Comparison

Inlet vs DataGrip

DataGrip is JetBrains’ cross-platform database IDE: dozens of engines, deep SQL analysis, free for non-commercial use and a subscription for work. Inlet is a free native Mac client for five engines; it’s new and does much less, but costs nothing at work and sends no telemetry.

Updated 9 October 2026

In short

DataGrip is JetBrains’ database IDE for Windows, macOS and Linux. It supports more than 25 databases in depth and can connect to anything with a JDBC driver, with the code analysis, refactoring and version control you’d expect from a JetBrains IDE. Since October 2025 it’s free for non-commercial use; for work it’s a subscription.

Inlet is a free native Mac app for PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite and MongoDB. It’s new (version 0.1) and needs macOS 26 Tahoe or later. As a DataGrip alternative for Mac, Inlet makes sense if you want a lighter database client you can use at work without a licence; if you write a lot of SQL across many engines, DataGrip does more.

At a glance

As of October 2026, from JetBrains’ website and documentation. JetBrains prices vary by country; these are from the UK store, before VAT.

	Inlet	DataGrip
Price	Free for any use: no account, no trial	Free for non-commercial use; commercial subscription £86 a year for an individual (falling to £52 from year three) or £205 per user a year for organisations; 30-day trial
Platforms	macOS 26 Tahoe or later (Apple silicon and Intel)	Windows 10 and 11, macOS 15 and 26, Linux
Built with	Swift (SwiftUI and AppKit)	IntelliJ Platform, with the JetBrains Runtime (Java) bundled
Engines	PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite, MongoDB	25+ with full support, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, MongoDB, Redis, SQLite, Snowflake, BigQuery; any JDBC database at a basic level
Query plans	PostgreSQL: EXPLAIN tree with slowest step and misestimates highlighted	Tree, diagram and flame graph
SQL tooling	Completion from the live schema, formatter, errors at the server’s position	Context-aware completion, on-the-fly analysis with quick fixes, refactoring
Version control	None	Git, Subversion, Mercurial and others
Data collection	No telemetry	Non-commercial licence: anonymous usage statistics, no opt-out

Where DataGrip is stronger

Engines. Oracle, SQL Server, Db2, Snowflake, BigQuery, Redis, DynamoDB and more, plus any database with a JDBC driver. Inlet has five engines.
SQL as code. Context-aware completion, on-the-fly inspections with quick fixes, refactoring, and version control integration. If you keep SQL in a repository and treat it like code, DataGrip is built for that.
Query plans. Plans as a tree, a diagram or a flame graph, for several engines. Inlet draws PostgreSQL plans only.
Cross-platform, and inside other IDEs. DataGrip runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and its database tools are also available in other JetBrains IDEs. Inlet is Mac-only and needs macOS 26; DataGrip also supports macOS 15.
Import and export formats. CSV, TSV, JSON, HTML, Markdown, Excel and custom formats.
Track record and support. DataGrip is a mature JetBrains product with years of releases, and commercial licences include support through private tickets. Inlet is at version 0.1.

Where Inlet is stronger

Free at work. Inlet costs nothing for commercial use. DataGrip’s free licence covers learning, hobby projects, open-source work without commercial benefit and content creation; using it for your job needs a subscription.
No telemetry. Inlet doesn’t collect usage data. DataGrip’s non-commercial licence requires anonymous usage statistics, and collects detailed code-related data unless you turn it off. JetBrains says it doesn’t collect data from the databases you connect to.
A native Mac app, not an IDE. Inlet is written in Swift with SwiftUI and AppKit and opens straight to your connections: a grid, a query editor, and PostgreSQL tools. DataGrip is built on the IntelliJ Platform and brings a full IDE with it, which is more than you need if you mostly browse and edit data.
Read-only that follows the production tag. DataGrip has a read-only checkbox per data source; its documentation notes that the query console may still allow changes if the driver doesn’t support read-only mode. In Inlet, a connection tagged production opens read-only and the server refuses writes; unlocking lasts ten minutes, then it locks again. On protected connections, DROP, TRUNCATE, and DELETE or UPDATE without WHERE ask you to type the table’s name.

Moving from DataGrip

Inlet doesn’t read DataGrip’s data sources. For each one:

Open the data source’s settings in DataGrip and note the host, port, user and database.
In Inlet, choose Connect from URL and paste a URL such as postgres://<user>@<host>:5432/<database>, mysql://<user>@<host>:3306/<database> or mongodb+srv://<user>@<cluster>/<database>, or fill in New Connection. Inlet doesn’t accept JDBC URLs (jdbc:postgresql://…), so write them in this form.
Add SSH or TLS settings if the data source used them. Inlet runs SSH tunnels through the system ssh and supports every libpq sslmode, a custom CA file, and a client certificate and key.

PostgreSQL connections already in ~/.pgpass, pg_service.conf or a .env file’s DATABASE_URL can come in through Import Connections in the Welcome window.

Which to choose

Choose DataGrip if you write and maintain a lot of SQL, work with engines beyond Inlet’s five, want version control and refactoring in the same tool, or need Windows or Linux. For personal and open-source work it’s free; for work it’s a subscription, and yearly subscriptions include a perpetual fallback licence.

Choose Inlet if you’re on macOS 26, mostly browse, edit and query PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite or MongoDB, and want a native app you can use at work for free, with no telemetry and read-only production connections.