Show HN: ChartDB Cloud – Visualize and Share Database Diagrams
app.chartdb.ioThe question I have is this, and don’t attack me for asking, but do people still produce database diagrams for use at work? I thought we had abstracted this by using Domain Driven design, ORMs, APIs, and the like.
Do individual teams still document their tables or do they document their entities? Do you still hand roll sql in a dao or do you use some higher abstractions?
Curious minds want to know because it’s been over a decade since I’ve done any database design documentation and have only done lean relationships and domain modeling documentation. Swaggering the rest.
I will say this, I love the look of this and I would love to just draw abstract shapes and things like I do on Miro. AWS architectures, etc etc.
Whenever I am thinking of new features to be developed, or when engineers are suggesting some features/approaches, looking at the ERD helps a ton. Onboarding is also easier.
We were using Lucidchart[1] until we reached the limit[2], so we found dbdiagram.io (which is just not the same).
[1] So far, it was the best of the market in terms of "canvas freedom" [2] We are struggling with salaries, so we are saving everywhere
Also lucidchart is just draw.io fyi - you don't need a license unless you need the file sharing aspect and I feel like it belongs closer to the code.
I'm just generally curious what others' process is for this as the only meetings I've had in the last 5 years were who was getting cut.
> Also, Lucidchart is just draw.io fyi - you don't need a license unless you need the file sharing aspect, and I feel like it belongs closer to the code.
No, it is not. I took the whole day to check what is available in the market, and concluded that Lucidchart UX is quite balanced.
If I care about the data model so much that I want to diagram it then it's going to be the exact DB schema.
for industry???? let me create an ERD for my 10th SaaS tools that need generic auth and payment, nope
I tried a few other DB visualization tools but was turned off because it felt like I needed to learn another toolset, when I just wanted to import my schema and start working with it. ChartDB's approach was better for me, the single query import worked fine, and adding to the schema works how you'd expect.
Really hoping to see a feature for “diffs between the dev diagram and the live DB”. we’re collaborating on the diagram as a team, and it’d be great to track what changed between our current draft and the actual database.
How did you solve the AGPL hurdles for that pre-CLA third-party code? It's usually impractical to get a lot of contributors to retroactively sign a CLA. Did you have to rewrite some/all of those older code contributions, or is the full cloud product open source as well?