When comparing HeidiSQL vs SchemaCrawler, the Slant community recommends HeidiSQL for most people. In the question“What are the best relational database design and modelling tools?” HeidiSQL is ranked 4th while SchemaCrawler is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose HeidiSQL is:
Licensed under GNU GPL.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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

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
Cons
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
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.
