8 ms·

Mathesar – an intutive spreadsheet-like interface to Postgres data

323 points by gjvc 2y ago

neoecos 2y ago
This looks exactly like something my finance team asked me for yesterday. Definitely will take a look. In my startup (a fintech) we tried to keep all the information about money in the DB, and have the finance team use that to compare with actual bank information
gjvc 2y ago
see also https://mathesar.org/ https://mathesar.org/ for screenshots
kgodey 2y ago
Mathesar project lead here, it's a nice surprise to see this on the front page! I'm happy to answer questions if anyone has any.
- amarant 2y ago
  How do you differentiate from, say, dbeaver, or any similar database management software? What's the main reason to get Mathesar instead of DBeaver?
  - sixdimensional 2y ago
    I'm not related to the author or developers, but this appears almost like an Airtable-like (or Nocodb) UI on top of postgres, so it's really quite a different experience than a full database manager tool/IDE like DBeaver or DataGrip. I love it personally and it looks pretty good so far. Also, amazing that the team started it as an open source project under a 501c3 nonprofit as well. Having a more "spreadsheet" (or I would say, MS Access-like) UI is quite cool for certain use cases (e.g. low/no-code but backed by the full power of regular old Postgres). Can allow pretty agile development, although - it can get out of control if not managed with care... but nice to see the access controls/permissions there to help a bit. All interesting choices, looks cool!
    - Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
      Yes this definitely feels like MS access but open source and based on postgres which is awesome!
  - thomasfromcdnjs 2y ago
    I'd be more curious about how it differs to Metabase?
    - kgodey 2y ago
      Metabase is a BI tool focused on querying, reporting, and visualization, but it’s read-only. Mathesar is closer to Airtable, you get a spreadsheet-like UI, you can view and query data like Metabase, but you can also add and edit data or even modify the data model (if the permissions allow it). Unlike Metabase, Mathesar also lets you create a database from scratch rather than just connecting to an existing one. Metabase adds an abstraction layer with concepts like questions, segments, and metrics, while Mathesar works directly with Postgres tables, schemas, and permissions. Mathesar is deeply integrated with Postgres, so it supports Postgres-native features like role and privilege based access control, which aren’t possible in products designed for multiple database backends. I hope that helps!
  - kgodey 2y ago
    sixdimensional covered this pretty well, but just to reiterate, I believe DBeaver is primarily a desktop app aimed at a technical audience. Mathesar is web-based and designed to have an intuitive, collaborative, spreadsheet-like UI for non-technical users who know anything about SQL or DB concepts. Also, Mathesar has deep integration with Postgres features e.g. you can configure roles and privileges through the UI.
    - zokier 2y ago
      What about tools like LibreOffice Base and KDEs Kexi?
      - anonym29 2y ago
        Far too technical for the target audience, who has never heard of a "linux" and doesn't care about cost, software freedom, the petite tyranny happily imposed by corporations, etc, they just want it to "just work" on their smartphone browser.
      - kgodey 2y ago
        I think they're pretty different use cases. LibreOffice Base and Kexi are desktop database frontends focused on local databases, while Mathesar is web-based, self-hosted, can be connected to a remote database, and built for multi-user collaboration.
      - philkrylov 2y ago
        The main problem with them is they are not working yet and there are not enough people working on improving that.
    - irq-1 2y ago
      > ... spreadsheet-like UI for non-technical users who know anything about SQL or DB concepts. All the language is DB: it's tables not spreadsheets, records not rows, etc... It also doesn't hide things like 'schema' button or metadata like table description. Maybe this project could do things like integrations with web services, easy actions on groups (like paste a list of ids and do something to all those records), and publicly available web pages (surveys, donations, pretty event pages.)
- potamic 2y ago
  Your website says you're a non-profit. Do you have any monetization plans down the line, otherwise how are you planning to maintain funding?
  - kgodey 2y ago
    Here's some background info on our current funding: https://mathesar.org/blog/2024/03/28/mathesar-foundation-announcement https://mathesar.org/blog/2024/03/28/mathesar-foundation-ann... We're working on multiple options for sustainability, both the traditional nonprofit route (major donors, individual sponsors, etc.) and also looking into revenue from hosting or services. We're committed to always being 100% open source and self-hostable no matter what.
- Galatians4_16 2y ago
  Ah. Thermians, from the Klaatu Nebula. Or was it Dalmations?
  - kgodey 2y ago
    I think it was termites. But they built a huge spaceship.
- igor47 2y ago
  How does this compare to retool? I've been using that to build UIs directly on top of Postgres, and it's been nice to be able to design the screens a little; eg inserting new rows linked to a currently selected row by primary key. Curious if you're targeting primarily a spreadsheet-like view, or if the interface can be customized. How does the spreadsheet view work across multiple linked table? Can you present the tabular info in non tabular ways (e.g. a row details or editor view)
  - kgodey 2y ago
    We don't have any ability to customize UIs yet, although we're certainly open to feature requests. We do have a "Record Page" for each individual record that shows a tabular view of related records from other tables, here's a screenshot from our website: https://mathesar.org/_app/immutable/assets/step-2.CKT9S1j0.avif https://mathesar.org/_app/immutable/assets/step-2.CKT9S1j0.a... - you can create new linked records directly there. As for working with multiple linked tables, while editing data, you can search through nested links easily, here's an screenshot illustrating the record selector: https://mathesar.org/_app/immutable/assets/step-3.SKu3rwM2.avif https://mathesar.org/_app/immutable/assets/step-3.SKu3rwM2.a... We also have a visual query builder that can join data across tables: https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7ff100fe-cd26-4229-af3b-a5a5bb70b0b7 https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7ff100fe-cd26-422... and https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0df680d3-621d-466a-9915-d560001a3931 https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0df680d3-621d-466... I hope that helps!
    - savolai 2y ago
      This would probably work for us but being able to * do unit conversions by a multiplier - showing converted values in ui and converting on read and store * hiding some (empty and irrelevant for specific situation) fields conditionally on values of other fields would make this a much better fit.
      - kgodey 2y ago
        Thank you! Where would you need to hide these fields? If you had some time, it would be great if you could make a GitHub issue with more details about your use case! https://github.com/mathesar-foundation/mathesar/issues https://github.com/mathesar-foundation/mathesar/issues
- boruto 2y ago
  I tried to propose this to our team, But the option that it installs some schemas was a blocker. I do like using this tool on local pgdump.
  - kgodey 2y ago
    Yeah, I understand why that would be a concern. For what it's worth, our schemas are completely isolated and never touch any other data. We use them to store our DB functions and custom data types. The functions are what lets us reflect the latest DB state in the UI in real-time without worrying about schema migrations or adding a bunch of reflection queries to each API call (which would make the UI much less responsive). We just need them installed _somewhere_ in the database. Our custom data types (e.g. email, URL) are just available for convenience. If you don't have any columns that use those types, then you'll never need to deal with them.
- maxloh 2y ago
  Any comments on Outerbase? That poped up on HN too a few weeks ago.
  - zackdotcat 2y ago
    I'm not OP but from my experience with both tools there are some main differences within the products: 1. Mathesar includes a lot of cool UI elements for CRUD operations on tables, schemas, and columns. Outerbase doesn't have any UI for this, but only a SQL editor. 2. Mathesar has a lot of support for "relationships" (more accurately described as references in Postgres, but I digress) that Outerbase does not. For example, if you're inserting a foreign key column into Outerbase you have to manually type the value of the column you're referencing. In Mathesar, you'll see a dropdown of all the "related" rows and be able to search through their columns to find the record you need. 3. Mathesar is postgres-exclusive, while Outerbase works with many other DB providers. And more in terms of governance and usage: 1. Outerbase is paid, with a very restrictive free tier. The option to self host is only available to enterprise customers. 2. Mathesar is entirely free and self-hosted.
    - burcs 2y ago
      Hi I'm one of the founders of Outerbase, just want to clarify a few things, seems like you might have some wrong information on Outerbase. Big fan of Mathesar by the way! 1. We have a incredibly powerful CRUD editor on our table, in fact you can drag and drop and select multiple columns & rows, I haven't seen many other DB editors support this. 2. We allow you to pick foreign key constraints from a dropdown as well. 3. This is true. 4. Outerbase is open-source with more and more features heading into our core offering there. https://github.com/outerbase/studio https://github.com/outerbase/studio
      - zackdotcat 2y ago
        My apologies burcs, I indeed missed your table creator UI and the subsequent "Edit table" view, those are quite nice!
- sirjaz 2y ago
  Any plans to test and support this on Windows Server, since there is nothing directly tied to Linux from what I can tell.
  - kgodey 2y ago
    We don't have the capacity to do that internally, but we were thinking about having a "Community Guides" section of our docs where people could contribute guides to setting up Mathesar on different infrastructure. Let me know if that's something you'd be interested in contributing to!
  - maxloh 2y ago
    I think the better way to achieve that would be just using the Docker container. There should be any notable performance decline, since the Python backend is just an API proxy towards PostgresSQL database servers.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
mrorangewebsite 2y ago
I'll try to install this sometime. The permissions bit looks nice. It's nice to see a project that isn't reinventing the wheel. Is there a SQL editor? I don't see anything about one in the docs but that would be a bit of a dealbreaker for me.
- kgodey 2y ago
  Thanks! We do not have a SQL editor in the UI yet, but it's one of the things we're actively considering working on soon, it's mentioned in the "What's next?" section of our beta release announcement: https://mathesar.org/blog/2025/01/29/release-0-2-0 https://mathesar.org/blog/2025/01/29/release-0-2-0 I'm not sure if this would fit your use case, but you can also use a separate SQL editor alongside Mathesar, we always reflect the latest state of your DB.
sirjaz 2y ago
It would be great if this was a desktop app. That way I wouldn't need to spin up another server
- sixdimensional 2y ago
  There is a docker image at least. Would be cool as a standalone tool though, I kind of agree.
- somat 2y ago
  At least it's not an electron app. Every single time I see an electron app, I wish there was a way to deelectronify it and just run it as a server. Mainly I am bitter because I run an openbsd desktop and would have a pretty good chance at getting it to run if it were a normal web app. cross platform my elbow.
bitwize 2y ago
I love the name. A reference to the head Thermian from Galaxy Quest.
- kgodey 2y ago
  Never give up, never surrender!
  - Galatians4_16 2y ago
    By Grabthar's Hammer, you shall be avenged!
insert_nick 2y ago
Any chance it’s going to support PostGIS, with a map to show geometry data?
- kgodey 2y ago
  This is one of the things we're actively considering working on soon! It's mentioned in the "What's next?" section of our beta release announcement: https://mathesar.org/blog/2025/01/29/release-0-2-0 https://mathesar.org/blog/2025/01/29/release-0-2-0
akrauss 2y ago
I can see this being very useful for many admin interfaces where some basic data must be managed by domain experts and UX and is not a priority. Many enterprise applications have such parts. I wonder what the GPLv3 licensing means for such scenarios: Could people run Mathesar one microservice in an ensemble with proprietary services? Companies who don‘t want to open source their whole product might still be willing to upstream their fixes and improvements to the Mathesar component.
- kgodey 2y ago
  Yep, Mathesar is GPLv3, not AGPL, so there’s no issue running it alongside proprietary services. Companies can absolutely use Mathesar as a standalone service in their stack without open-sourcing their other components. Another example of this is WordPress, which is also GPL, and has a thriving hosting ecosystem. GPLv3 only applies if you modify and distribute Mathesar itself, it doesn’t extend to services that simply interact with it. If a company makes changes to Mathesar and distributes that modified version, then those modifications would need to be open-sourced under GPLv3. But using Mathesar as a microservice in an enterprise stack? No problem. We’d love to see companies upstream fixes and improvements, of course!
  - red_trumpet 2y ago
    Does AGPL have trouble running alongside proprietary services? I always thought AGPL means that if you host the software, you have to make any changes you did available to the users. So if you host it without changes, there is no problem?
    - kgodey 2y ago
      Yep, AGPL can run alongside proprietary services without issues, and if you host it without modifications, you don’t have to share anything. But if you modify it and make it available over a network, you have to provide the source to users. Mathesar, however, is GPL, so you only need to share modifications if you actually distribute the software itself.
SteveVeilStream 2y ago
Love this. Will be trying it out.
darkteflon 2y ago
Does / how does this handle migrations? Is it happy co-existing with an SQLAlchemy or Django ORM- managed PG instance?
- kgodey 2y ago
  Mathesar doesn’t cache any database state, it always reflects the live structure of the database. If you run migrations through SQLAlchemy or Django, Mathesar will just show the database as it is before and after the migration, no extra steps needed. You can also modify the data model directly in Mathesar, but if you’re using an ORM-managed database, you’ll need to update the ORM layer yourself to reflect any schema changes. If your ORM expects strict control over the schema, it’s a good idea to configure our permissions to prevent users from making data model changes in Mathesar's UI. Otherwise, it should coexist just fine.
dugite-code 2y ago
It's a great looking interface but I have the same gripe with the tagline that I have with Grist's. It's really not spreadsheet like is it? You just don't have the row and column manipulation possibilites that defines a spreadsheet vs a table.
- kgodey 2y ago
  Thank you! And yeah, I understand your gripe. The tagline is meant to convey the general idea of "editing data in a table UI without a lot of clicks or keystrokes" in the fewest number in words; it does sacrifice precision (although that's why it's "spreadsheet-like" and not just "spreadsheet"). Do you have any ideas for language we could use instead?
gcanyon 2y ago
Does anyone know if there's something similar for mysql?
- breadwinner 2y ago
  Yes, you can try Visual DB: https://visualdb.com https://visualdb.com
  - gcanyon 2y ago
    This looks interesting, thanks!
- kgodey 2y ago
  As a side note, we _are_ considering adding support for other database backends through Postgres foreign data wrappers: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Foreign_data_wrappers https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Foreign_data_wrappers. If this is something you'd be interested in, please feel free to open an issue on our repo.
  - gcanyon 2y ago
    Thanks for the response! What would be the benefit compared to VisualDB, suggested here also?
    - kgodey 2y ago
      If you like Mathesar’s approach but need to work with MySQL, FDWs would let you connect a MySQL database to Mathesar for data entry and querying. This could be useful if you also have Postgres data and want to work with both in a single interface, or if you wanted things like cross-database queries between both DBs. That said, if you’re only using MySQL, FDWs add an extra layer, and something like VisualDB, since it’s built for multi-database support, would likely be a more natural fit. The main advantage of Mathesar in this scenario would be if you want something open source and self-hosted (VisualDB looks like proprietary SaaS) or if you just like our UI and user experience.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
peppertree 2y ago
Mathesar repo is heavily optimized for commit count. Large number of commits are spelling/padding changes. This should set off alarm bells for anything looking to use this.
- sophacles 2y ago
  Why is lots of little commits a problem? How is that evidence of optimizing for commit count as opposed to lots of people submitting PRs to cover low hanging fruit? What does optimizing for commit count achieve for anyone? In what context does "lots of commits" gain someone enough value to optimize for it?
- mpalmer 2y ago
  Read the code, not tea leaves
  - peppertree 2y ago
    Project activity is indicative of whether it will be supported in the long run. The fact that Mathesar's admin hid the line change count under insights, and padded the commits looks like a feeble attempt to impress investors.
    - kgodey 2y ago
      Well, we're a nonprofit, we don't have investors :) Also, I'm pretty sure any investor who cared about commit counts would be a terrible investor.
      - peppertree 2y ago
        Let’s be transparent and unhide the line change count under your insights tab.
        gjvc 2y ago
        Let's not pretend to care about how someone uses their tools.
wkat4242 2y ago
Named after Enrico Colantoni's character in Galaxy Quest? That was so funny <3 Only spaceballs was a better scifi parody movie and that is hard to beat.
greenie_beans 2y ago
this looks dope!
xk3 2y ago
You should take a look at Ultorg--not the best name (then again Mathesar is not much better...) but there is a lot of powerful and intuitive UX stuff in that project.
- kgodey 2y ago
  Ultorg is awesome! Eirik (Ultorg's founder) and I compare notes every once in a while. :)
teleforce 2y ago
Great, this will be very handy for Just Use Postgres crowds [1], [2]. Just wondering what's the main different between Mathesar with NocoDB and Baserow? Is Mathesar planning to become Airtable open source alternative as well? [1] Just use Postgres for everything (430 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33934139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33934139 [2] Just Use Postgres! https://www.manning.com/books/just-use-postgres https://www.manning.com/books/just-use-postgres
- kgodey 2y ago
  NocoDB is a universal database GUI that supports multiple backends, while Mathesar is Postgres-only but deeply integrated with its native features, like using Postgres roles and privileges for access control. NocoDB also adds its own UI-level abstractions on top of database objects, whereas Mathesar directly reflects the database structure. That said, NocoDB has features Mathesar doesn’t yet support, like kanban and calendar views, forms, and more Airtable-like data types. Baserow is more of an open-source Airtable alternative and doesn’t connect to existing databases at all—unlike Mathesar and NocoDB. It has many of the same UI-driven features as NocoDB, such as different types of views and forms, but it doesn’t function as a database interface the way Mathesar does. Mathesar, however, has a visual query builder that allows joins and query creation directly from the UI, as well as some data modeling tools, like moving columns between tables and merging duplicate data—neither NocoDB nor Baserow offer these. Mathesar is also 100% open source, while both NocoDB and Baserow follow an open-core model with paid features. We do want Mathesar to be competitive as an Airtable alternative over time. You can already create a database from scratch (we’re not just a GUI for existing databases), but we’d likely need more data types, views, and integrations before it can match Airtable across a broad set of use cases. And Postgres is definitely amazingly versatile! That's one of the reasons we were comfortable focusing on it as the only supported DB backend for now.
_1tem 2y ago
Almost. There are a million tools like this, but most "don't get it". The problem with TablePlus, DataGrip and most other GUIs for databases or even Airtable clones like NocoDB or VisualDB is they lack the 3 core features I want. Atleast this tool has 2 of the 3, which is already an improvement to anything else I know of. 1. Ability to view relationships inline. It's shocking that most GUIs for databases don't do this. I don't want to see a foreign ID, I want to see a sample of the related row. Glad this tool gets it. 2. Filtering and grouping and views. Not simple SQL WHEREs but easy filters. And grouping by header. This is what made Airtable king. Glad to see it is covered here. 3. AI-generated queries and reports. Sorry, but it's 2025 and you release a product without AI? It's now trivial to generate correct SQL queries and graphs based on natural language. Why doesn't any mainstream tool do this? See for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooWaPVvljlU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooWaPVvljlU Having all of these 3 core features together in the same tool would be the holy grail for me in database management.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
ycombinatrix 2y ago
Is this named after the character from Galaxy Quest?
- wantoncl 2y ago
  By Grabthar's hammer, I hope so.
samtuke 2y ago
Can somebody explain core use-cases? Postgres UIs of various flavours are already pretty numerous. Is this for developers? BI people? Is it intended to run on existing production databases or only new small databases used exclusively by Mathesar itself? No answers like "you can use it for anything" or "it's up to you" or "just like Airtable" please. I'm interested in real world, specific use cases, so readers can position this app and figure out if it has any value for them.

323 points by gjvc 2y ago

This looks exactly like something my finance team asked me for yesterday. Definitely will take a look. In my startup (a fintech) we tried to keep all the information about money in the DB, and have the finance team use that to compare with actual bank information

gjvc 2y ago

see also https://mathesar.org/ https://mathesar.org/ for screenshots

kgodey 2y ago

Mathesar project lead here, it's a nice surprise to see this on the front page! I'm happy to answer questions if anyone has any.

amarant 2y ago
How do you differentiate from, say, dbeaver, or any similar database management software? What's the main reason to get Mathesar instead of DBeaver?
- sixdimensional 2y ago
  I'm not related to the author or developers, but this appears almost like an Airtable-like (or Nocodb) UI on top of postgres, so it's really quite a different experience than a full database manager tool/IDE like DBeaver or DataGrip. I love it personally and it looks pretty good so far. Also, amazing that the team started it as an open source project under a 501c3 nonprofit as well. Having a more "spreadsheet" (or I would say, MS Access-like) UI is quite cool for certain use cases (e.g. low/no-code but backed by the full power of regular old Postgres). Can allow pretty agile development, although - it can get out of control if not managed with care... but nice to see the access controls/permissions there to help a bit. All interesting choices, looks cool!
  - Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
    Yes this definitely feels like MS access but open source and based on postgres which is awesome!
- thomasfromcdnjs 2y ago
  I'd be more curious about how it differs to Metabase?
  - kgodey 2y ago
    Metabase is a BI tool focused on querying, reporting, and visualization, but it’s read-only. Mathesar is closer to Airtable, you get a spreadsheet-like UI, you can view and query data like Metabase, but you can also add and edit data or even modify the data model (if the permissions allow it). Unlike Metabase, Mathesar also lets you create a database from scratch rather than just connecting to an existing one. Metabase adds an abstraction layer with concepts like questions, segments, and metrics, while Mathesar works directly with Postgres tables, schemas, and permissions. Mathesar is deeply integrated with Postgres, so it supports Postgres-native features like role and privilege based access control, which aren’t possible in products designed for multiple database backends. I hope that helps!
- kgodey 2y ago
  sixdimensional covered this pretty well, but just to reiterate, I believe DBeaver is primarily a desktop app aimed at a technical audience. Mathesar is web-based and designed to have an intuitive, collaborative, spreadsheet-like UI for non-technical users who know anything about SQL or DB concepts. Also, Mathesar has deep integration with Postgres features e.g. you can configure roles and privileges through the UI.
  - zokier 2y ago
    What about tools like LibreOffice Base and KDEs Kexi?
    - anonym29 2y ago
      Far too technical for the target audience, who has never heard of a "linux" and doesn't care about cost, software freedom, the petite tyranny happily imposed by corporations, etc, they just want it to "just work" on their smartphone browser.
    - kgodey 2y ago
      I think they're pretty different use cases. LibreOffice Base and Kexi are desktop database frontends focused on local databases, while Mathesar is web-based, self-hosted, can be connected to a remote database, and built for multi-user collaboration.
    - philkrylov 2y ago
      The main problem with them is they are not working yet and there are not enough people working on improving that.
  - irq-1 2y ago
    > ... spreadsheet-like UI for non-technical users who know anything about SQL or DB concepts. All the language is DB: it's tables not spreadsheets, records not rows, etc... It also doesn't hide things like 'schema' button or metadata like table description. Maybe this project could do things like integrations with web services, easy actions on groups (like paste a list of ids and do something to all those records), and publicly available web pages (surveys, donations, pretty event pages.)
potamic 2y ago
Your website says you're a non-profit. Do you have any monetization plans down the line, otherwise how are you planning to maintain funding?
- kgodey 2y ago
  Here's some background info on our current funding: https://mathesar.org/blog/2024/03/28/mathesar-foundation-announcement https://mathesar.org/blog/2024/03/28/mathesar-foundation-ann... We're working on multiple options for sustainability, both the traditional nonprofit route (major donors, individual sponsors, etc.) and also looking into revenue from hosting or services. We're committed to always being 100% open source and self-hostable no matter what.
Galatians4_16 2y ago
Ah. Thermians, from the Klaatu Nebula. Or was it Dalmations?
- kgodey 2y ago
  I think it was termites. But they built a huge spaceship.
igor47 2y ago
How does this compare to retool? I've been using that to build UIs directly on top of Postgres, and it's been nice to be able to design the screens a little; eg inserting new rows linked to a currently selected row by primary key. Curious if you're targeting primarily a spreadsheet-like view, or if the interface can be customized. How does the spreadsheet view work across multiple linked table? Can you present the tabular info in non tabular ways (e.g. a row details or editor view)
- kgodey 2y ago
  We don't have any ability to customize UIs yet, although we're certainly open to feature requests. We do have a "Record Page" for each individual record that shows a tabular view of related records from other tables, here's a screenshot from our website: https://mathesar.org/_app/immutable/assets/step-2.CKT9S1j0.avif https://mathesar.org/_app/immutable/assets/step-2.CKT9S1j0.a... - you can create new linked records directly there. As for working with multiple linked tables, while editing data, you can search through nested links easily, here's an screenshot illustrating the record selector: https://mathesar.org/_app/immutable/assets/step-3.SKu3rwM2.avif https://mathesar.org/_app/immutable/assets/step-3.SKu3rwM2.a... We also have a visual query builder that can join data across tables: https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7ff100fe-cd26-4229-af3b-a5a5bb70b0b7 https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7ff100fe-cd26-422... and https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0df680d3-621d-466a-9915-d560001a3931 https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0df680d3-621d-466... I hope that helps!
  - savolai 2y ago
    This would probably work for us but being able to * do unit conversions by a multiplier - showing converted values in ui and converting on read and store * hiding some (empty and irrelevant for specific situation) fields conditionally on values of other fields would make this a much better fit.
    - kgodey 2y ago
      Thank you! Where would you need to hide these fields? If you had some time, it would be great if you could make a GitHub issue with more details about your use case! https://github.com/mathesar-foundation/mathesar/issues https://github.com/mathesar-foundation/mathesar/issues
boruto 2y ago
I tried to propose this to our team, But the option that it installs some schemas was a blocker. I do like using this tool on local pgdump.
- kgodey 2y ago
  Yeah, I understand why that would be a concern. For what it's worth, our schemas are completely isolated and never touch any other data. We use them to store our DB functions and custom data types. The functions are what lets us reflect the latest DB state in the UI in real-time without worrying about schema migrations or adding a bunch of reflection queries to each API call (which would make the UI much less responsive). We just need them installed _somewhere_ in the database. Our custom data types (e.g. email, URL) are just available for convenience. If you don't have any columns that use those types, then you'll never need to deal with them.
maxloh 2y ago
Any comments on Outerbase? That poped up on HN too a few weeks ago.
- zackdotcat 2y ago
  I'm not OP but from my experience with both tools there are some main differences within the products: 1. Mathesar includes a lot of cool UI elements for CRUD operations on tables, schemas, and columns. Outerbase doesn't have any UI for this, but only a SQL editor. 2. Mathesar has a lot of support for "relationships" (more accurately described as references in Postgres, but I digress) that Outerbase does not. For example, if you're inserting a foreign key column into Outerbase you have to manually type the value of the column you're referencing. In Mathesar, you'll see a dropdown of all the "related" rows and be able to search through their columns to find the record you need. 3. Mathesar is postgres-exclusive, while Outerbase works with many other DB providers. And more in terms of governance and usage: 1. Outerbase is paid, with a very restrictive free tier. The option to self host is only available to enterprise customers. 2. Mathesar is entirely free and self-hosted.
  - burcs 2y ago
    Hi I'm one of the founders of Outerbase, just want to clarify a few things, seems like you might have some wrong information on Outerbase. Big fan of Mathesar by the way! 1. We have a incredibly powerful CRUD editor on our table, in fact you can drag and drop and select multiple columns & rows, I haven't seen many other DB editors support this. 2. We allow you to pick foreign key constraints from a dropdown as well. 3. This is true. 4. Outerbase is open-source with more and more features heading into our core offering there. https://github.com/outerbase/studio https://github.com/outerbase/studio
    - zackdotcat 2y ago
      My apologies burcs, I indeed missed your table creator UI and the subsequent "Edit table" view, those are quite nice!
sirjaz 2y ago
Any plans to test and support this on Windows Server, since there is nothing directly tied to Linux from what I can tell.
- kgodey 2y ago
  We don't have the capacity to do that internally, but we were thinking about having a "Community Guides" section of our docs where people could contribute guides to setting up Mathesar on different infrastructure. Let me know if that's something you'd be interested in contributing to!
- maxloh 2y ago
  I think the better way to achieve that would be just using the Docker container. There should be any notable performance decline, since the Python backend is just an API proxy towards PostgresSQL database servers.
- deleted 2y ago
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mrorangewebsite 2y ago

I'll try to install this sometime. The permissions bit looks nice. It's nice to see a project that isn't reinventing the wheel. Is there a SQL editor? I don't see anything about one in the docs but that would be a bit of a dealbreaker for me.

kgodey 2y ago
Thanks! We do not have a SQL editor in the UI yet, but it's one of the things we're actively considering working on soon, it's mentioned in the "What's next?" section of our beta release announcement: https://mathesar.org/blog/2025/01/29/release-0-2-0 https://mathesar.org/blog/2025/01/29/release-0-2-0 I'm not sure if this would fit your use case, but you can also use a separate SQL editor alongside Mathesar, we always reflect the latest state of your DB.

sirjaz 2y ago

It would be great if this was a desktop app. That way I wouldn't need to spin up another server

sixdimensional 2y ago
There is a docker image at least. Would be cool as a standalone tool though, I kind of agree.
somat 2y ago
At least it's not an electron app. Every single time I see an electron app, I wish there was a way to deelectronify it and just run it as a server. Mainly I am bitter because I run an openbsd desktop and would have a pretty good chance at getting it to run if it were a normal web app. cross platform my elbow.

bitwize 2y ago

I love the name. A reference to the head Thermian from Galaxy Quest.

kgodey 2y ago
Never give up, never surrender!
- Galatians4_16 2y ago
  By Grabthar's Hammer, you shall be avenged!

insert_nick 2y ago

Any chance it’s going to support PostGIS, with a map to show geometry data?

kgodey 2y ago
This is one of the things we're actively considering working on soon! It's mentioned in the "What's next?" section of our beta release announcement: https://mathesar.org/blog/2025/01/29/release-0-2-0 https://mathesar.org/blog/2025/01/29/release-0-2-0

akrauss 2y ago

I can see this being very useful for many admin interfaces where some basic data must be managed by domain experts and UX and is not a priority. Many enterprise applications have such parts. I wonder what the GPLv3 licensing means for such scenarios: Could people run Mathesar one microservice in an ensemble with proprietary services? Companies who don‘t want to open source their whole product might still be willing to upstream their fixes and improvements to the Mathesar component.

kgodey 2y ago
Yep, Mathesar is GPLv3, not AGPL, so there’s no issue running it alongside proprietary services. Companies can absolutely use Mathesar as a standalone service in their stack without open-sourcing their other components. Another example of this is WordPress, which is also GPL, and has a thriving hosting ecosystem. GPLv3 only applies if you modify and distribute Mathesar itself, it doesn’t extend to services that simply interact with it. If a company makes changes to Mathesar and distributes that modified version, then those modifications would need to be open-sourced under GPLv3. But using Mathesar as a microservice in an enterprise stack? No problem. We’d love to see companies upstream fixes and improvements, of course!
- red_trumpet 2y ago
  Does AGPL have trouble running alongside proprietary services? I always thought AGPL means that if you host the software, you have to make any changes you did available to the users. So if you host it without changes, there is no problem?
  - kgodey 2y ago
    Yep, AGPL can run alongside proprietary services without issues, and if you host it without modifications, you don’t have to share anything. But if you modify it and make it available over a network, you have to provide the source to users. Mathesar, however, is GPL, so you only need to share modifications if you actually distribute the software itself.

SteveVeilStream 2y ago

Love this. Will be trying it out.

darkteflon 2y ago

Does / how does this handle migrations? Is it happy co-existing with an SQLAlchemy or Django ORM- managed PG instance?

kgodey 2y ago
Mathesar doesn’t cache any database state, it always reflects the live structure of the database. If you run migrations through SQLAlchemy or Django, Mathesar will just show the database as it is before and after the migration, no extra steps needed. You can also modify the data model directly in Mathesar, but if you’re using an ORM-managed database, you’ll need to update the ORM layer yourself to reflect any schema changes. If your ORM expects strict control over the schema, it’s a good idea to configure our permissions to prevent users from making data model changes in Mathesar's UI. Otherwise, it should coexist just fine.

dugite-code 2y ago

It's a great looking interface but I have the same gripe with the tagline that I have with Grist's. It's really not spreadsheet like is it? You just don't have the row and column manipulation possibilites that defines a spreadsheet vs a table.

kgodey 2y ago
Thank you! And yeah, I understand your gripe. The tagline is meant to convey the general idea of "editing data in a table UI without a lot of clicks or keystrokes" in the fewest number in words; it does sacrifice precision (although that's why it's "spreadsheet-like" and not just "spreadsheet"). Do you have any ideas for language we could use instead?

gcanyon 2y ago

Does anyone know if there's something similar for mysql?

breadwinner 2y ago
Yes, you can try Visual DB: https://visualdb.com https://visualdb.com
- gcanyon 2y ago
  This looks interesting, thanks!
kgodey 2y ago
As a side note, we _are_ considering adding support for other database backends through Postgres foreign data wrappers: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Foreign_data_wrappers https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Foreign_data_wrappers. If this is something you'd be interested in, please feel free to open an issue on our repo.
- gcanyon 2y ago
  Thanks for the response! What would be the benefit compared to VisualDB, suggested here also?
  - kgodey 2y ago
    If you like Mathesar’s approach but need to work with MySQL, FDWs would let you connect a MySQL database to Mathesar for data entry and querying. This could be useful if you also have Postgres data and want to work with both in a single interface, or if you wanted things like cross-database queries between both DBs. That said, if you’re only using MySQL, FDWs add an extra layer, and something like VisualDB, since it’s built for multi-database support, would likely be a more natural fit. The main advantage of Mathesar in this scenario would be if you want something open source and self-hosted (VisualDB looks like proprietary SaaS) or if you just like our UI and user experience.

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peppertree 2y ago

Mathesar repo is heavily optimized for commit count. Large number of commits are spelling/padding changes. This should set off alarm bells for anything looking to use this.

sophacles 2y ago
Why is lots of little commits a problem? How is that evidence of optimizing for commit count as opposed to lots of people submitting PRs to cover low hanging fruit? What does optimizing for commit count achieve for anyone? In what context does "lots of commits" gain someone enough value to optimize for it?
mpalmer 2y ago
Read the code, not tea leaves
- peppertree 2y ago
  Project activity is indicative of whether it will be supported in the long run. The fact that Mathesar's admin hid the line change count under insights, and padded the commits looks like a feeble attempt to impress investors.
  - kgodey 2y ago
    Well, we're a nonprofit, we don't have investors :) Also, I'm pretty sure any investor who cared about commit counts would be a terrible investor.
    - peppertree 2y ago
      Let’s be transparent and unhide the line change count under your insights tab.
      - gjvc 2y ago
        Let's not pretend to care about how someone uses their tools.

wkat4242 2y ago

Named after Enrico Colantoni's character in Galaxy Quest? That was so funny <3 Only spaceballs was a better scifi parody movie and that is hard to beat.

greenie_beans 2y ago

this looks dope!

xk3 2y ago

You should take a look at Ultorg--not the best name (then again Mathesar is not much better...) but there is a lot of powerful and intuitive UX stuff in that project.

kgodey 2y ago
Ultorg is awesome! Eirik (Ultorg's founder) and I compare notes every once in a while. :)

teleforce 2y ago

Great, this will be very handy for Just Use Postgres crowds [1], [2]. Just wondering what's the main different between Mathesar with NocoDB and Baserow? Is Mathesar planning to become Airtable open source alternative as well? [1] Just use Postgres for everything (430 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33934139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33934139 [2] Just Use Postgres! https://www.manning.com/books/just-use-postgres https://www.manning.com/books/just-use-postgres

kgodey 2y ago
NocoDB is a universal database GUI that supports multiple backends, while Mathesar is Postgres-only but deeply integrated with its native features, like using Postgres roles and privileges for access control. NocoDB also adds its own UI-level abstractions on top of database objects, whereas Mathesar directly reflects the database structure. That said, NocoDB has features Mathesar doesn’t yet support, like kanban and calendar views, forms, and more Airtable-like data types. Baserow is more of an open-source Airtable alternative and doesn’t connect to existing databases at all—unlike Mathesar and NocoDB. It has many of the same UI-driven features as NocoDB, such as different types of views and forms, but it doesn’t function as a database interface the way Mathesar does. Mathesar, however, has a visual query builder that allows joins and query creation directly from the UI, as well as some data modeling tools, like moving columns between tables and merging duplicate data—neither NocoDB nor Baserow offer these. Mathesar is also 100% open source, while both NocoDB and Baserow follow an open-core model with paid features. We do want Mathesar to be competitive as an Airtable alternative over time. You can already create a database from scratch (we’re not just a GUI for existing databases), but we’d likely need more data types, views, and integrations before it can match Airtable across a broad set of use cases. And Postgres is definitely amazingly versatile! That's one of the reasons we were comfortable focusing on it as the only supported DB backend for now.

_1tem 2y ago

Almost. There are a million tools like this, but most "don't get it". The problem with TablePlus, DataGrip and most other GUIs for databases or even Airtable clones like NocoDB or VisualDB is they lack the 3 core features I want. Atleast this tool has 2 of the 3, which is already an improvement to anything else I know of. 1. Ability to view relationships inline. It's shocking that most GUIs for databases don't do this. I don't want to see a foreign ID, I want to see a sample of the related row. Glad this tool gets it. 2. Filtering and grouping and views. Not simple SQL WHEREs but easy filters. And grouping by header. This is what made Airtable king. Glad to see it is covered here. 3. AI-generated queries and reports. Sorry, but it's 2025 and you release a product without AI? It's now trivial to generate correct SQL queries and graphs based on natural language. Why doesn't any mainstream tool do this? See for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooWaPVvljlU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooWaPVvljlU Having all of these 3 core features together in the same tool would be the holy grail for me in database management.

deleted 2y ago
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ycombinatrix 2y ago

Is this named after the character from Galaxy Quest?

wantoncl 2y ago
By Grabthar's hammer, I hope so.

samtuke 2y ago

Can somebody explain core use-cases? Postgres UIs of various flavours are already pretty numerous. Is this for developers? BI people? Is it intended to run on existing production databases or only new small databases used exclusively by Mathesar itself? No answers like "you can use it for anything" or "it's up to you" or "just like Airtable" please. I'm interested in real world, specific use cases, so readers can position this app and figure out if it has any value for them.