Today I would like to briefly introduce you to a Web application, which I have been stumpled across. I’ve tried several tools for db modeling, some more and some less appealing.

Well, the tool doesn’t offer explicit ER modeling, but a SQL-like structure and allows you to import and export directly to SQL and other formats.

You can find the app I’m talking about on dbdiagram.io. The website offers a simple graphical interface, which includes a code editor and a graphical representation of the table structure. You can edit your table structure directly in the code editor. You can then create relations between the tables using the drag-and-drop function. These are represented in the editor by the schema ref “table_a”. “column_a” > “table_b”. “column_b”. Cardinalities are represented by > (n:1) , < (1:n) and - (1:1).

dbdiagram.io GUI

The syntax is quite simple, just follow the schema

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Table tablename as t {
  columnname datatype [constraints]
  .....
}

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Table tablename as t {
  columnname datatype [constraints]
  .....
}

You can use the constraints primary key, not null and unique. Multiple constraints can be used comma-separated. You can add aliases for tablenames by using as aliasname, but this is entirely optional. And that’s basically it! For more information, you can check out the projects introductory article or just try it out yourself - it’s free!

All in all, the tool is very self-explanatory and clear, but in my opinion offers a simple way to provide a quick overview of your database and can be easily used for your own projects due to the import and export functionality.