SSMS on Mac? Inlet vs SQL Server Management Studio

In short

No, SSMS doesn’t run on macOS. Microsoft’s FAQ says it’s available only for Windows: SSMS 22 (22.10.2, released on 28 September 2026) needs 64-bit Windows 11 or Windows Server 2019, 2022 or 2025, on x64 or Arm64. It’s free for personal and enterprise use, and it isn’t open source. On a Mac, your options are:

• A Windows virtual machine. On an Apple silicon Mac that means the Arm version of Windows 11. Microsoft names Parallels Desktop as an authorised way to run Windows 11 Pro and Enterprise on Arm on M1, M2 and M3 Macs. Parallels is sold separately, mostly as a yearly subscription, and Windows needs its own licence. SSMS 22 runs natively on Arm64, with gaps Microsoft lists: no Analysis Services or Integration Services, and replication’s Distributor Properties dialog fails. Profiler and the Tuning Advisor run there as 32-bit apps.
• A Windows 365 Cloud PC, streamed to your Mac.
• Microsoft’s cross-platform tool instead: Visual Studio Code with the MSSQL extension, which is Microsoft’s own answer for macOS and Linux. Azure Data Studio used to be the other answer, but it retired in February 2026 (see Inlet vs Azure Data Studio).

Inlet is a free native Mac app for SQL Server and Azure SQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL and MariaDB, SQLite, MongoDB and Redis. It needs macOS 26 Tahoe or later and is new (version 0.1). For administering SQL Server (Agent jobs, backups, security, availability groups, Query Store, profiling), SSMS is far more complete, and nothing on this page changes that. Inlet is for day-to-day work on a Mac: browsing tables, editing rows, running T-SQL and watching sessions, with production connections that open read-only.

At a glance

As of October 2026, from Microsoft’s SSMS documentation and release notes.

Where SSMS is stronger

• Administration, all of it. SSMS manages every object on an instance from Object Explorer: SQL Server Agent jobs, alerts and operators; backup and restore; logins, users and roles; Always On availability groups; maintenance plans; Registered Servers; and the Analysis, Integration and Reporting Services. Inlet has none of these. Its SQL Server support stops at browsing, editing, structure, queries and an Activity view.
• Every way of signing in. Windows Authentication and six Microsoft Entra methods, as well as SQL logins. Inlet uses SQL Server authentication only, so an Azure SQL server set to Microsoft Entra-only authentication is out of its reach.
• Performance tools. Graphical estimated and actual plans, Live Query Statistics, client statistics, Query Store reports, Activity Monitor (processes, waits, file I/O and expensive queries), the XEvent Profiler’s live view of Extended Events, the Database Engine Tuning Advisor and a query hint recommendation tool. Inlet draws estimated and actual plans and its Activity view shows sessions, blocking, locks and the plan cache’s costliest queries, but it has no live statistics, Query Store reports, profiler or tuning advisor.
• Schema compare and database projects. Schema compare and the Database DevOps workload (SQL database projects with source control) became generally available in 22.10.2.
• GitHub Copilot. Chat, code completions and an agent mode that’s generally available since 22.10.2, with model choice and bring-your-own-model.
• Track record. SSMS is Microsoft’s main SQL Server tool, with a release roughly every few weeks since 22.0 in November 2025. Inlet is at version 0.1.

Where Inlet is stronger

• It runs on your Mac. No virtual machine, no Windows licence, no Parallels subscription, and no Arm64 gaps to work around. Inlet is a native Mac app (Swift, SwiftUI and AppKit) with its own TDS driver, so there’s no ODBC or FreeTDS to install either.
• Production connections open read-only. SSMS lets you colour a connection’s status bar so production stands out. Inlet goes further: tag a connection production and it refuses writes before they’re sent, since SQL Server has no read-only session setting. Temp tables and reporting procedures such as sp_help and sp_who still work.
• Edits you review before they run. Changes to cells and rows wait until you commit (⌘S), and Review shows the T-SQL first. Each change is checked against what you loaded, so a row someone changed meanwhile isn’t overwritten.
• Other engines in the same app. SSMS covers the SQL Server family. Inlet also has PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite, MongoDB and Redis.
• SSH tunnels from your Mac. Inlet opens tunnels through the system ssh, so ~/.ssh/config and the SSH agent work for a server behind a bastion host.

Moving from SSMS

Inlet doesn’t read SSMS’s saved connections or Registered Servers, but the details carry over directly:

1. From SSMS’s Connect dialog, note the server name (with \INSTANCE or ,port if it has one), the database, the login and the encryption setting.

2. In Inlet, choose Connect from URL and paste a connection string, or fill in New Connection. Inlet takes sqlserver:// and mssql:// URLs, JDBC strings and ADO.NET strings like the one Azure’s portal gives:

   Server=tcp:<server>.database.windows.net,1433;Initial Catalog=<database>;User ID=<user>;Encrypt=True;
   

   A named instance such as <host>\SQLEXPRESS works too: Inlet asks SQL Server Browser for its port.

3. Match the encryption setting:

   SSMS	Closest choice in Inlet
   Optional	Off (the login is still encrypted when the server can)
   Mandatory, with Trust server certificate	Encrypt without checking the certificate
   Mandatory	Verify the certificate
   Strict	Strict encryption (TDS 8.0)

4. Connect. Inlet asks for the password and can save it in the Keychain.

If you sign in with Windows Authentication or Entra ID, you need a SQL login for Inlet; ask whoever runs the server. Your .sql scripts run as they are: Inlet splits batches on GO (and repeats one with GO n), and shows every result set and PRINT message. Keep SSMS, in a virtual machine if you need to, for Agent jobs, backups and security. For the formats Inlet accepts, see SQL Server connection strings.

Which to choose

Choose SSMS if you administer SQL Server: Agent jobs, backups and restores, logins and permissions, availability groups, Query Store or profiling. It’s free and it’s Microsoft’s most complete tool for SQL Server; on a Mac, plan for a Windows virtual machine or a Cloud PC.

Choose VS Code with the MSSQL extension if you want Microsoft’s tool that runs on macOS itself, with Entra ID sign-in, a graphical plan, schema compare and backup and restore.

Choose Inlet if you’re on macOS 26, sign in with SQL logins, and spend your time browsing, editing and querying; you want production connections that open read-only and edits you review first; or you also work with PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, MongoDB or Redis. You can also use both: Inlet for everyday work on the Mac, and SSMS in a virtual machine for the admin jobs only it does.