Show HN: Base, an SQLite database editor for macOS
41 comments
·August 25, 2025thomasqbrady
I've been using Base for [checks... considers retirement] about 15 years!? It's ALWAYS been great, AND has improved over time.
DwnVoteHoneyPot
Useful comment because I always assume these "Show HN" products are minimally viable... whereas, it's good to know it's been battle tested for at least 15 years.
earthnail
It would be amazing if it could display UUIDs. SQlite doesn't support them natively, but many people store them as binary blobs.
Jetbrains products realize that these binary values are UUIDs and let me edit them easily.
packetlost
What does this offer over sqlitebrowser? https://sqlitebrowser.org/
vsl
Polish and decent UI...
WhitneyLand
Base is nicely done, I’ve found it worthwhile over other options.
jen20
A nicer user interface. Personally I use datagrip but I want to encourage real native Mac software so will likely buy this anyway.
p_ing
Prettier UI?
colesantiago
sqlitebrowser is 100% open source, cross platform and free.
I don't think Base is at all and only supports macOS
Gelob
wondering the same thing
markusw
I've just tried it out, looks nice!
I've been using TablePlus a lot, but there are some SQLite-specific features I'd really like to have in an app:
- Foreign keys enabled by default, so I don't have to remember to enable that in every session. - Support for loading extensions automatically. I'm using sqlite-vec for example. Right now, browsing virtual tables for that just doesn't show that much, and executing a query just results in "no such module: vec0"
I'll keep an eye on the project. :-)
al_borland
I was looking for something like this a few months ago and was having trouble surfacing anything. This looks nice. My work is pretty conservative on allowing me to use something like this, but I will definitely be noting it down for my next personal project where this would be helpful.
wulfstan
I bought your app in 2010 and use it regularly. Thanks for making it!
gwbas1c
> Create and modify tables with ease using Base's visual table editor. No need to write complex CREATE or ALTER statements.
I'm trying to understand who your target audience is? Normally, I think of SQLite as something that only a programmer would use. (And thus these kind of statements happen within an application.)
What kind of use cases are you handling where someone is manually creating / changing a schema?
> Import data from CSV and SQL dump files. Export your results to SQL, delimited text, JSON, and Excel formats.
IE, who's using SQLite in this way, and what are they using it for?
jraph
You call do everything with the sqlite cli tool, but GUIs are very convenient to explore and play with the databases.
I have regularly used sqlitebrowser. You can even get create table statements corresponding to tables you have drafted with it, and you can copy-paste these statements in your code. Or build and test a sql statement incrementally, and paste it in your code when you are happy.
Or even to plain browse data, explore database from other tools, etc. There are a lot of occasions where such a tool can be convenient.
criddell
> without it turning into a massive IDE-style app
Is that another way of saying you don't want to make MS Access?
I still use Access quite a bit and I think it's pretty great. It's too bad that nothing like that exists for modern databases.
vahid4m
Does apple allow you to to sell both through App Store and direct through another payment echo system? I thought they are more strict than that.
__bb
Yes, it's OK to do that, but not to cross the streams. You can't advertise direct purchases from the Mac App Store version.
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TheJoeMan
May I ask what you are using on the backend for verifying the web purchases? Is it a key, or online activation once downloaded?
__bb
I use Paddle (https://paddle.com/) as merchant of record because I don't want to deal with the paperwork of doing more myself. In practical terms, it's a key emailed after purchase.
robinhood
Looks super nice. Congrats on the launch. Personally I use Harlequin, the TUI SQL tool, which works best for me. I don't really GUI for these kind of tools, but I can understand the value for some. Wishing you all the success with this new version.
__bb
Thank you, that's very kind. I've always like the idea of TUIs, but found it hard to get used to them.
I recently released v3 of Base, my SQLite editor for macOS.
The goal of this app is to provide a comfortable native GUI for SQLite, without it turning into a massive IDE-style app.
The coolest features are
- That it can handle full altering of tables, which is quite finicky to do manually with SQLite.
- It has a more detailed display of column constraints than most editors. Each constraint is shown as an icon if active, with full details available on clicking the icon.
This update also adds support for attaching databases, which is a bit fiddly with macOS sandboxing.
I'd love to hear any feedback or answer any questions.