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Add to SafariWhen comparing MySQL Workbench vs HeidiSQL, 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 HeidiSQL is ranked 6th. 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
Question 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 Free
Licensed under GNU GPL.
Pro Portable
Alongside the possibility of downloading the installer and sourcecode, a portable version of the software is available.
Pro Great UI and ease of use
HeidiSQL has a comprehensive and intuitive interface.
Pro Syntax completion
Pro Lightweight
Pro Great user management
The user manager of HeidiSQL can easily set privileges on a per-database level or give access to only certain commands.
Pro Data synchronization
HeidiSQL can compare and synchronize your data and structure between local and remote databases.
Pro SSH tunnel
HeidiSQL allows connecting to your MySQL database via SSH tunnel.
Pro Connect to servers via command line
You can use command line parameters to automate connections.
Pro Works fine with Wine under Linux
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.
Con Can be buggy
HeidiSQL is known to have some bugs that results in crashes.
Con Intellisense is not intelligent
No intellisense for columns unless table name is aliased.
Con UI design is very bad
Generic windows form
Con No session backup
You cannot recover your session after close or even worse crash.
Con Works under Linux only with Wine
It works quite well under Wine with Linux, but you must always take notice if the last version of HeidiSQL has been tested, for it may not run at all. There are some bugs in the Wine version that can be annoying and you have to kill the program and restart it. A native Linux version would be great.
Con No built-in debugger included
