OK, I’m not a big fan of paying for some of the tools out there for MySQL. That said, I’m considering a purchase of Navicat. I’ve seen links for it everytime I do a SQL google, but generally paid no mind. Sounded too much like a tractor or GPS. I got past that and actually downloaded the thirty day trial.

I’ve used MySQL-Front and PHPMyAdmin on Windows, and CocoaMySQL and YourSQL on the Mac. Using a web based (PHPMyAdmin) works for small stuff, but when I start grinding on large quantities of data, it’s a bit lacking. MySQL-Front is a better, and works well, but I almost fell out of my chair when I fired up the demo of Navicat. Two licenses (one for the mac and one for the windows box, maybe another for a linux box if the urge ever strikes again.) are a bit much, but I’m seriously thinking about it.

Things about Navicat I like:

• Snappy performance. Returns top 1000 faster than MySQL-Front.
• Doesn’t bark error messages at me in German. (Achtung! Du bist ein quatchkopf!)
• Support for stored procedures and scheduled tasks!
• A report writer (I’ll have to test this one out).

Things about Navicat I’m not too thrilled about.

• Icons are butt-ugly.
• Report writer appears to be Windows only (booo! hssss!)

The interface, while sporting those ugly icons, is much easier to work in than the admin stuff MySQL releases. Now that I’ve been taken in by the apparent ease of use, I’ll have to try and break things like only I can do and see how it goes.