John Luif

I have been using many different database modeling tools for SQL Server to figure out which one would work best for me. Some of the features I'm looking for are:

• Quick table creation and editing
• Easy and quick to add or edit relationships
• Can create different schemas
• Can generate a database script for specific schemas
• Can compare model to an existing database and generate alter script
• Can compare model to older version of model and generate alter script

In the past I have used Sybase's Power Designer Data Architect but now that I'm paying for it out of my own pocket it seems a bit too pricey. Power Designer is a complex tool to use that does a lot but is in need of some user experience expertise.

So I started cheap, not recommended. I first looked at Database Spy by Altova, not truely a database modeling tool in my mind because I can not generate the ddl needed to create the database out of the tool. There are some nice features of Database Spy like intellicrack sql editor and quick editing and exporting of data.

Next I tried Happy Fish. I really like this tool; the most user friendly interface of any tool I have used though it does lack on looks, no fancy color gradients here. Creating, changing and generating ddl for the model was breeze. There is only one feature missing in the product which made me not choose it, there is no support for generating alter scripts from and existing database or an older version of the model. I was really disappointed when I found this for two reasons, one the tools is just so easy to use it is almost fun (I said almost) and two, it has a compare with database feature which had my hopes up but it falls short.

In the lineup next was DDS-Pro by Chilli Source. Did not expect too much from this product and did not get much, I think I had it installed all of 15 minutes before I was already convinced it did not meet my needs. It did however leave behind a nice present in my system32 directory, an old version of sqlcmd which then broke my database build because the "-S" did not exist long ago.

And now I can stop looking as I have found the affordable database modeling tool, ModelRight. This tool is not as easy to use as Happy Fish but works fine none the less. The big feature for me is being able to compare the current model with a database or an older version of the model and generate an alter script. This is a fairly common task when maintaining or extending existing software, which in my mind makes any database modeling tool that does not do it worthless.