QueryMaster journey begins
In early 2023, the majority of our developers switched to Mac. Previously, we had been using HeidiSQL as a client, but we couldn’t find a similar client for Mac. We tried numerous other clients and weighed their pros and cons.
As a developer who likes to challenge myself, I wondered how difficult it would be to write our own client. So, I started QueryMaster as an open-source project. QueryMaster aims to replicate the features that we liked from each database client and make it lightweight and cross-platform.
I have committed at least 7-10 hours to developing this client. After 3 months of development, we now have a bare minimum client. However, there is still much to be done.
Market Opportunity
There are over 27 million software developers around the world, and the majority of them will touch a database at some point in their career. There are three ways to work with databases: programmatic, command line, and graphical interface. Graphical interfaces provide a convenient way of managing databases and are more beginner-friendly.
While there are many existing clients in the market, I still strongly believe that there is a huge market for this kind of tool:
- There are many new database engines, and it is impossible for any database client to cover them all.
- There are many features, and different developers prefer different ways of doing things. It is hard for one client to satisfy every developer.
- Some features are locked behind a paywall with high prices.
There are some successful startups that are based on database GUI.
- 2023-04-11: DBeaver takes $6M seed investment to build on growing popularity
- 2022-02-09: PopSQL Raises $14M Series A from Tiger Global to Help Data Teams Collaborate
Hopefully, it can reach Postman potential.
Competitors
There are plenty of database GUI clients available in the market, although this is not an exhaustive list. The majority of these clients are locked behind a paywall, while some offer limited functionality for free users.
| Product | Free Tier | Personal (Year) | Commercial (Year) |
|---|---|---|---|
| DataGrip | $99 | $229 | |
| Navicat | $350 | $700 | |
| dbForge | $110 | $260 | |
| SQLPro | $100 | ||
| TablePlus | ✅ | $89 | $129 |
| Dbeaver | ✅ | $110 | $250 |
| Beekepper Studio | ✅ | $84 | $132 |
| DbVisualizer | ✅ | $197 | $197 |
| Database Client (VSCode Plugin) | ✅ | $20 | |
| HeidiSQL | Free | Free | |
| DbGate | Free | Free | |
| Sequel Pro | Free | Free | |
| phpMyAdmin | Free | Free |
Conclusion
I have high hopes for this project and am looking forward to releasing it to the market within the next 3 months.