When comparing MySQL Workbench vs Adminer, the Slant community recommends MySQL Workbench for most people. In the question“What are the best MySQL GUI clients for OS X?” MySQL Workbench is ranked 5th while Adminer is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose MySQL Workbench is:
Actions can be directly carried out on tables. The software prepares the relevant query for approval before execution.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Easy to use
Actions can be directly carried out on tables. The software prepares the relevant query for approval before execution.
Pro Community version
There is a community edition available that is free and open source; licensed under GPL.
Pro EER diagramming
MySQL Workbench has enhanced entity–relationship modeling support.
Pro Cross-platform
Works on Windows, Linux, OS X.
Pro Database synchronization
Forward & reverse engeneering
Pro Lightweight
The installation and Adminer itself only requires a single PHP file. Once it's uploaded you can log in and start using it.
Pro Supports more than MySQL
It supports several database management systems (Postgres, SQLite, Oracle, MS SQL and of course MySQL).
Pro Database views
Anyone who uses the views function will appreciate Adminer better. You can click on a view and edit to change the view. In phpMyAdmin, you can edit a view, but it's not easy or intuitive. SQL Buddy doesn't have any way of doing this.
Pro Themes
Has a great variety of themes which transfers pretty ugly application into a great looking one.
Pro Installation
No need to install, it's available to use out of the box.
Cons
Con Mixed experience
Doesn't support HiDPi mode on Windows, everything looks blurry. On Linux it has missing features. On Mac seems to be working just fine. But overall a mixed experience.
Con Unintuitive UI
Workbench's user interface is regarded by a lot of users as unintuitive and hard to use.
It seems cluttered and hard to get used to. The left side of the application has several sections (which you get to choose which to open) with several tools for each. A lot of features are hidden behind menus and need some getting used to find them.
Con Freezes constantly
Running any kind of query with more than a thousand records or even just opening a file and other actions crashes the application. You are unable to actually stop a query. You have to kill from Windows Task Manager every single time.