sqlit

sqlit is a database client that runs in your terminal. Connect to SQL Server, MySQL, Postgres, SQLite, or Turso, browse tables, run queries, and read results in a formatted grid, all from the keyboard. No browser, no Electron shell, no login. MIT licensed and written in Python.

Install is a pip command and you are connected. One unified interface across every backend it supports is the actual selling point, because moving between a Postgres project and a SQL Server project stops meaning moving between tools. It is under active development, with releases landing steadily through 2026.

Completely free, with no paid tier and no hosted version. Solo: excellent for quick checks without waiting for a heavy GUI to load. Small teams: good for developers who live in the terminal and want data in front of them fast. Medium and large: this is a personal productivity tool rather than a team platform, so shared database management still wants dbeaver/dbeaver or something web-based with access control.

The catch is that it is early and thin next to the mature tools. No saved queries, no ER diagrams, no export wizards. It is a browser, not a workbench. It will not replace DataGrip or DBeaver for schema work, but for the twenty times a day you just need to look at a table, it opens instantly and gets out of the way.