I finally moved from Sequel Pro to Sequel Ace. Sequel Pro hasn’t been updated in years. It mostly worked but did have some annoying problems. During a recent OS and app reinstall, I found that Sequel Pro was no longer available on Homebrew, so I went for Sequel Ace, a fork that is still maintained. It is very similar but improved. I like it.
Sequel Pro and Ace are both open source GUIs for working with MySQL databases. They can show query results in a grid sort of like an Excel file. I had experimented with using the command line for database operations, but it is just too hard and slow to read large amounts of data and navigate through it frequently. The GUI also makes quick changes to a displayed set of data a lot easier.
I don’t remember choosing Sequel Pro whenever I first did, but one reason I would’ve is that it allows MySQL connections through SSH, so that I can lock down the server more. That was done at Cogneato even before I got there and I’ve done the same for my servers when I moved to VPSs.
When Sequel Pro stopped getting updates I looked a bit at other options. I had seen Sequel Ace was a fork and possible successor a while back, but wasn’t sure if I could trust it. At this point it definitely has developer movement behind it and it’s available on Homebrew. Not having Pro available anymore pushed me over the edge.
I wasn’t able to copy my settings from Pro since I hadn’t exported them before the switch, but if I were planning it, I could’ve exported and then imported. At least Ace has roughly the same interface for configuring connections. One issue I ran into: Ace has more locked down local file access, so I had to add my ssh config and public key in the preferences.
Ace looks a lot like Pro but a little more refined. My biggest issue with Pro was fixed in Ace: Crashing when closing tabs or windows. Also fixed: In Pro I wasn’t able to make some changes to my saved queries. I’m sure there are others I don’t remember.
A new feature (or at least I don’t remember it in Pro) is an ability to add a “trigger” for a saved query, where typing configured characters and then pressing tab will convert to a saved query. This speeds up running frequently run queries a lot if I can remember my triggers. Accessing them is slow otherwise. There is also dark mode support and some polishing to the interface. Looks like there are some speed and a few other minor improvements here and there, some things I haven’t used.
Sequel Ace is pretty much Sequel Pro with some fixes, improvements, and continued development. I kinda wish now I had jumped over sooner, but it’s hard to know where things are going when an open source project just dies. Hopefully Sequel Ace keeps going.