dbForge Studio for SQL Server Reviews

This solution is used for data storage of our applications.

The features that I find are the most valuable are easy querying, screen objects, relational diagram creation, and simplicity.

I do quite a bit of querying of data information, written information, pulling data, and writing data.

The only issue that I have is that it depends on hardware resources, it takes a lot, that is the only set back with the solution.

What we are using is fine for now. I believe that the newer versions 2016 or 2018 SQL have improved a lot and have all of the features available.

It would be useful to have some form of self-service capabilities or some form an AI to provide a summary and to be able to tell you what has happened. Also, the inclusion of some integration tools would be helpful. 

In the next release, I would like to see some form of artificial intelligence with some form of summaries telling you what has happened without having to get into a complex query to get that information.

I have been dealing with this solution for over five years.

This solution is stable, it's very good.

I don't have any experience with the scalability, but I would say that it is scalable.

We have 20 to 30 people using this solution.

I have not contacted technical support. If I have an issue, I search or I query the knowledge base.

The initial setup is straightforward in comparison to other solutions that are complicated.

I did not use an integrator. If you do your research it points you in the right direction.

Because it's the 2012 version, it's a one-off enterprise license that we have never had to upgrade. It's a perpetual license that you install and that's it.

There are additional fees to this solution.

Based on my experience it's easier to use, and there are a lot of resources online that can give you a headstart. By comparison, Oracle Database is complicated to use.

I like the ease of use and quick data usage. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for transactional processing, our LTP, as well as other processing.

The administration is the solution's most valuable feature. 

It's quite easy to install and use from a local machine or laptop, as well as on a server.

The lock files and login are two features we've had issues with. As far as I can see, there's no way to switch off the login in SQL Servers. If there could be a way to switch off the login, for transactions, or in operations, or tables, that'd be great. 

The solution is very stable. We rarely have any stability issues. There might be operating system issues, patching, etc., that need to happen occasionally. With the SQL server itself, however, we don't experience any stability issues.

The solution is very scalable. If you set up a very large database, billions of records, or so, if you have enough memory, enough disk space, it's quite easy to do. I haven't set it up in a cluster environment, myself. I have other clusters, but they are sort-of Malware normal. OLAP and LTP volumes perform quite well. 

Right now, we have 30-40 users. We'll most likely add more users using RBI and KIP View, but for now, our user population is stable at around 30 or 40. 

In terms of technical support, most of what I need to find, I find on Stack Overflow, and using Google searches, and MSD Documents. I've never really had to contact Microsoft for specific help, therefore I can't comment on any experience. In terms of general information, forums, and so forth - SQL-filler, Forti-websites, etc. - there's so much information out there that, from Google search, one typically gets all the information they need. General community information is excellent. 

The initial setup is straightforward. It's quite easy to create databases, administrate databases, and set up a backup. It's quite easy to install and to manage. 

Deployment can take up to three hours if you are installing the full SQL server. Setting up just the database is a couple of minutes. I haven't set up a full backup, or any of that myself. I've set up backups to local disks, however, and that's quite easy to do.  

Setting up jobs, or maintenance jobs that are running statistics on variables, shrinking, translating locked files, etc., only take a few minutes to set up. A full configuration would take two hours maximum.

We handle most of the implementation ourselves.

I've worked with Oracle, and with DB2, as well as with SAP IQ. 

I've also worked with Mongo, although it's not quite the same. 

We use the on-premises deployment model.

In terms of advice I would give to others, I would say that if they want to evaluate it, they should install a SQL Server Express. Install that as a management studio to get a feel for how it works, and then from there decide if it's suitable, in terms of a full license installation. 

You can get up and running with it, and play around with it quite easily. Once you install SQL Server Express, you can get a good feel for how the full SQL Server would be set up and maintained, and how it works.

If you're going to do a large database setup, make sure you do a bit of planning before you begin.

I would rate the solution ten out of ten.

Source Control with SVN and Git(Hub)Code beautifier and completion Schema and data synchronization.

www.devart.com/dbforge/sql/studio

We moved from 3 month releases to 1 month release for updates to the production database, using a combination of improved processes, simplification of paperwork and -last but not least- strict source control on the T-SQL code repository before shipping.

I would really like to have this software as cloud based SaaS with seamless integration to GitHub so that I don't have to reinstall everything each time I move to another client. This tool is only for SQL Server, but Devart has similar technologies for MySQL and Oracle. It would be nice to have all of them into a single product, buy once and use it for every project, something like HeidiSQL on steroids.

For the last 6 months, switched from SSMS and never looked back.

The setup is straightforward.

I once had a problem stopping a long running query, not sure whose fault was, mine, the server or something else. I restarted the tool and it worked ok.

Not really applicable. But we have a team of 6 developers here and we use the source control successfully.

I did not use the service yet.

I was using SSMS, the tool Microsoft offers. The main reason I switched was because SSMS cannot show column information in Azure databases. And a second reason was that the code formatting is way better in Devart than SSMS. See image: imgur.com/i6ohReb

It cost about 700 USD (Enterprise version, but there are cheaper options and a free version too). If you calculate the numbers of man-hours you can save with a proper source control policy, it pays itself in about 2 months.

Check the features of the different editions on the vendor site,

devart.com/dbforge/sql/stusio/editions.html

for a small shop the Professional should be enough, but for data synchronization and source control you need the Enterprise edition.

I have used different tools in the past, HeidiSQL (which is not bad), Toad, SSMS, and Aqua Data Studio. This last one (AquaStudio) is Java based and gave me heap errors since day 1, cannot really use it for professional development.

If you do SQL for a living you need a robust productivity tool. You won't regret using a proper software you can rely on. My customers are moving from on-premise to Azure based databases and I wasn't able to migrate their data to the cloud with another product. Devart has a solid history of data connectors, their oledb drivers are famous around the developer community. When working on tight deadlines every hour count and you cannot afford to format code by hand or write scripts just to check if the data matches between TEST and PROD. So far I found the data compare to be the most reliable and easy to use with SQL Server. The software has a report writing and delivery tool and a Pivot table facility. Did not use them myself, but 'hey' they are free in the box, you never know what your customer will ask you. I have used the data export feature every now and then to send data back and forth with other systems and it has enough formats available. One point: it would be good to have export in JSON to ship data to web services. The T-SQL debugger works much like the SSMS one, and the code completion is very accurate. It actually works, and suggests objects based on the context of the SELECT where you are. I was impressed by the JOIN suggestion, which I never saw before: very clever, it relies on foreign keys and similar column names. A little trick: when the code completion drop-down is visible, press the CTRL key and it becomes transparent so you can see thru'There are a lot of other features we did not use yet, but the ones I personally like are: Git, seamless Azure SQL, data compare and code beautifier.

imgur.com/BjG26L8