I’ll be the first to admit that databases are not my favorite part of development. I’m all for creating well organized sets of tables but when it comes down to running queries against the data, I’d much rather have a solid abstraction layer sitting between the application and the database itself.
But that doesn’t mean that we can always afford the opportunity to avoid that part of development. As such, we end up having to draw out table schemas using whiteboards, paper, or whatever software is available.
DBDsgnr is an online database schema designer that intends to make it a bit easier to map out the relationships between your tables.
Built on top of Google App Engine (using Python), DBDsgnr requires that you login with your Google account to begin using the utility. It has built in functionality for saving, sorting (for cleaning up the output), and generating the SQL for creating the table.
The application is database system-agnostic meaning that it will correctly generate schemas for PostgreSQL, SQLite, MySQL, Microsoft SQL, and Oracle.
Unknown Dan says
Avoid the DBDsgnr app, it’s got a pretty nasty bug that pretty much renders it unusable.
I was building up a schema diagram and ran into some sort of issue with editing a table I had already added. Editing the previous table cause it to start using the internal id assigned to the last table added.
Disappointing, looked to be a pretty cool tool.
Eric Dye says
Yikes!
Jarosław Błąd says
I recommend Vertabelo – http://www.vertabelo.com – an online database designer working under Chrome. It is much more powerfull and easier to use than DBDsgnr.
The most important feature of this tool is that it allow to share database models across the team and collaborate on them via web browser.
Others features:
* Model versioning
* Support for PosgreSql, MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL Server, DB2, SQLite, HSQLDB
* Dynamic/Visual search
* Live database model validation
* Reverse engineering
Vertabelo is free to use for smaller projects (up to 3 models and 20 tables within each model) and have commercial versions for larger database projects.