fixed for years. The default home/end document on Mac is not useful. Annoying enough to consider options.
For me, the biggest problem is its startup time (it takes at least 30-60s on my work laptop). It also randomly crashes for me when viewing any postgis related result sets.
It can be pretty awkward to work with, although I've not found anything comparable, free, and cross-platform.
Sometimes the FK links in cells break. Other times views don't get invalidated when pressing refresh until a reboot. There are different refresh buttons all over the place for different contexts. Lots of minor quibbles despite almost weekly updates. It does have a gamut of features though - and it's free and cross-platform though, so it's one of those love-hate relationships for me.
Speaking of supply-chain attacks like the one happened with .XZ compressor - we are taking this matter seriously. I recommend to download PgManage builds from the
Github releases page https://github.com/commandprompt/pgmanage/releases
Cheers!
eg the hostname field for new connections must be a hostname or IP address, and can't take things like `/var/run/postgresql`.
That's super unfortunate. :(
---
As a data point, the program seems to create config files (on Linux) under `~/.config/PgManage` and `~/.pgmanage`. If you delete the application after testing, you might as well nuke those two dirs as well.