DbGate — an feature rich alternative to Beekeeper Studio

Are you using Beekeeper Studio and looking for more? Annoyed by its limits everywhere, opening empty tabs with upgrade prompts, upsell buttons everywhere and very limited functionality?

Almost all features, which are in Beekeeper Studio behind paywall, are free in DbGate Community edition. In addition, DbGate offers more advaced features in DbGate Premium. DbGate also supports both SQL and NoSQL databases, while Beekeeper Studio focuses mainly on SQL databases.

Why teams choose DbGate over Beekeeper Studio

Desktop and Web flexibility. While Beekeeper Studio offers desktop apps, DbGate gives you both native desktop apps (Win/macOS/Linux) and a browser-based Web UI — even in the Free Community edition. Access your databases from anywhere without installing software.

Powerful data browsing & editing. Advanced grid features like unlimited filtering, master-detail views, bulk updates and query designer.

Export/import jobs - export/import large datasets in many formats (CSV, JSON, XML, Excel, SQL) with scripting and automation capabilities.

Unified SQL & NoSQL experience. Work across relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle) and NoSQL databases (MongoDB, Redis) with consistent tooling and workflows. Powerful Redis support.

Deployment flexibility. Run on desktops, self-host with Docker, as NPM package, or choose fully managed Azure or AWS Editions — same features, different operational models to match your infrastructure.

What makes DbGate similar to Beekeeper Studio

In fact, DbGate and Beekeeper Studio share a very similar story. Both projects were started around 2017–2018 by independent developers as fully free, open-source database management tools built with modern web technologies (Electron, TypeScript/JavaScript). Both emphasize a clean, user-friendly interface for working with databases. But real-world pressure—maintenance costs, support demands, and the need for long-term sustainability—eventually forced them to move beyond the original idealistic “100% free” model and adopt a freemium approach, introducing paid editions with advanced features for professional and enterprise users.

Conslusion: Why DbGate is a better Beekeeper Studio alternative

In fact, there is very small number of reasons, why someone could choose Beekeeper Studio over DbGate. If you need work with Trino or TiDB databases, Beekeeper Studio supports them, while DbGate does not (yet). In all other aspects, DbGate beats Beekeeper Studio as a more powerful, flexible, and collaborative database management solution that meets the needs of modern development teams and enterprises.