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I'm currently working a lot with Google Big Query and I absolutely hate querying in-browser. I'm used to connect to regular DB's through editors like Toad, Microsoft SQL Studio, Teradata Studio Express or Databeaver. I'm look for a similar tool that you guys would recommend for using on Google Big Query.

Only alternative I've found so far are razorsql and jetbrains datagrip (whereas the latter requires a custom connection (https://blog.jetbrains.com/datagrip/2018/07/10/using-bigquery-from-intellij-based-ide/)

Any idea's on alternatives out there?

Thanks in advance

romanoww
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    Are you referring to the [BigQuery editor that is part of the Cloud Console](https://console.cloud.google.com/bigquery)? If there are things that you don't like, or features that you would want to see, you can use the [issue tracker](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/new?component=187149&template=0) to submit a request. – Elliott Brossard Oct 15 '18 at 14:20
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    I did get the DataGrip custom connection working, and it works fines for interactively running queries or browsing objects. However, I was disappointed to see that if I used "source editor" or tried to generate a DDL for a view, it could not pull up the source code. Likewise, generated DDL scripts from tables were not in the appropriate BigQuery SQL Dialect. – Chris Lalande Oct 23 '20 at 20:29
  • I agree the Cloud Console is really not usable. It's cluttered and non responsive. – Giacomo Jan 26 '21 at 12:16

4 Answers4

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There's a thread on reddit with some recommendations. I personally like the UI and there's a new UI coming (but doesn't seem to change much in functionality, only styling).

Some of the recommendations are:

  1. DataGrip
  2. Aquafold
  3. Metabase
  4. Potens
  5. PopSql

Plus a few other tools that aren't RDMBs per se but have the components to "run queries" not in the UI, like Mode Analytics.

I haven't personally used any of them, but take it for a spin and see which one you like the most! (share your insights here later as I'm also curious about it)

FKrauss
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  • Thanks for your input - I'll need to convince IT/Security to open up our software center and add these options, but will definitely give it a go. Any idea whether any of these tools could be integrated with a Python Interpreter? – romanoww Oct 25 '18 at 10:46
  • Maybe datagrip + pycharm would give you that (as they are both from Jetbrains). but I'm speculating here. I don't really know – FKrauss Oct 25 '18 at 11:04
  • I just bumped into this one, maybe useful to you - https://www.reddit.com/r/bigquery/comments/9slxbb/github_googlevscodebigquery_a_visual_studio_code/ – FKrauss Oct 30 '18 at 11:45
  • superquery.io Nice stuff – Alexandr Fruman Oct 03 '21 at 08:03
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I'd recommend http://potens.io/, specifically Goliath which a great tool for data exploration. My team of ~20 non engineers uses Potens for data exploration and user friendly workflow automation (Magnus). Let me know if you have any questions.

Steven Ohrnstein
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  • Thanks for your input, the fact that they are actually a certified GCP partner might ease the process of requesting permission to try out this software. – romanoww Oct 25 '18 at 10:48
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    The first thing the potens website asks is full permission to all your cloud data even before I can register for a trial. This is a big red flag for me to use this tool. Why do I need to give these permissions before I can even start to download the client tool. – woens Nov 26 '19 at 14:22
  • @woens - when you use first time Google BigQuery UI - you are giving same permissions - otherwise Google would not be able to support features of the UI! If before you grant thos permissions to Potens, you want to explore its features and make decision to use or not to use - just follow this link https://potensio.zendesk.com to see all documentations, tutorials and respective videos. Also, have in mind - when you grant permissions to application - you then can revoke them any time from within your respective Google account. Long story short - I really recommend you to at least to try! – Mikhail Berlyant Apr 28 '20 at 17:11
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I tried PopSQL (popsql.com) which looks like a nice alternative for the Web-UI and has the best Bigquery support of all the other tools. However it does not have many features and is not much better than the Web-UI. The main advantage is you can organise your stored-queries better, as you can use folders instead of the long list of stored queries in the webui.

There are some cons however: There is no autocomplete with table names and attribute names, and it does not have "save" buttons so you overwrite everything and sometimes things are not saved at all. It feels a bit beta, with some bugs and raw edges, so the payed full version is overpriced. The free version can only save 15 or so queries so it is of no use.

As for the other options I have tried: Datagrip does not have a bigquery driver. There are some hacks to write your own driver but this has limited support.

woens
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Currently there is no official independent editor for BigQuery, but the BigQuery Web UI that you can use as the graphical web UI to query your data. However, you can file a feature request per instructions at Report Bugs and Request Features with Issue Trackers to request the independent editor tool for BigQuery.

JL-HaiNan
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