20 MySQL Admin and Development Tools and cheat sheets
MySQL is a very feature rich relational database management system (RDBMS) which has more than 11 million active installations and 60,000+ downloads/day. MySQL is commonly known to be an open source project available for free under GNU General Public License – this version of MySQL is called Community Server. MySQL Community Server is very often used in a development stacks consisting of Apache with the popular mod_php module interpreting PHP code running on Linux (LAMP – Apache HTTP Server MySQL PHP). All very successful free open source projects that together serve millions of websites today and the number is growing rapidly. Popular open source systems like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, PHPbb and many more all run on this software stack.
MySQL is a very feature rich relational database management system (RDBMS) which has more than 11 million active installations and 60,000+ downloads/day. MySQL is commonly known to be an open source project available for free under GNU General Public License – this version of MySQL is called Community Server. MySQL Community Server is very often used in a development stacks consisting of Apache with the popular mod_php module interpreting PHP code running on Linux (LAMP – Apache HTTP Server MySQL PHP). All very successful free open source projects that together serve millions of websites today and the number is growing rapidly. Popular open source systems like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, PHPbb and many more all run on this software stack.
MySQL is also offered in a version called Enterprise Server allowing companies to get Enterprise scale database software at a reasonable price (subscription based). See a comparison table here. The free community server is an excellent RDBMS but the tools you need as an DBA/Web site administrator or developer are only available if you subscribe to the Enterprise Server. Even though MySQL Enterspise Server is cheat compared to other high end database servers it is typically not an option for a blog or a small comapany website. Luckily there are other options and you can easily find free or cheap software providing the features you need.
If you’re using the MySQL Community Server or if you’re expecting to start using ityou need to find yourself some tools to support your management and development of your databases. As MySQL as open source roots there are many high quality 3rd party tools available and if you find the right match for yourself it may give significant advantages. It is always useful to know what tools you have available and what features they offer.
phpMyAdmin (Web-App)
phpMyAdmin is very popular and found out of the box in solutions like WAMP, LAMP, cPanel etc. It is very rich on features, easy to use tool, written in PHP (obviously) and then it is free. It has been built to handle the full administration of MySQL. It can create and drop databases, create/drop/alter tables, delete/edit/add fields, execute any SQL statement, manage users and permissions, and manage keys on fields. A nice feature from this legendary tool is that you can download and change the theme (not exactly a monumental feature, but a unique feature), download themes here: phpMyAdmin Themes (remember themes are version specific). phpMyAdmin is released free under GNU General Public License, version 2.
MySQL Workbench (Win, Linux, Mac)
This application is a fully featured visual database design package that includes database design, modeling, creation and maintenance bundled into a single environment for the MySQL database system. The free version is the Community Edition, which is loaded with features that will meet almost all your requirements. If you feel adventurous you could always go for the commercial version (Standard Edition).
MySQL Workbench is a cross-platform, visual database design tool developed by MySQL. It is the highly anticipated successor application of the DBDesigner4 project. MySQL Workbench will be available as a native GUI tool on Window, Linux and OS X. MySQL Workbench is available free under GNU General Public License
Aqua Data Studio (Win, Linux, OS X, Solaris)
This complete IDE, has four major areas of functionality: Database query and administration tools; a suite of compare tools for databases, source control and file systems; integrated source control client for Subversion (SVN) and CVS; and a powerful database modeler. The Studio has a single consistent interface to all major relational databases, this allows the developer to simultaneously tackle several tasks from within a single application. Avilable under Commercial license.
EMS SQL Manager (win)
EMS SQL Manager is a fairly high performance tool for database administration and development. Features include MySQL triggers, views, stored procedures and functions, InnoDB foreign keys, it allows you to create/edit all MySQL database objects, design databases visually, run SQL scripts, import and export database data, manage users and their privileges and has many other useful features. There is a commercial version, but download the free version, its fairly powerful and offers plenty of features.
MYSQL Front (win)
This graphical GUI for the MySQL database, is a “real” application, it can offer a more refined user-interface than is possible with systems built on PHP and HTML. Response is immediate, as there is no delay of reloading HTML-pages. If your provider allows it, MySQL-Front can make direct contact with the database. Otherwise, only one small script needs to be installed on the publishing website. Login information are stored on your hard disk, so you no longer have to log on to different web interfaces. Commercial license.
Heidi SQL (Win, Linux)
Heidi SQL is lightweight and fast with a flexible interface, it allows you to browse and edit your databases databases, manage tables, view and edit records, manage user-privileges, import data from text files, run SQL queries, synchronize tables between two databases and export selected tables to other databases or SQL scripts, and all this from an intuitive Windows interface.
You can also download a small app for the iPhone called jHeidi Mobi, whicht is the only application to offer Oracle and MySQL access in a mobile application. jHeidi Mobi. Licence free.
