dbForge SQL Tools vs. ER/Studio Data Architect

dbForge SQL Complete is well suited for professionals that have to write code all day. In my role in the business intelligence department we are writing SQL pretty much all day. Having a tool that helps us do that faster, in a cleaner way is pretty awesome and something that pays for itself quickly.

Incentivized

Data Architect is well suited at organizations of all sizes. It is never too early or unnecessary to enforce proper modelling and design standards on data solutions, and this tool will help that greatly by providing an industry leading data modelling tool, ability to import ETL mappings for data lineage, enforcing and managing naming conventions through the naming convention tool, and publishing of data dictionaries through the report publisher. I was successfully able to build models, provide traceability, and document source to target with lineage throughout for both the business (by providing business definitions in the descriptions), and technical teams (by documenting ETL instructions in text fields) along with field level mapping (by creating "Attachments" representing data sources, tables, and fields) providing easy search capabilities using business friendly terms

Incentivized

• SQL complete allows you to create custom snippets that allow you to store frequently ran queries in shortcuts. The code can be populated within seconds!
• Another great benefit is custom aliases. If you frequently reference the same tables over and over again it gets tiresome to retype the aliases. Storing these can make your code more consistent and save time.
• SQL complete will also highlight the metadata within your database. For example, if you start typing an insert statement you populate code for all the field names by pressing the tab. This is a real-time saver for wide tables!

Incentivized

• ER/Studio has the ability to provide consistent field names and data types through domains, which are templates. This provides a way to have consistent naming of common fields, like CreatedBy and the data types for the fields. They also have the ability to change all the fields that use that domain to a different data type.
• ER/Studio provides the ability to create custom macros. These macros can be used to apply everything from standard fields based on domains to naming all constraints and indexes. I've also used a macro that comes with ER/Studio to spell check field and table names.
• My favorite feature is the ability to compare your data model to databases for deployments of changes, and to other data models.

Incentivized

• Sometimes it can be slow to retrieve the database metadata.
• Updating the software with the activation/deactivation of licenses could be further streamlined.

Incentivized

• ER\Studio licensing can be cumbersome and upgrading from one version to another usually takes several phone calls and emails to the licensing group to get the update installed and running.
• The repository can be slow when the model count gets larger. By large I mean 20 to 30 models.
• A nice feature that I would like to see is table comments be displayed on the model along with the attributes. Currently you have to choose between the two.

Incentivized

I can call or email support and both get quick turn around. The only issue is they are on the west coast (US) and have a west coast work schedule and I'm on the East coast.

Incentivized

I am very satisfied after using this tool. It is a full-stack tool that includes rich features that can be customized set of functionality as per your need. by using this tool:-

• Increased our productivity rate.
• Provides speed up your development work so you can focus on other stuff.

ER/Studio is the most mature, reach in features and quality and therefore useful. Unfortunately, it lacks compatibility with AWS Redshift.

Incentivized

• Spending less time trying to figure out how tables are related thanks to the navigational help in dbForge SQL Complete, which means fixing issues takes less time.

Incentivized

• ER/Studio has had a positive impact on my project as we can develop the data model and have a clear understanding of business needs before we continue with the development phase.

Incentivized