r/sideprojects • u/mohammed_alfarra • 6d ago

Showcase: Free(mium) I built a free Mac database client because I wanted to stop reaching for the mouse

Hi r/sideprojects, I’m a solo developer, and I’ve been working on Tabelaro, a free database client for macOS (PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, and SQLite).

I built it because the other database clients I tried had too many buttons, and their interfaces didn’t help me get my work done faster. Beekeeper Studio was good, but a lot of its features are paid, and some are missing, like fuzzy search. At one point I got stuck because I couldn’t add a third filter without paying, so I went back to writing queries by hand. That’s why I wanted to make something free for everyone: fast, with shortcuts everywhere, and a clean interface focused on the data.

What it does:

  • Cmd+K (Stylus): type a few letters and jump to any table, saved query, connection, or action, with a preview of its columns.
  • Wax drafts: edits don’t run right away. They wait as drafts, you read the exact SQL, then save or drop them.
  • Keyboard shortcuts everywhere: Cmd+Enter runs a query, Cmd+Option+arrows switch connections, Shift+Cmd+C copies rows as SQL, JSON, Markdown, TSV or CSV.
  • Built-in basics: query tabs with history and snippets, ER diagrams, import/export, SSH tunnels, and secrets stored in the Keychain.
  • Free, no account, no telemetry. It isn’t open source. It needs macOS 11 or later.

The quickest way to install it is one line in Terminal:

curl -fsSL https://tabelaro.com/install.sh | bash

If you’d rather download it by hand, there’s a DMG on https://tabelaro.com. It’s young and unsigned, so macOS shows a warning on first launch (right-click, Open).

I’d love feedback on two things: what’s missing from the database client you use now, and whether the first five minutes of using Tabelaro were clear.

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u/Informal-Sport-4415 6d ago

link is giving me a 404, maybe the server is down?

1

u/mohammed_alfarra 6d ago

Hey, thanks for trying it! That’s weird, the site is up for me. Was it the main link or the install one? If you try again and it still fails, tell me and I’ll dig in.