<p>How can I connect to a remote SQL server using Mac OS X? I don't really need a GUI, but it would be nice to have for the color coding and resultset grid. I'd rather not have to use a VM.</p>

<p>Is there a SQL client for Mac OS X that works with MS SQL Server?</p>

[{'answer_id': 3455, 'author': 'Shawn', 'author_id': 26, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/26', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>This doesn\'t specifically answer your question, because I\'m not sure in any clients exist in Mac&nbsp;OS&nbsp;X, but I generally just <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Desktop_Services#Remote_Desktop_Connection" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Remote Desktop</a> into the server and work through that. Another option is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware_Fusion" rel="nofollow noreferrer">VMware Fusion</a> (which is much better than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallels_Desktop_for_Mac" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Parallels</a> in my opinion) + Windows XP + <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Server_Management_Studio" rel="nofollow noreferrer">SQL Server Management Studio</a>.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 3535, 'author': 'GateKiller', 'author_id': 383, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/383', 'pm_score': -1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Since there currently isn\'t a MS SQL client for Mac&nbsp;OS&nbsp;X, I would, as <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3452/sql-server-client-for-osx#3455">Modesty</a> has suggested, use <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/remote-desktop/default.mspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Remote Desktop</a> for the Mac.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 3538, 'author': 'Michael Stum', 'author_id': 91, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/91', 'pm_score': -1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Ed: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhpMyAdmin" rel="nofollow noreferrer">phpMyAdmin</a> is for MySQL, but the asker needs something for Microsoft SQL Server.</p>\n\n<p>Most solutions that I found involve using an ODBC Driver and then whatever client application you use. For example, <a href="http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/17557" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Gorilla SQL</a> claims to be able to do that, even though the project seems abandoned.</p>\n\n<p>Most <strong>good</strong> solutions are either using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Desktop_Services#Remote_Desktop_Connection" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Remote Desktop</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware" rel="nofollow noreferrer">VMware</a>/<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallels_Desktop_for_Mac" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Parallels</a>.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 3546, 'author': 'Mark Harrison', 'author_id': 116, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/116', 'pm_score': 8, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>The Java-based <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/sql-developer/overview/index.html" rel="noreferrer">Oracle SQL Developer</a> has a plugin module that supports SQL Server. I use it regularly on my Mac. It\'s free, too.</p>\n\n<p>Here\'s how to install the SQL Server plugin:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Run SQL Developer</li>\n<li>go to this menu item: Oracle SQL Developer/Preferences/Database/Third-party JDBC Drivers</li>\n<li>Click help.</li>\n<li>It will have pointers to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAR_%28file_format%29" rel="noreferrer">JAR</a> files for MySQL, SQL&nbsp;Server, etc.</li>\n<li>The SQL Server JAR file is available at <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/jtds/files/" rel="noreferrer">http://sourceforge.net/projects/jtds/files/</a></li>\n</ul>\n'}, {'answer_id': 22447, 'author': 'jason saldo', 'author_id': 1293, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1293', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I use <a href="http://www.aquafold.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">AquaFold </a> at work on Windows, but it\'s based on Java and supports Mac&nbsp;OS&nbsp;X.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 34153, 'author': 'ebryn', 'author_id': 3572, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/3572', 'pm_score': 9, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>Let\'s work together on a canonical answer.</p>\n\n<h3>Native Apps</h3>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href="http://www.macsqlclient.com/" rel="noreferrer">SQLPro for MSSQL</a></li>\n<li><a href="http://www.navicat.com/products/navicat-for-sqlserver" rel="noreferrer">Navicat</a></li>\n<li><a href="http://www.valentina-db.com/en/valentina-studio-overview" rel="noreferrer">Valentina Studio</a></li>\n<li><a href="https://tableplus.io" rel="noreferrer">TablePlus</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n<h3>Java-Based</h3>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/sql-developer/overview/index.html" rel="noreferrer">Oracle SQL Developer</a> (free)</li>\n<li><a href="http://squirrel-sql.sourceforge.net/" rel="noreferrer">SQuirrel SQL</a> (free, open source)</li>\n<li><a href="http://razorsql.com/" rel="noreferrer">Razor SQL</a></li>\n<li><a href="http://www.dbvis.com/" rel="noreferrer">DB Visualizer</a></li>\n<li><a href="http://dbeaver.jkiss.org/" rel="noreferrer">DBeaver</a> (free, open source)</li>\n<li><a href="http://www.sql-workbench.net" rel="noreferrer">SQL Workbench/J</a> (free, open source)</li>\n<li><a href="https://www.jetbrains.com/datagrip/" rel="noreferrer">JetBrains DataGrip</a></li>\n<li><a href="http://www.metabase.com/" rel="noreferrer">Metabase</a> (free, open source)</li>\n<li><a href="https://netbeans.org" rel="noreferrer">Netbeans</a> (free, open source, full development environment)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<h3>Electron-Based</h3>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-develop-use-vscode" rel="noreferrer">Visual Studio Code with mssql extension</a></li>\n<li><a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/azure-data-studio/what-is" rel="noreferrer">Azure Data Studio</a></li>\n<li><a href="https://sqlectron.github.io" rel="noreferrer">SQLectron</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>(TODO: Add others mentioned below)</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 34160, 'author': 'John', 'author_id': 2168, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2168', 'pm_score': 5, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>This will be the second question in a row I\'ve answered with this, so I think it\'s worth pointing out that I have no affiliation with this product, but I use it and love it and think it\'s the right answer to this question too: <a href="http://www.dbvis.com/" rel="noreferrer">DbVisualizer</a>.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 291182, 'author': 'Community', 'author_id': -1, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/-1', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>When this question was asked, Microsoft\'s Remote Desktop for OS X had been unsupported for years. It wasn\'t a Universal Binary, and I found it to be somewhat buggy (I recall that the application will just quit after a failed connection instead of allowing you to alter the connection info and try again).</p>\n\n<p>At the time I recommended the Open Source <a href="http://cord.sourceforge.net/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">CoRD</a>, a good RDP client for Mac. </p>\n\n<p>Since then <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/remote-desktop/default.mspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Microsoft Remote Desktop Client for Mac 2</a> was released.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 814109, 'author': 'Devin Ceartas', 'author_id': 14897, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/14897', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I use the Navicat clients for MySQL and PostgreSQL and am happy with them. "good" is obviously subjective... how do you judge your DB clients? </p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 814113, 'author': 'Alex Martelli', 'author_id': 95810, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/95810', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Not sure about open-source, but I\'ve heard good things about <a href="http://www.advenio.com/sqlgrinder/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.advenio.com/sqlgrinder/</a> (not tried it, I prefer to write Python scripts to try things out rather than use GUIs;-).</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 814152, 'author': 'tooshel', 'author_id': 4835, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4835', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>I thought Sequel Pro for MySQL looked pretty interesting.  It's hard to find one tool that works with all those databases (especially SQL Server 2005 . . . most people use SQL Server Management Studio and that's Windows only of course).</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 814184, 'author': 'Steve Harrison', 'author_id': 48492, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/48492', 'pm_score': -1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>For MySQL, there is <a href="http://www.araelium.com/querious/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Querious</a> and <a href="http://www.sequelpro.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Sequel Pro</a>. The former costs US$25, and the latter is free. You can find a comparison of them <a href="http://theappleblog.com/2009/02/27/mysql-showdown-querious-vs-sequel-pro/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>, and a list of some other Mac OS X MySQL clients <a href="http://theappleblog.com/2009/03/31/eight-more-mysql-apps-for-os-x/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Steve</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 814306, 'author': 'Konstantin', 'author_id': 90033, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/90033', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p><a href="http://www.dbvis.com/" rel="noreferrer">DbVisualizer</a> supports many different databases. There is a free edition that I have used previously. <a href="http://www.dbvis.com/download/" rel="noreferrer">Download from here</a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 817387, 'author': 'eodonohoe', 'author_id': 98868, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/98868', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p><a href="http://squirrel-sql.sourceforge.net" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Squirrel SQL</a> is a Java based SQL client, that I\'ve had good experience with on Windows and Linux. Since it\'s Java, it should do the trick.</p>\n\n<p>It\'s open source. You can run multiple sessions with multiple databases concurrently.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 821392, 'author': 'Jason', 'author_id': 99401, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/99401', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I have had good success over the last two years or so using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navicat" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Navicat</a> for MySQL.\nThe UI could use a little updating, but all of the tools and options they provide make the cost justifiable for me.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 822351, 'author': 'sal', 'author_id': 13753, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/13753', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>I've used Eclipse with the Quantum-DB plugins for that purpose since I was already using Eclipse anyway.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 1182388, 'author': 'philfreo', 'author_id': 137067, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/137067', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I like <a href="http://www.sqlgrinder.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">SQLGrinder</a>.</p>\n\n<p>It\'s built using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_%28API%29" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Cocoa</a>, so it looks a lot better and feels more like an Mac&nbsp;OS&nbsp;X application than all the Java-based application mentioned here.</p>\n\n<p>It uses JDBC drivers to connect to Microsoft SQL&nbsp;Server 2005, FrontBase, MySQL, OpenBase, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and Sybase.</p>\n\n<p>Free trial or $59.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 1946870, 'author': 'user136776', 'author_id': 136776, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/136776', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I use Eclipse\'s Database development plugins - like all Java based SQL editors, it works cross platform with any type 4 (ie pure Java) JDBC driver. It\'s ok for basic stuff (the main failing is it struggles to give transaction control -- auto-commit=true is always set it seems). </p>\n\n<p>Microsoft have a decent JDBC type 4 driver: <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D483869-816A-44CB-9787-A866235EFC7C&amp;displaylang=en" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D483869-816A-44CB-9787-A866235EFC7C&amp;displaylang=en</a>  this can be used with all Java clients / programs on Win/Mac/Lin/etc.</p>\n\n<p>Those people struggling with Java/JDBC on a Mac are presumably trying to use native drivers instead of JDBC ones -- I haven\'t used (or practically heard of) the ODBC driver bridge in almost 10 years.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 2521885, 'author': 'Vijit Coomara', 'author_id': 302368, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/302368', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>When this question was asked there were very few tools out there were worth much. I also ended up using Fusion and a Windows client. I have tried just about everything for MAC and Linux and never found anything worthwhile. That included dbvisualizer, squirrel (particularly bad, even though the windows haters in my office swear by it), the oracle SQL developer and a bunch of others. \nNothing compared to DBArtizan on Windows as far as I was concerned and I was prepared to use it with Fusion or VirtualBox. I don't use the MS product because it is only limited to MS SQL.</p>\n\n<p>Bottom line is nothing free is worthwhile, nor were most commercial non windows products</p>\n\n<p>However, now (March 2010) I believe there are two serious contenders and worthwhile versions for the MAC and Linux which have a low cost associated with them. The first one is Aqua Data Studio which costs about $450 per user, which is a barely acceptable, but cheap compared to DBArtizan and others with similar functionality (but MS only). The other is RazorSQL which only costs $69 per user.\nAqua data studio is good, but a resource hog and basically pretty sluggish and has non essential features such as the ER diagram tool, which is pretty bad at that. The Razor is lightning fast and is only a 16meg download and has everything an SQL developer needs including a TSQL editor.</p>\n\n<p>So the big winner is RazorSQL and for $69, well worth it and feature ridden. Believe me, after several years of waiting to find a cheap non windows substitute for DBartizan, I have finally found one and I have been very picky.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 3222141, 'author': 'uniacid', 'author_id': 388742, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/388742', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I vote for <a href="http://www.razorsql.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">RazorSQL</a> also. It\'s very powerful in many respects and practically supports most databases out there. I mostly use it for SQL&nbsp;Server, MySQL and PostgreSQL.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 3806867, 'author': 'Chuck', 'author_id': 65659, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/65659', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>It may not be the best solution if you don't already have it, but FileMaker 11 with the Actual SQL Server ODBC driver (http://www.actualtech.com/product_sqlserver.php) worked nicely for a client of mine today. The ODBC driver is only $29, but FileMaker is $299, which is why you might only consider it if you already have it.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 3993401, 'author': 'Mark', 'author_id': 483732, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/483732', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I\'ve used (<a href="http://www.dbsolo.com" rel="nofollow">DB Solo</a>) and I like it a lot. It\'s only $99 and comparable to many more expensive tools. It supports Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase, MySQL, PostgreSQL and others.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 4456206, 'author': 'Dx_', 'author_id': 383323, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/383323', 'pm_score': -1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Try CoRD and modify what you want directly from the server.</p>\n\n<p>It\'s open source.</p>\n\n<p><a href="http://cord.sourceforge.net/" rel="nofollow">http://cord.sourceforge.net/</a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 6891632, 'author': 'snovvblind', 'author_id': 854510, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/854510', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>I've been using Oracle SQL Developer since the Microsoft software for SQL Server is not currently available on Mac OS X. It works wonders. I would also recommend RazorSQL or SQLGrinder.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 10287605, 'author': 'TallTed', 'author_id': 241164, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/241164', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>My employer produces a simple, proof-of-concept <a href="http://wikis.openlinksw.com/UdaWikiWeb/HTML5ODBCExplorerSampleProg" rel="noreferrer">HTML5-based SQL client</a> which can be used against any ODBC data source on the web-browser host machine, through the <a href="http://wikis.openlinksw.com/UdaWikiWeb/InstallConfigODBCHTML5Bridge" rel="noreferrer">HTML5 WebDB-to-ODBC Bridge</a> we also produce.  These components are free, for Mac, Windows, and more.</p>\n\n<p>Applicable to many of the other answers here -- the Type 1 JDBC-to-ODBC Bridge that most are referring to is the one Sun built in to and bundled with the JVM.  JVM/JRE/JDK documentation has always advised against using this built-in except in experimental scenarios, or when no other option exists, because this component was built as a proof-of-concept, and was never intended for production use.</p>\n\n<p>My employer makes an enterprise-grade JDBC-to-ODBC Bridge, available as either a <a href="http://uda.openlinksw.com/jdbc-odbc-st/" rel="noreferrer">Single-Tier (installs entirely on the client application host)</a> or a <a href="http://uda.openlinksw.com/jdbc-odbc-mt/" rel="noreferrer">Multi-Tier (splits components over the client application host and the ODBC data source host,</a> enabling JDBC client applications in any JVM to use ODBC data sources on Mac, Windows, Linux, etc.).  This solution isn\'t free.</p>\n\n<p>All of the above can be used with the ODBC Drivers for <a href="http://uda.openlinksw.com/odbc-sqlserver/" rel="noreferrer">Sybase &amp; Microsoft SQL Server</a> (or <a href="http://uda.openlinksw.com/odbc/" rel="noreferrer">other databases</a>) we also produce ... </p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3452', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/437/']