Ask HN: Best native postgres client for Mac

2 points by stevepike 9y ago ↗ HN

I'm pretty happy with metabase (https://github.com/metabase/metabase) for sharing SQL queries across my team, but their SQL IDE leaves something to be desired.

What's the best native postgres client for Mac for writing SQL queries?

Things I care about:

* Native keybindings / feel

* "Smart" autocomplete (knows what columns are in scope)

* Easy to use for non-engineers (so should be GUI)

Don't care:

* DBA tools

* GUI query builder

5 comments

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sotojuan 9y ago ↗

Postico, but it costs money.

zepolen 9y ago ↗

The only real features missing from the free version is filtering the result set and multiple connections at the same time. For filtering I actually found it easier to use psql directly - but the GUI is nice for browsing data and making schema changes.

I still bought it anyway after a few months to support them, it's saved me a bunch of time.

stevepike 9y ago ↗

Postico looks really clean but I can't get it to do autocomplete. I like aqua data studio a lot on windows, which does things like "select x from table as tbl_alias where tbl_alias<ctrl-space>" autocompleting against just that table's columns. It's not great on mac unfortunately.

zepolen 9y ago ↗

I use psql most of the time...it's autocomplete features are scope aware, only problem is editing large queries - so I copy/paste from a text editor (which has syntax highlighting as well).

craigkerstiens 9y ago ↗

I'd echo psql, it can be quite powerful if you learn to use it (http://www.craigkerstiens.com/2013/02/13/How-I-Work-With-Pos...).

But if you're looking for a graphical client then Postico. It's by the maintainer of Postgres.app, so in a sense if you're using Postico you're helping to support Postgres.app as well.