In this post, we are going to have a quick comparison between Navicat, phpMyAdmin, TablePlus, with pros and cons of each tool. Let’s see which tool is better suited for your database management tasks.

1. Navicat

Navicat offers a powerful tool for both database development and administration.

  • Supported platforms: Navicat is cross-platform. It’s available on Mac, Windows, Linux. Navicat also has its iOS versions.

  • Supported Drivers: Navicat supports several popular databases: MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, Oracle, SQLite, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server.

  • Pricing: Navicat is a commercial application with 14 days trial and it has many pricing schemes. You can either buy a special edition for MySQL with $119 for Non-Commercial Edition, $199 for Standard Edition, and $299 for Enterprise Edition; or you can buy Navicat Premium to work with all supported drivers at the price of $1299 for Enterprise Edition and $599 for Non-Commercial Edition.

Navicat

Pros:

  • It’s cross-platform and supports multiple drivers.
  • Data and structure synchronization
  • Visual query builder and report builder
  • Excellent import/export options
  • Supports many languages, including Polish, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Spanish, French, and English
  • Compatible with other Navicat products: Navicat Monitor, Navicat Data Modeler, Navicat Report Viewer, and Navicat Data Model Essentials.

Cons:

  • It’s expensive. A single machine license for the most standard version (MySQL) is already $299. If you work with more than one drivers, such as PostgreSQL, SQL Server, or SQLite, you will end up purchase the Navicat premium package at $1,299.
  • It’s one of the most resource-intensive tools. It’s heavy and will consume a large portion of memory to run.
  • Very few shortcut keys.
  • The development cycle is very long, a new version is released every one or two year.

2. phpMyAdmin

With a web-based build, phpMyAdmin offers a handy tool to handle the administration of a database in a web browser.

  • Supported platforms: phpMyAdmin is a web-based administration tool, so you can get it run from any platform as long as it has web browser installed.

  • Supported Drivers: phpMyAdmin is built work with MySQL exclusively. It supports MySQL 5.5 and newer.

  • Pricing: phpMyAdmin is free and open source. Almost every hosting service makes it available right out of the box.

phpMyAdmin

Pros:

  • It’s portable. It can run on any computer and on any OS with a web browser.
  • Easy installation. You need to have PHP and MySQL installed on your server, extract the files to a specified directory and run the install script.
  • Stable due to its maturity.
  • Comprehensive management of user accounts and permissions.

Cons:

  • It’s web-based, so it runs slow and depends too much on the browser.
  • Confusing and outdated interface. It may take some time to get used to it.
  • No schema visualization.
  • Does not have smart code highlighting or auto-completion capabilities.

3. TablePlus

With a native build and a lightweight size, TablePlus is a very handy tool for managing MySQL and plenty of other databases.

  • Supported platforms: TablePlus is built native for each platform. It started out with a native version for Mac, then another version for Windows, and a version for Linux was introduced recently as an alpha release. It also has an iOS version.

  • Supported Drivers: TablePlus supports a handful of relational databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Microsoft SQL Server, Amazon Redshift, MariaDB, CockroachDB, Vertica, Oracle; and two popular NoSQL databases: Cassandra and Redis.

  • Pricing: TablePlus has a free version with full set of features which you can download and use forever, but there are some usage limitations. If you use it heavily, the license costs $59 to remove all those limitations.

TablePlus

Pros:

  • Native build for each platform so it’s fast, lightweight, and stable.
  • Clean and simple interface.
  • Multiple drivers support
  • Multiple conditions data filter
  • Queries history and keyword binding favorite.
  • Streaming results and async loading to show queries results faster and doesn’t block the UI.
  • Very quick inline editing for table data and structure, you also can edit query results directly.
  • Smart query editor with highlight syntax, instant autocomplete, SQL reformat.
  • Multiple carets
  • A plugin system to extend the app.
  • Quick support. TablePlus releases new updates regularly and responds to users’ requests almost immediately.

Cons:

It currently lacks of some advanced features such as ER Diagram, database compare tool to Diff and Sync, etc.

4. Conclusion

Go with Navicat if you:

  • Are comfotable with the cost
  • Need a full-featured tool
  • Don’t mind the slugginess

Go with phpMyAdmin if you:

  • Work with MySQL only
  • Prefer a web app over a desktop app
  • Need a tool that is completely free to get the job done

Go with TablePlus if you:

  • Are a fan of native experience
  • Work with multiple databases
  • Want a modern design with better usability
  • Want quick support & development cycle.