This Free Database Client Has One Serious Problem... (DBX)
BBetter Stack
Computing/SoftwareInternet Technology
Transcript
00:00:00this is dbx it's a free database client that's only a few months old and supports more than
00:00:0690 database engines it's already grown to over 18 000 stars it even lets your coding agent query
00:00:12your save connections through mcp it sounds almost too good to be true then you open one file dbx
00:00:19stores your saved database passwords in plain text someone reported it on june 12th the issue
00:00:25is still open and somehow this is also one of the fastest moving projects i've looked at so first
00:00:30i'll show you why people are switching to it and then we're gonna open dbx db
00:00:40so yeah dbx it's a free desktop database client for mysql postgres sqlite redis mongo literally just
00:00:48about anything and the readme now says more than 90 engines all in one window and the price
00:00:55difference is hard to ignore that's why this is growing navicat premium is 80 bucks a month or
00:01:001600 perpetual per seat data grip is around 110 for the first year as one person table plus 100 bucks
00:01:08once we're paying for these okay dbx is free but honestly free is not even the coolest part to all
00:01:15this the thing that actually makes dbx different is mcp your coding agent can talk directly to
00:01:21databases through connections you saved so we don't need to dump everything back into chat but quick
00:01:28catch to that the mcp server is a separate binary installing dbx does not install mcp you need to
00:01:35install the mcp yourself right here and dbx is not alone anymore tablarius ships mcp data grip added
00:01:43mcp tools this summer so the real key part here is dbx is a free database gui with a first party mcp
00:01:51server if you install both if you enjoy coding tools to speed up your workflow be sure to subscribe we
00:01:56have videos coming out all the time now you could spin up one postgres database paste the url into a
00:02:02json file and call that connected that is not how most real apps look we already have my sequel for the
00:02:07app redis for sessions mongo for events so here's what that actually looks like so first up to the
00:02:13plate i had to brew install dbx and then launch the app we're greeted with this interface this interface
00:02:19though we'll come back to i can then open a normal terminal and install the mcp now this works as a
00:02:25normal npm install or i can install it with claw directly which i will do here boom that was simple i then
00:02:33made some files just to play around within vs code for sql and mongo i'll fire up docker with docker
00:02:39compost since i want these containers running okay then load the redis keys once all this i'm just
00:02:46playing around with here so now i've got my sql redis and mongo great three completely different engines
00:02:54they all contain basic data just to get all this connected so we can run a test to see how dbx handles
00:03:00all this now over in the dbx interface i can add a new connection first up is my sql i'll choose my
00:03:07sql from the list and then add a few things here i'll set the name we're gonna add the host the port
00:03:14the user the root followed by a password in a database name that matches my files i'll run a test
00:03:21here and if that passes it passed i'm gonna save it boom one connection is done i'm gonna do the same
00:03:27thing here for redis and mongo just go through the same setup okay name host port we're gonna connect
00:03:35both of these you're gonna test both of these and you're gonna save both of these now that i can see
00:03:40three connections here i can pop back to vs code or open my terminal and fire up claude in here since
00:03:46i registered the mcp tool i will run the mcp command and there is dbx right there so if you don't see it
00:03:52you'll have to re-register it now let's walk through and try talking to dbx from the mcp first up i'm
00:03:57going to say use the dbx tools list my database connections do not add a connection and here it does
00:04:06output everything that we have connected okay cool small win then i'm going to say describe the orders
00:04:12table on demo my sql i want the real column names from the database not a guess
00:04:20there we go you can see it working and outputting our data right here finally let's do one more i want
00:04:25to see all three engines are going so we're going to say something here to claude on demo my sql query
00:04:31shop orders and show skew status and total sense for paid or shipped orders then find the hoodie event in
00:04:38demo mongo events and read the cart hash from demo redis three commands there right we are linking
00:04:45together our connections i do not paste my password into the agent i do not give claude its own
00:04:51connection string dbx already has those connections for us claude just gets the tools but there's another
00:04:58claim around the project that still needs a little looking at unpacking whatever experimenting with dbx is
00:05:04small because it is not electron on mac it uses wk web view basically it borrows the browser already on
00:05:11your system that is a real advantage here but this is where it starts to get a bit funky a small
00:05:18download does not automatically mean a small running process they say around 20 megabytes and some
00:05:25installers really are around that size okay great but linux is closer to 100 megabytes and on a mac the
00:05:31running process can sit at hundreds of megabytes while idle users have also reported multiple gigs
00:05:38under load so both things can be true tiny download yeah you can still get that not necessarily a tiny
00:05:44app and that can be the key when you start comparing dbx with the tools it's supposedly trying to replace
00:05:50so take d beaver is free right but it is java data grip is better software if you are already willing to
00:05:57pay for it and now data grip has an mcp2 navigat is extremely feature complete but it's also priced
00:06:04accordingly then tablarious and honestly this is probably the closest comparison here it's also small
00:06:11it also has mcp and it stores secrets in the operating system keychain so dbx advantage here to these is
00:06:19not this destroys the other ones no because doesn't really do that okay the appeal is much simpler it's
00:06:25free it opens fast and if you install the extra binary the agent workflow is already there is super
00:06:31straightforward but then you hit another number that looks much better in a readme than it does under a
00:06:36microscope more than 90 databases at launch in april dbx supported eight then 17 in may 20 30 40 50 you
00:06:46get the point they kept adding more and more and more but let's be real out of those 90 database engines
00:06:52those aren't really tested how many of those are people actually using my sequel and postgres those
00:06:57soak up a lot of the activity all the other ones i mean come on who's using those maybe a few people
00:07:03sure the engines people actively use and report bugs on those are the popular ones my sql duck db
00:07:10postgres and for a few month old project honestly you can forgive that i guess but take that with a
00:07:17grain of salt the next part is much harder to ignore this is the file dbx stores your saved connections
00:07:23in a local sqlite database called dbx db so no this is literally not a text file full of passwords sitting
00:07:30in a notepad open dbxdb properly as sqlite there is a secrets table and inside the secrets table the
00:07:38passwords are plain text the database file itself is not locked this is issue 1081 opened on june 12th
00:07:46still tagged as a bug and it's still open now that's already pretty strange but here's where it gets strange
00:07:51because they clearly know how to ship chinese local fallback that was fixed mcp bypassing an ssh tunnel
00:08:01they also fix that just sync leaking secrets they fix that right so they are going through they're
00:08:07fixing repairs really fast but local credential storage keeps losing and if you're thinking about
00:08:12putting production credentials into dbx this is the part of the review that matters because the cool mcp
00:08:17demo only matters if you trust the place that you store the passwords that's a big warning flag right
00:08:22here until they fix this people find something broken they complain and the maintainer moves insanely
00:08:28fast and the project gets better in public except for one thing that dbxdb file so try this at your
00:08:36own risk read into it hopefully that gets patched soon i'm josh from better stack if you enjoy coding
00:08:41tips and tricks like this be sure to subscribe we'll see you in another video
Community Posts
No posts yet. Be the first to write about this video!
Write about this video