Tabletist

igor.works/tabletist

A fast, native database client for PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite and BigQuery. Written in Rust with egui; runs on Linux (Omarchy and Hyprland first), macOS and Windows. BigQuery connections sign in with a service-account key file or Google Cloud's default credentials, and open read-only (browse, filter and run SELECTs; BigQuery has no transactions to edit rows with).

The guide and the reference are on the website: igor.works/tabletist.

What it does

• Saved connections grouped in a picker, each tagged with its environment (dev, staging, production) and when it was last used. Open more than one and each is a chip in the window's header: click one to switch.
• Direct connections, TLS (libpq's sslmode values, with allow read as prefer; verify-ca needs a CA file, and MySQL has no verify-ca yet), and SSH tunnels (password, key file or agent) with host keys trusted on first use. The agent is the one ~/.ssh/config names for the host (IdentityAgent, as for 1Password), else SSH_AUTH_SOCK.
• Passwords live in the system keyring, or are asked for once per connection tab (reconnecting in that tab reuses them).
• A connection opens read-only when its "Open read-only" box says so, which is the default for production. A writable one opens a read-write session, in which browsing, a raw WHERE and a SQL editor switched to Read-only still only read.
• On a writable connection a table's values are edited in its grid: changes stay pending until Save writes them in one transaction, which never overwrites a row someone else changed: a save that finds one writes nothing and asks about each such row, with what was loaded, what the server holds now and yours side by side (keep mine, use the server's values, or overwrite). Before saving, Review SQL shows the statements that will run (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+D, or :diff on Omarchy) and copies them, and a save to production asks first, with them on screen.
• A sidebar of recent objects and one schema's tables and views, folded into prefix groups (book_) or listed flat; each table opens with a data grid (keys, foreign keys, value tags, JSON at a glance), a row panel showing every field in full with a jump along foreign keys, where a value of a writable table is edited in place (a click on it, or Cmd/Ctrl+I, Enter on Omarchy, to reach the row's fields, and Enter or typing to edit one), and a Structure view (columns, indexes, foreign keys).
• Server-side sorting and paging, a filter bar with a raw WHERE option, exact counts on demand, and cancel for any running query. MySQL sessions run in utf8mb4, with ANSI_QUOTES, the combination modes that imply it and NO_BACKSLASH_ESCAPES turned off: in a raw WHERE "..." is a string and names take backticks.
• A SQL editor per connection (Cmd/Ctrl+T): run the statement at the cursor (Cmd/Ctrl+Return) or the whole script, with a row limit and a timeout, and read a result row in full in the row panel. On a read-only connection, and on production, every run happens in a read-only transaction that is rolled back, and statements that would leave it are refused. On a writable connection that is not production's a tab opens in Read-write: a run that changes data is one transaction, committed when every statement succeeded and rolled back on the first error, cancel or timeout, and the Messages say which. A run of reads is read-only there too, and the toolbar's switch (or Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+M; :ro and :rw on Omarchy) sets the tab to Read-only and back. Format (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+F; = on Omarchy) lays queries out in river style and uppercases reserved words, in the selection's statements or the whole script. Keywords, schemas, tables, views and the columns of a statement's tables are completed while typing (Ctrl+Space asks for the list anywhere).
• Quick open (Cmd/Ctrl+P on macOS and Windows) and a full keyboard map: press ? in the app.
• Looks native on each platform: a macOS look in IBM Plex, and on Linux the Omarchy look (square, keyboard first, vim keys, the desktop's monospace font throughout). It follows the Omarchy theme live on Omarchy, and the system light/dark setting elsewhere.

Install

• Arch Linux / Omarchy: the AUR packages (tabletist-bin and tabletist) are not published yet. Until they are, use the release AppImage or .tar.gz (see Other Linux below).
• macOS: download tabletist-v<version>-macos-universal.dmg from the releases and drag Tabletist to Applications.
• Windows: run tabletist-v<version>-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc-setup.exe (or the aarch64 one on ARM). No administrator rights needed.
• Other Linux: to try it, download tabletist-<version>-x86_64.AppImage (or the aarch64 one), make it executable and run it. It adds nothing to the app launcher. To install it with a launcher entry, take the release .tar.gz, which holds the binary, a .desktop file and the icon, and follow the steps on the Download page.

The Linux release binaries are built on Ubuntu 24.04 and need glibc 2.39 or newer (Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 13, Fedora 40 or later). On an older system, build from source.

Build from source

Requires the Rust toolchain pinned in rust-toolchain.toml (rustup installs it on the first build). On Linux you also need the Wayland, xkbcommon and GL development headers.

cargo build --release
./target/release/tabletist           # or: --demo for a sample database

Omarchy

On Omarchy the app follows the current theme and recolors when you switch themes. contrib/omarchy/tabletist.json.tpl maps an Omarchy theme onto Tabletist's palette.

Development

See AGENTS.md for the test suites (including PostgreSQL, MySQL and SSH integration tests against compose.yaml) and the release process.

License

MIT, see LICENSE.