The TablePlus GUI Tool — An In-Depth Review

TablePlus is a modern, native SQL client with intuitive GUI tools to create, access, query & edit multiple relational databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Microsoft SQL Server, Amazon Redshift, MariaDB, CockroachDB, Vertica, and Redis.

TablePlus — Setup and Overview

TablePlus can be downloaded from the official website. At the time I’m writing this, TablePlus is only available for macOS only. We can expect the Windows version to be released in the next month.

You can download the app and use it for free but the free version has some limitations, such as the number of tabs/windows opening or unable to customize the theme. If you wish to obtain a license and remove all these limitations, that’s gonna cost only $49.

Features and benefits — The best PostgreSQL GUI Tool

TablePlus has a lot of raving fans as you can hear the words “the best GUI Tool for PostgreSQL” quite often. It’s good for a lot of reasons, including lightning fast, stable, many useful features and delightful details. Let’s take a closer look at it.

Lightweight, Fast and Stable

Built with Swift, Objective-C, C/C++, the codebase is very lightweight. The installation archive is a slim 19MB and the app weighs 49MB. When you start the app, it feels almost instantly with less than a second.

It becomes visible when TablePlus deals with heavy databases, a table with 10 million records, for instance, it can still handle smoothly without running into problems.

In fact, the performance is one of the biggest reasons why people refer to TablePlus as their tool of choice for relational databases. It’s rare to run into a performance complaint about TablePlus.

Intuitive Design

We find something intuitive when we don’t have to think about it, and TablePlus just works the way we expect. The app interface and experience are well designed, also included some of the very common user behaviors. It’s made easy for new users to get used to the app and you don’t need to spend much time learning how to use. It’s just simple and intuitive. The UI is also very well polished.

Powerful Data Filter

TablePlus allows for multiple data filters at the top of the content view, and this is perfect for quick data querying. Of course, you can always write the queries in the SQL query editor, but if you don’t feel like writing it from the ground up, you can use the quick filter.

Each condition contains a dropdown list of the fields, a drop-down of the match types and a text box to fill the value of the search text. You can create multiple conditions and apply them all at once or individually to filter from the currently selected table.

Table Editor

Table objects are the very core of any databases and TablePlus has a great support for managing table definition and table data. You can use TablePlus to navigate the objects in the database, run actions and open objects for the details. You can also create, alter, drop or rename tables or edit table schema, and even more database-specific actions added for the supported databases.

Data can be edited inline from the spreadsheet-like view or the form editor (the right toggle view).

SQL Editor with Autocompletion, Syntax Highlight, and Split Screen

TablePlus is equipped with a smart autosuggest feature that can save you a lot of time remembering names and syntax. Showing the code blocks in a proper way can boost your speed as well as prevent some trivial errors effectively. You can write and execute multiple queries and display the results in separate tabs so that it’s easier to compare.

What is not enjoyable?

macOS only

As I mentioned, TablePlus is macOS only, the Windows is only on its way to the beta release while there’s a confirm that the Linux version is not going to be developed any soon.

Final words

One more thing about TablePlus is that the speed of development is insane. New update released every week with loads of new features and bug fixes. That way, you can see that the team behind is putting so much effort into making the app better. For those who work with databases on a regular basis, TablePlus is worth to stick with.