I've always just used phpMyAdmin when working with databases, but I'm working on a large project now and need something that's more efficient to use and which can do things like generate ER diagrams. I've been scouring the forum and searching Google for reviews on different tools and it seems like Navicat is pretty popular. I downloaded the trial and like it so far, but before buying it I just thought I'd check and see if there's anything you guys think is better. Any thoughts?
I tried several db management tools, and i am always coming back to navicat. There are some issues with navicat too, but mostly are just small annoyances. For instance if i have to switch the Keyboard layout, and you go to another window with alt-tab it switches back to the default one. Or sometimes it has some troubles connecting through a ssh tunnel and you have to restart navicat. But - it has a very easy to use interface, you can save queries for later use, and you can schedule backups from it (backups run on your computer not on the server) I higly recommend it
Well it all depends on your choice for some Navicate is better but for some other tools here are some tools which can be useful, but for advance users TOAD is the choice to make. - HeidiSQL which is free - SQLyog MySQL which is not free you can use trial for data entry job - DbVisualizer 21 days trial works for data entry job - Toad for MySQL cheers
Oracle's SQL Developer works for Oracle, MySQL, and I think several other RDBMS as well. (I've only ever used it with Oracle.) It's also got a decent modeller / diagram feature. It's free and runs on Windows, OSX and Linux. (It's Java-based.)
Thanks for your recommendations. I've continued using the Navicat trial and find some parts of the workflow annoying, but it's still a whole lot faster than phpMyAdmin and loads better than a few other DB admin tools I've tried, so I'll probably end up buying it when the trial ends.