Can you recommend a PostgreSQL GUI as an alternative to phppgadmin?

1

I am looking for a recommendation for simple PostgreSQL client to

  • see a list of databases
  • see a list of tables
  • browse table contents, check the structure
  • insert/delete/modify rows
  • run manual SQL queries

I used to use phppgadmin, but that is not available as a NixOS package. I used it with port-forwarding over SSH and liked that it is basically stateless without any accounts. I simply entered the DB credentials and was in.

I tried pgadmin4 and found it too much of a hassle to start (create a master password) and not as intuitive as phppgadmin. I also tried Beekeper-studio but it doesn’t properly highlight and distinguishes tables from views from functions. To see a table’s content, I need to right click the table and select “View Data” every time. phppgadmin just works with a single left-click.

Can you suggest something else?

2

I’m using Navicat (commercial license).

My nixos config for the appimage is the following

{ appimageTools, lib, fetchurl }:

let
  pname = "navicat";
  version = "16.3.3";
  name = "${pname}-${version}";
  # Minor versions are released using the same file name
  versionItems = builtins.splitVersion version;
  majorVersion = (builtins.elemAt versionItems 0);

  appimageContents = appimageTools.extract { inherit name src; };

  src = fetchurl {
    url =
      "https://download3.navicat.com/download/navicat${majorVersion}-premium-en.AppImage";
    hash = "sha256-uRjMachLXeKfW/x0I6An1t0wRxXS4IazUDiUej713G4=";
  };

in appimageTools.wrapType1 {
  inherit name src;

  extraInstallCommands = ''
    mv $out/bin/${name} $out/bin/${pname}
    install -m 444 -D ${appimageContents}/${pname}.desktop -t $out/share/applications
    substituteInPlace $out/share/applications/${pname}.desktop --replace 'Exec=navicat' 'Exec=${pname} --name ${pname}'
    cp -r ${appimageContents}/usr/share/icons $out/share
  '';

  extraPkgs = pkgs: [ ];

  meta = with lib; {
    description = "Navicat Premium 16";
    homepage = "https://www.navicat.com/";
    license = with licenses; [ unfree ];
    platforms = [ "x86_64-linux" ];
  };
}
3

Thank you for your suggestion, but I would prefer an open source solution because it is easier and more trustworthy IMHO. Additionally, I used phppgadmin a few times a year, so I don’t consider an alternative important enough to pay for it.

4

I recently switched from pgAdmin to DBeaver when I need a GUI client – also not a big fan of the master password and web interface that pgAdmin offers. When I need something quick in a terminal I’ll also reach for pgcli – like psql but with a few extra niceties like completions.

2 Likes
5

Thank you for the recommendation. I gave it a try. Not quite what I was hoping for. It seems to be pretty sluggish, especially considering that it runs natively on my system. I thought Java used to be slow. I also encountered several type errors that were displayed in a modal dialogue. The UI is not great, too - maybe because I don’t need 90% of the functionality it provides? I spent a few minutes looking for the “insert row” functionality and then almost gave up until I saw the “Data” tab among the many levels of tabs and buttons.

6

I second this. Recently wanted to try pgAdmin because if one uses PostGIS one can see an embedded map in the query results section which is a nice visualization. DBeaver does the same and just worked whereas I couldn’t get pgAdmin to behave :slightly_frowning_face: