Comparison
Inlet vs DBeaver
DBeaver is a cross-platform, Java-based client for almost any database, free and open source in its Community edition, with paid PRO editions. Inlet is a free native Mac app for five engines; it’s new and far narrower, but includes MongoDB and PostgreSQL schema compare at no cost.
Updated 9 October 2026
In short
DBeaver is a database tool for Windows, macOS and Linux, written in Java on the Eclipse platform. Its Community edition is free and open source (Apache 2.0) and connects to a very long list of databases through JDBC drivers. NoSQL databases such as MongoDB, and extras such as schema compare, are in the paid PRO editions, from $113 a year as of October 2026.
Inlet is a free native Mac app for PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite and MongoDB. It’s new (version 0.1), Mac-only, and needs macOS 26 Tahoe or later. If you want a DBeaver alternative for Mac that looks and behaves like a Mac app, and your databases are among those five, Inlet is a good fit. If you need breadth, DBeaver is hard to match.
At a glance
As of October 2026, from DBeaver’s websites and documentation.
| Inlet | DBeaver | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free: no account, no trial | Community free; PRO from $113 a year or $12 a month (Lite), $255 a year (Enterprise), $510 a year (Ultimate) |
| Licence | Free to use | Community: open source, Apache 2.0; PRO: commercial |
| Platforms | macOS 26 Tahoe or later (Apple silicon and Intel) | Windows, macOS (Apple silicon and Intel), Linux |
| Built with | Swift (SwiftUI and AppKit) | Java on the Eclipse RCP platform, with a bundled Java runtime |
| Engines | PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite, MongoDB | Community: 100+ drivers for SQL databases (any with a JDBC driver); PRO adds NoSQL such as MongoDB, Cassandra and Redis |
| MongoDB | Included | PRO only |
| Schema compare | PostgreSQL, included | PRO, Enterprise and above |
| Production safety | Production-tagged connections open read-only, with a ten-minute unlock; destructive statements ask you to type the table’s name | Read-only connection setting and per-connection restrictions; connection types can confirm before INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE |
| Plugins | None | Eclipse-based plugin framework |
| Team features | None | Team Edition: shared connections and scripts, roles ($1,630 a year) |
Where DBeaver is stronger
- Breadth. DBeaver connects to almost anything with a JDBC driver, including SQL Server, Oracle, Snowflake, BigQuery and Azure SQL. Inlet has five engines.
- Cross-platform. The same tool on Windows, macOS and Linux, with installers for x86 and ARM. Inlet is Mac-only and needs macOS 26.
- Open source and established. The Community edition’s code is on GitHub under Apache 2.0, with about 52,000 stars and a repository going back to 2015. Inlet is at version 0.1.
- Depth of tooling. Task management (with a scheduler in PRO), a visual query builder (PRO), mock data generation (PRO), data compare (PRO), cloud explorers for AWS, Google Cloud and Azure (Ultimate), and a plugin framework for extensions.
- Teams. DBeaver Team Edition and CloudBeaver share connections, scripts and query history across a team, with role management. Inlet has no team sharing or sync.
Where Inlet is stronger
- A native Mac app. Inlet is written in Swift with SwiftUI and AppKit; DBeaver is a Java application
built on Eclipse, with its own Java runtime bundled. Inlet keeps passwords in the Keychain and runs SSH
tunnels through the system
ssh, so~/.ssh/config, the SSH agent and the 1Password agent work as they do in Terminal. - MongoDB at no cost. Inlet shows MongoDB collections as tables, documents in an inspector, and runs
queries in mongosh syntax (
db.users.find({…})). In DBeaver, MongoDB needs a PRO licence. - Schema compare without a licence. Inlet compares two PostgreSQL schemas and writes the differences as SQL. In DBeaver, schema compare is a PRO feature (Enterprise and above, from $255 a year).
- Production safety tied to the tag. DBeaver lets you mark a connection read-only and set
restrictions per connection. In Inlet, tagging a connection production is enough: it opens read-only,
the server refuses writes, and an unlock lasts ten minutes before it locks again. On protected
connections,
DROP,TRUNCATE, andDELETEorUPDATEwithoutWHEREask you to type the table’s name.
Moving from DBeaver
Inlet doesn’t read DBeaver’s connection list. For each connection you want:
- Note the host, port, user and database from DBeaver’s connection settings.
- In Inlet, choose Connect from URL and paste a URL such as
postgres://<user>@<host>:5432/<database>ormysql://<user>@<host>:3306/<database>, or fill in New Connection. Inlet doesn’t accept JDBC URLs (jdbc:postgresql://…), so write them in this form. - Add an SSH tunnel or TLS settings in the connection form if you used them. Inlet supports every libpq
sslmode, a custom CA file, and a client certificate and key.
If your PostgreSQL connections are also in ~/.pgpass, pg_service.conf or a .env file’s
DATABASE_URL, use Import Connections in the Welcome window instead.
Which to choose
Choose DBeaver if you work across many database types, need Windows or Linux, want an open-source tool you can extend, or need team features. The Community edition costs nothing and covers a great deal.
Choose Inlet if you’re on macOS 26, use PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite or MongoDB, and want a native Mac app with read-only production connections and PostgreSQL tools such as schema compare and the Activity monitor, without paying for a licence. You can keep DBeaver for other engines and use Inlet beside it; Inlet is free, so trying it costs nothing.