Quick introduction to TablePlus, a native client for relational databases

TablePlus is a native tool with an intuitive interface that you can use to create, query, edit and save your databases in a very fast and secure way. It supports Postgres, MySQL, SQLite, MS SQL Server, Redshift, Redis, MariaDB.

If you’re working with database on a regular basis, finding a good GUI tool is like making friends for life. You might run into a situation where you need to access multiple databases at the same time with complex queries but it’s not fast enough. You also need a more convenient query editor.

This post I’m introducing TablePlus as a tool to manage your database easily.

At a glance, TablePlus has a very well-designed interface that makes it easy for new users to adapt to the tool. And because of the native build, it can get up and running in less than a second.

Ok, let’s dive in, what can TablePlus do for you?
Quite a lot, actually. It gives you the power to edit your data and database structure easily.

Connect to your database in a fast and secure way.

It automatically establishes the SSH tunnel to the correct port and logs you in seamlessly.
It offers many security features to protect your database, including native libssh and TLS to encrypt your connection. Instead of using open-ssh to create a tunneling that might leak your connection, TablePlus has implemented its own ssh lib with (https://libssh.org) and secured the port. Because ssh tunneling is a part of TablePlus, the application can control the number of connections through ssh. TablePlus only accepts connections from itself and prohibits connections from the outside. That’s how you can secure your connection and protect your database.

Easily edit database

You can use TablePlus to browse and edit data directly in the grid without having to write SQL code. While browsing data, there’s a very cool filter that you can pop up near the top window. Each filter contains there simple boxes: a dropdown list of the column name, common conditions such as “equal”, “contain”, “IS NULL”,… and one text box to fill the value. You can apply multiple filters to quickly filter out the records you want to see. With its multiple tabs and multiple windows view, you can get a snapshot of your databases and manages them simultaneously.

Since TablePlus supports multiple drivers including PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, MS SQL Server, Redshift, Redis, MariaDB, you can work with a lot of different databases at the same time without having to switch between different apps.

Afraid that you made a silly mistake somewhere? Not anymore. Using code review, you can stay in control of what you’ve changed on your database and reverse it anytime.

Easily work with query

The core feature of TablePlus is its powerful query editor. It can hold multiple statements then you can choose to run the current statement where the cursor is pointing at or run all statements. Writing query is more efficient with code completion feature, along with some of the best practices for SQL editor: Beautify SQL, Highlight Syntax, Split Results into Tabs, Split pane Horizontally that are all included in TablePlus.

Every function in TablePlus is assigned to a shortcut key, which later you can customize, makes it quite handy for a lot of people. For example, to use the filter, simple press cmd + F.

TablePlus has a plugin system. You can install plugins written by others or write your own plugin in Javascript. This plugin system allows TablePlus to always be simple with the necessary features while having the ability to be extended and personalized without being too bulky.

Even though TablePlus is still in its early days, it is very well suited for everyday SQL tasks, from the basic to advanced ones. You can check it out at TablePlus website. It's currently available for macOS, Windows, iOS, and Linux.