When comparing SchemaCrawler vs Schemaball, the Slant community recommends SchemaCrawler for most people. In the question“What are the best database design programs?” SchemaCrawler is ranked 9th while Schemaball is ranked 15th. The most important reason people chose SchemaCrawler is:
The text-based output serves for database documentation, and is designed to be diff-ed against other database schemas.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Many options for output formats in addition to graphical
The text-based output serves for database documentation, and is designed to be diff-ed against other database schemas.
Pro Extensive and detailed documentation online
Including visuals of the results of command-line option usage.
Pro Free
Pro Supports reading schemas from multiple sources
Schemaball can read schemas from multiple sources such as SQL schema dumps, flat files or live databases.
Pro Interesting twist on visual interface
Gives a quick way to grasp an overview on the past/present complexity of the database (or group of tables) undergoing inspection.
Cons
Con Need Java
Con Does not work with schema dumpfiles
SchemaCrawler 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 Visualizations may be hard to get used to
Since schemas are visualized by using stylized "schema balls" it may be hard getting used to them since they are so different from the other, more straightforward options.