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I've only used phpMyAdmin but then I stumbled upon MySQL Workbench that looks promising.

I wonder if someone has tried it out and could give your thoughts about it compared to phpMyAdmin.

Could it replace phpMyAdmin completely?

Daniel Vassallo
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never_had_a_name
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  • Whats the platform you are working with? Windows, Mac, Linux? – Neale Apr 18 '10 at 20:01
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    @ neale. why does platform matter? there is workbench for every platform. phpmyadmin is by default cross platform. – Stann Mar 13 '11 at 18:19

6 Answers6

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Could it replace phpmyadmin completely?

Yes it can. Actually you get much more control in Workbench, especially on the administration side. Probably the main advantage of phpMyAdmin is in its web user interface, which in some cases can be more convenient than the Workbench client.

Daniel Vassallo
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Workbench is very nice if you need to visualize your table relationships, basically that's the only thing I've used it for, but I believe phpmyadmin also supports that now, through a java applet?, it's called Designer view.

You can access it by clicking on your database in the left-hand frame, and then clicking on the Designer tab.

Also, keep in mind that there are limitations on the free versions, like it cannot reverse engineer existing databases.

K. Norbert
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  • If you click on your database in the left-side frame, there will be a tab called Designer, which will show the relationships between your tables. Now that I look at it completely in HTML, don't know why I assumed it's Java. – K. Norbert Apr 18 '10 at 19:01
  • ok so that just visualize my table relationships. pretty good feature. but i guess you cant draw your tables and then create them? you can do that with workbench? – never_had_a_name Apr 18 '10 at 19:27
  • Nope, it's not that advanced in this regard. – K. Norbert Apr 18 '10 at 19:44
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I do use MySQL Workbench. I think it has come a long way since its early versions and it's an effective substitute for phpMyAdmin.

I'd use phpMyAdmin mainly for a webhosting environment, if your client PC is not allowed to connect directly to the MySQL server, but a web app in that server environment is allowed to.

Bill Karwin
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  • has workbench completely replaced phpmyadmin when it comes to features? does phpmyadmin has features that you would like to have in workbench? – never_had_a_name Apr 18 '10 at 19:23
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    Everything I need is supported by Workbench, but YMMV. I don't know if there's a one-for-one matching of features between the two products. – Bill Karwin Apr 18 '10 at 19:40
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http://www.sqlbuddy.com/ is pretty awesome too. Lighter-weight for just looking at your tables. Great UI too.

Alex Mcp
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DB Visualizer is my cross-platform, cross-DB tool of choice - it also has good reverse engineering and visualisation (duh!) support.

Andy
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I'm beginning to get my hands dirty with MySQL Workbench 5. So far, it's rather comprehensive for a non-web interface client. I'm augmenting our MySQL environment with phpMyAdmin because we do web hosting. I find phpMyAdmin to be intuitive for our customers.

William
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