pgBrain

Pro PostgreSQL for macOS. Native. Mac-fast. No Electron. No subscriptions. No telemetry.

If JetBrains DataGrip and macOS had a kid that actually feels like a Mac app, you'd get pgBrain.

Why

JetBrains tools are powerful but feel like a Java app glued to your menu bar. The Postgres GUIs that do feel Mac-native are either toy projects or stuck circa 2017. pgBrain is the missing middle — DataGrip-density workflows in a SwiftUI/AppKit shell that respects your trackpad, your dark mode, and your battery.

What's in the box

Windows, tabs & navigation

• 🪟 One window per connection. Connection windows, multi-tab workspaces, JetBrains-style tab strip with drag-reorder, renameable + colour-taggable tabs.
• 🗂️ Schema sidebar. Tree of database → schemas → tables → columns → functions. Trie-indexed filter that holds up on 10k+ tables. Per-connection schema-visibility toggles.
• ⌨️ Command palette (⌘K). Fuzzy-ranked across connections, tabs, tables, functions, schemas, ERDs, and every action.
• 🧭 IDE keyboard model. ⌘T new scratchpad, ⌘1–9 tab jump, ⌃1–9 window jump, ⌘B sidebar, ⌘R reload, ⌘F find — the muscle memory you already have.
• 💾 Saved workspaces + state restoration. Snapshot a tab set, or just quit and relaunch to find every window and tab where you left it.

Reading & editing data

• 📋 Editable data grid. Double-click any cell with a PK, edit, Apply — one transaction with server-side type casts. ⌘Z undo, type-aware editors (date pickers, bool toggles, JSON), per-column width memory.
• 📇 Row form view. Flip any grid to a single-row vertical form with ←/→ stepping — edits share the grid's dirty set.
• 🔎 Filter, sort, paginate. WHERE/ORDER BY strip with autocomplete, sortable headers, keyset-friendly paging, filter-to-cell, distinct-values popover per column, FK ⌘-click navigation.
• 📊 Pivot & chart. Pivot any result (row/col/value + agg) or chart it (bar/line/point) without leaving the result block.
• 🪄 Generate test data. Per-column strategies → one INSERT … SELECT generate_series with a live SQL preview.
• 🧮 Column profiler. Right-click any column → rows / nulls (with a populated bar) / distinct / min·max·avg, scoped to your active filter.
• 🗑️ Delete rows — staged, not instant. Right-click one or a multi-selection → rows get a red wash and commit on Apply, in the same transaction as your edits and inserts (or Revert to undo). Refuses tables without a PK.
• 📑 Copy as… Markdown, JSON, TSV (paste into spreadsheets), or CSV — from any result block or the table grid.

The notebook scratchpad

• 📝 Inline results. SQL and result widgets in one flowing document. Cmd+⏎ runs the statement under your caret; the result inlines right after it. JetBrains feel, Jupyter ergonomics.
• 🐘 psql slash commands. \dt, \d table, \df, \du, \l, \dn, \dx … translated to catalog queries inline.
• 🔁 Run-as-transaction. Wrap a multi-statement run in BEGIN/COMMIT — any error rolls the whole batch back.
• ✨ Editor niceties. Syntax highlighting, schema-aware autocomplete + hover, bracket/quote auto-pairing, auto-indent, Format SQL, EXPLAIN/EXPLAIN ANALYZE plan viewer, find/replace, snippets with $cursor$ placeholders, open/save .sql.
• 📜 Query history + result diff. Every statement logged with timing; diff the last two results side-by-side.

DBA & schema management

• 🏗️ Structure pane. Columns, constraints, indexes, triggers (enable/disable/drop), partitions, comments editor — plus a Copy-ready CREATE script.
• 🎛️ Table Designer. One visual editor for creating and restructuring tables — add/rename/retype/drop columns, NOT NULL, primary key, defaults, comments — with a live ALTER TABLE diff that applies atomically in one transaction. ("Edit structure…" on a table, or ⌘K.)
• 🧩 Function Designer + runner. One editor to create and restructure functions/procedures — schema · name · args · returns · language · volatility · strict · security, over a body editor with a live CREATE OR REPLACE preview; signature changes DROP + recreate in one transaction, and functions with attributes the form can't model fall back to full-DDL editing so nothing is lost. Right-click → Run (or Call) any routine to fill its parameters and execute it inline.
• ✏️ Edit objects. View/matview editor, column ALTER (rename/type/drop/add), schema + database CRUD, sequence inspector (setval/nextval/restart).
• 🧹 Maintenance. VACUUM / ANALYZE / REINDEX / TRUNCATE / REFRESH MATERIALIZED VIEW from the sidebar, tracked in the ops popover.
• 🗺️ ERD diagram. Draggable table boxes, FK lines, double-click to open.
• 🔗 Find usages. Locate a table across every function body, view definition, and trigger.
• 🔐 Roles & grants. Browse pg_roles, view per-table grants, GRANT/REVOKE editor.
• 📈 Live activity panels. Sessions, locks, index usage, pg_stat_statements, size dashboard, replication (pubs/subs/slots), foreign tables/FDW.
• 📡 LISTEN/NOTIFY console. Subscribe to a channel, watch payloads stream in, send NOTIFYs back.

Safety, transport & ops

• 🛑 Production guardrails. Mark a connection PROD → red chrome everywhere; unscoped DELETE/UPDATE/TRUNCATE/DDL prompts before it runs.
• 🔒 SSH tunnels. Per-connection local-forward via the system ssh (agent or key-file auth).
• ⏯️ Real cancellation. Cancel actually stops the server-side query via a sister-connection pg_cancel_backend(pid) — same trick psql uses on ^C.
• ↔️ Cross-DB copy. Stream a table between connections via SELECT → COPY FROM STDIN. Flat memory regardless of row count.
• 📤📥 Streaming export/import. CSV/JSON/SQL export at any size; CSV/JSON import with header→column mapping; auto-discovering pg_dump wrapper.
• 🔔 Long-query notifications. Background queries over 30s ping you when they finish.
• ⚙️ Sparkle auto-update. Signed + notarized; updates land daily without a click.

Download

→ Latest release (DMG)

1. Open the DMG, drag pgBrain onto Applications.
2. Launch pgBrain.
3. Add your first connection on the Welcome window.

Signed with our Developer ID and notarized by Apple. Auto-updates via Sparkle so you only download once.

Requires

• macOS 15 Sequoia or newer
• Apple Silicon Mac (arm64)

Support the work

pgBrain is built by Lukáš Novotný at Souris.CLOUD — one human, no VC. If pgBrain saves you an hour, buy me a coffee. ☕

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/souriscloud/pgbrain.git
cd pgbrain
./scripts/run.sh                # debug build + bundle + launch
./scripts/bundle.sh release     # release build → build/pgBrain.app

Pure SwiftPM. No Xcode project — though you can open the package in Xcode if you want a graphical debugger. See CLAUDE.md for full architecture, conventions, and dependency tree. See PLAN.md for the iteration-by-iteration changelog.

Releasing

See RELEASE.md. One command (./scripts/release.sh patch) does bump → bundle → codesign → notarize → DMG → sign update → push → publish.

License

AGPL-3.0. If you fork it, fork it loud.

Links

• 🌐 apps.souris.cloud/apps/pgbrain
• 🧑‍💻 github.com/souriscloud/pgbrain
• ☕ ko-fi.com/souriscloud
• 🐦 bio.souris.cloud