When comparing SchemaSpy vs Socrates, the Slant community recommends SchemaSpy for most people. In the question“What are the best database design programs?” SchemaSpy is ranked 7th while Socrates is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose SchemaSpy is:
SchemaSpy can analyze database metadata in order to reverse engineer ER (Entity Relationship) diagrams for any JDBC-compliant database which includes Oracle, MySQL, Sql-Server and Postgres among others.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Entity Relationship Digramming for nearly any JDBC-compliant database
SchemaSpy can analyze database metadata in order to reverse engineer ER (Entity Relationship) diagrams for any JDBC-compliant database which includes Oracle, MySQL, Sql-Server and Postgres among others.
Pro Has a GUI option available
SchemaSpy is a CLI tool. For people who prefer GUI-based tools there's one available from a different maintainer which stands on top of the CLI version.
Pro Parses an uploaded sql file to generate information about tables, fields and primary keys
(current 750K Max filesize)
Cons
Con Does not work with schema dumpfiles
SchemaSpy has no methods for dealing with when you only have a schema generated via something like (mysqldump --no-data [options] >schema-only_dump.sql
) , and do not currently have access to a live database to connect with.
Con GUI option is a separate download by a different maintainer
Since the GUI version is from a different maintainer, it may be abandoned and eventually break if SchemaSpy development continues beyond that. Or it may implement new features much later than the CLI version.
Con Project may be dead or dying
The codebase on sourceforge hasn't seen an update since 2010.
Con Screenshots require a browser plugin
ones that support full-page screenshots (that go beyond the browser viewport when grabbing an image of the page), as this visualizer does not generate the images itself