6 Best Sequel Pro Alternatives in 2026
Six Sequel Pro alternatives for macOS compared on MySQL support, lightness and upkeep, including the fork that replaced it.
Updated 20 September 2026. Prices checked 20 August 2026 against each vendor’s own pricing page.
- Try SaturnSQL freeSaturnSQL€19/user/mo
Teams whose Sequel Pro queries became a shared responsibility
- Sequel AceFree
The drop-in successor — same feel, actively maintained
- TablePlus$99 once
The modern Mac-native upgrade, beyond MySQL
- DBeaverFree / $113/yr
Free and multi-engine, if you can live with the weight
- Beekeeper StudioFree / $9/mo
The closest to Sequel Pro’s spirit among modern open source clients
- DataGripFree non-commercial / €259/yr
Trading lightness for a full database IDE
Feature comparison
| SaturnSQL | Sequel Pro | Sequel Ace | TablePlus | DBeaver | Beekeeper Studio | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actively maintained | ✓ | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Browser-based | ✓ | — | — | — | — | — |
| Free tier* | ~ | ✓ | ✓ | ~ | ✓ | ~ |
| Shared query library | ✓ Paid | — | — | — | — | — |
| Scheduled queries | ✓ Paid | — | — | — | — | — |
| Export to Google Sheets | ✓ Paid | — | — | — | — | — |
| Send to Slack | ✓ Paid | — | — | — | — | — |
| Schema autocomplete | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MySQL / MariaDB | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| PostgreSQL | ✓ | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| SQL Server | ✓ | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| ClickHouse | ✓ | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| BigQuery | ✓ | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Runs on Windows / Linux | ✓ | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Licence model | Subscription | Free (dead) | Free | Perpetual | Free / sub | Free / sub |
| Starting price | €19/mo | Free | Free | $99 once | Free | Free / $9/mo |
✓ available · ✓ Paid = not on the free tier · Pro (beta) = Pro plan, limited beta · ~ partial · ? not documented by the vendor · — not available
- Free tier: Beekeeper CE is licensed only for organisations under 10 staff and under $1M revenue. TablePlus caps the free tier at 2 open tabs. SaturnSQL’s free tier is 1 connection and 1 saved query.
Prices checked 20 August 2026 against each vendor’s own pricing page: SaturnSQL · Sequel Pro · Sequel Ace · TablePlus · DBeaver · Beekeeper Studio.
Why Sequel Pro needs replacing
Sequel Pro is not getting an update. The last stable release was 1.1.2 in April 2016, the repository has been quiet for years, and the official website is now offline entirely. If it still runs on your machine, you are living on borrowed time with modern MySQL versions and macOS releases.
The good news is that this is the easiest alternatives page we have ever written: a community fork called Sequel Ace exists, it is free, and it is exactly Sequel Pro brought up to date. The rest of the list is for people using the occasion to upgrade — to more engines, to a paid-but-faster native app, or to a shared team workspace.
The 6 best Sequel Pro alternatives
SaturnSQL
Best for: Teams whose Sequel Pro queries became a shared responsibilitySaturnSQL is a browser-based SQL editor with a shared query library and scheduled delivery to Google Sheets and Slack — the team layer no desktop client on this list has, on macOS or anywhere else.
Strong
- + Nothing to install, works the same on every OS
- + Shared query library, so a query lives with the team rather than one laptop
- + Scheduled delivery to Google Sheets and Slack at minute-level precision
- + Not MySQL-only: PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, Redshift, ClickHouse, BigQuery too
- + Hosted MCP server, so Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor can query your databases
Limits
- − A subscription, where Sequel Ace is simply free
- − Slower than a native Mac app for pure table browsing
- − No self-hosting, and the free tier is a demo: 1 connection, 1 saved query
Pricing: Starter €19 per user per month, including scheduling. Pro €29 is in limited beta. Free tier is 1 connection and 1 saved query with no sharing. pricing page, checked 3 August 2026.
Sequel Ace
Best for: The drop-in successor — same feel, actively maintainedSequel Ace is the community fork of Sequel Pro: free, MIT-licensed, distributed through the Mac App Store and Homebrew, and actively maintained for modern macOS and MySQL — if you want Sequel Pro back, this is the answer.
Strong
- + Free and open source (MIT), no licence to think about
- + Same familiar interface, updated for modern macOS and MySQL/MariaDB
- + Installed from the Mac App Store or Homebrew in a minute
Limits
- − MySQL and MariaDB only, like the original
- − macOS only
- − No team features, no scheduling, no shared library
Pricing: Free and open source under the MIT licence. macOS 12+ (Intel and Apple Silicon), via the Mac App Store or Homebrew. pricing page, checked 20 August 2026.
TablePlus
Best for: The modern Mac-native upgrade, beyond MySQLTablePlus is what many Sequel Pro users graduated to: a fast native Mac app with the same directness, far more engines, and a perpetual licence from $99 — with a free tier capped at 2 open tabs.
Strong
- + Genuinely fast and Mac-native (Windows and Linux too)
- + Wide engine support: PostgreSQL, SQLite, Oracle, MongoDB and more
- + Perpetual licence, so it keeps working after the update year ends
Limits
- − Free tier caps you at 2 open tabs and 2 windows at once
- − Single seat: no shared query library, no team workspace
- − No scheduled queries and no delivery to Sheets or Slack
Pricing: Basic $99 for one device, Standard $129 for two, Team $79 per seat starting at three seats. All perpetual, each including one year of updates and support. pricing page, checked 8 August 2026.
DBeaver
Best for: Free and multi-engine, if you can live with the weightDBeaver Community Edition is free, open source and supports nearly every database that exists — the opposite trade from Sequel Pro’s light, MySQL-only focus, and the standard free answer once you touch more than MySQL.
Strong
- + Community Edition is free and open source, with no seat or device limit
- + Supports nearly every engine
- + ER diagrams, data transfer and SQL formatting built in
Limits
- − Java-based and heavy — nothing like Sequel Pro’s lightness
- − Desktop only, no shared query library
- − No scheduled delivery to Sheets or Slack
Pricing: Community Edition free. Lite $113 per year. Enterprise $255 per year. Ultimate $510 per year. pricing page, checked 3 August 2026.
Beekeeper Studio
Best for: The closest to Sequel Pro’s spirit among modern open source clientsBeekeeper Studio is a clean, local-first desktop client with an open source core that carries Sequel Pro’s minimalist spirit, though its free Community Edition is licensed only for organisations under 10 employees and under $1M revenue.
Strong
- + Clean modern interface, local-first, nothing leaves your machine
- + Cheapest paid desktop option at $9 per month billed annually
- + Open source core, cross-platform
Limits
- − Community Edition is not licensed for most real companies
- − Fewer engines than TablePlus or DBeaver
- − No shared library, no scheduled delivery
Pricing: Community Edition free, but licensed only for organisations under 10 employees and under $1M revenue. Indie $9 per month billed annually. Pro $14 per month billed annually. pricing page, checked 3 August 2026.
DataGrip
Best for: Trading lightness for a full database IDEDataGrip is JetBrains’ database IDE with refactoring, inspections and version control built in — the maximalist end of this list, and free for non-commercial use since October 2025.
Strong
- + Free for non-commercial use since October 2025
- + IntelliJ-grade code intelligence, refactoring and inspections
- + Version control integration for SQL files
Limits
- − Heavier and slower to start than any Mac-native client here
- − The free licence cannot be used for commercial work
- − Single-user IDE: no shared library, no scheduling
Pricing: Free for non-commercial use since October 2025, renewed annually and requiring anonymised usage telemetry. Organisations pay €259 per user per year, with a perpetual fallback licence after 12 months. pricing page, checked 3 August 2026.
If the problem is not the client
Sequel Pro’s queries lived on one Mac, and every desktop tool above keeps that shape. If your team has grown around those queries — the same SQL rewritten by three people, the weekly numbers still exported by hand — swapping one client for another fixes none of it.
That is the case for a browser-based tool instead. SaturnSQL keeps queries in a shared library the whole team can read, and can run a saved query on a schedule and push the rows into Google Sheets or Slack. If you are one person browsing one MySQL database on one Mac, install Sequel Ace and be happy — it is free and it is the true successor.
How we judged
We ranked on how well each tool serves a Sequel Pro user in 2026: MySQL/MariaDB support, lightness on macOS, and whether the project is actually alive. Sequel Pro’s abandonment and Sequel Ace’s status were verified on 20 August 2026 (last Sequel Pro release April 2016; sequelpro.com no longer resolves). DBeaver, DataGrip and Beekeeper figures were verified on 3 August 2026 and TablePlus on 8 August 2026, each linked from its entry above. See also our TablePlus alternatives roundup and the best SQL clients for Mac.
Frequently asked questions
Is Sequel Pro dead?
Effectively, yes. The last stable release was 1.1.2 in April 2016, the repository has been inactive for years, and as of August 2026 the official website no longer resolves at all. It still launches for some people on older systems, but it has known problems with modern MySQL versions and macOS releases, and nobody is fixing them.
What replaced Sequel Pro?
Sequel Ace. It is a community fork of Sequel Pro — same interface, same MySQL/MariaDB focus, same free-and-open-source model (MIT licence) — actively maintained and distributed through the Mac App Store and Homebrew. If all you want is Sequel Pro that works on a modern Mac, install Sequel Ace and stop reading.
What is the best free Sequel Pro alternative?
Sequel Ace, full stop, if MySQL on macOS is your world. If you also touch PostgreSQL, SQL Server or a data warehouse, DBeaver Community Edition is free and covers everything at the cost of a heavier app.
Is Sequel Ace safe to use?
Yes. It is open source under the MIT licence, developed publicly on GitHub, and distributed through the Mac App Store, which means it is sandboxed and code-signed. It supports modern macOS on both Intel and Apple Silicon.
Is there a browser-based alternative to Sequel Pro?
Yes. SaturnSQL runs in the browser, so it works on any OS and adds what no desktop client has: a shared team query library, scheduled queries with delivery to Google Sheets and Slack, and support for PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, Redshift, ClickHouse and BigQuery alongside MySQL. For solo table-browsing, Sequel Ace is lighter; for shared and recurring query work, the browser tool wins.
Is there a Sequel Pro alternative that works with Claude or ChatGPT?
Yes. SaturnSQL includes a hosted MCP server on the Starter plan. Add https://mcp.saturnsql.com/mcp to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Claude Code, sign in with your SaturnSQL account, and the assistant can list your connections, read schemas and run queries with the same row limits as the editor. It never sees your database passwords, and no API key is needed.
Shared queries and scheduled reports, in the browser, from €19 per user per month.
