Studio · 01 — Overview

A web UI bundled with the engine. No separate install.

Studio runs in-process with the same engine your app uses. Browse, edit, plan migrations, restore drops, watch locks — all against the same connection. Two levels. Eight tabs. One binary.

two levels · workspace + databasepostgres · sqlitessh tunnelread-only modeshipped · v0.2

02 — How it stacks up

Browsing tables is the easy part.

Every database GUI handles row browsing. Studio earns its place when something goes wrong on a Friday afternoon — locks, drift, a destructive op nobody tested, a query that wants to be a chart.

Capability	pgAdmin	TablePlus	Postico	Drizzle Studio	Prisma Studio	Zanith Studio
Browse + edit rows the table-first surface	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
FK drilldown by any column follow refs that aren't the PK	partial	partial	partial	no	partial	yes
Bulk edit + find/replace single-click value-fill across a selection	partial	partial	partial	no	no	yes
Sensitive-column masking passwords / tokens hidden by default	no	no	no	no	no	yes
Lock graph + RLS inspector see who's blocking, what policies attach	partial	no	no	no	no	yes
Migrations + recovery built in apply, plan, restore — no separate tool	no	no	no	partial	partial	yes
EXPLAIN with plan history compare plans across edits	partial	partial	no	no	no	yes
Result charts (bar / line) ad-hoc visualization on a query result	partial	no	no	no	no	yes
Watch query · auto-rerun tail metrics in a SQL tab	no	no	no	no	no	yes
Two-level workspace many DBs at once + drill into one	partial	yes	yes	no	no	yes

Drizzle and Prisma Studio cover the table surface and their own migrations, but stop there. pgAdmin reaches for the operational depth but is its own UI culture. Studio tries to be both: the daily tool and the on-call tool, in the same window.

03 — Two levels

Many databases up here. One database down here.

Workspace is the cross-database view — every server you connect to, recent activity across all of them, a global command palette. Database is what you drop into. The chrome stays the same; the surfaces specialize.

04 — Eight surfaces

Each tab does one thing well.

Eight tabs, ordered the way teams actually use them. Browse first. Inspect when something looks off. Migrate when ready. Recover when wrong.

Tables

tab

Browse, edit, bulk-update. The daily surface.

FK drilldown by any column
Bulk edit · find & replace · fill NULLs
Sensitive columns mask values until you reveal

Catalog

tab

Views, sequences, triggers, functions. The objects browsing tools forget.

REFRESH MATERIALIZED in one click
nextval / setval / RESTART for sequences
Index UI on every table

Security

tab

Lock graph, RLS, roles, permissions. Built for on-call.

Cancel or kill blocking PIDs inline
RLS-enabled with no policies → flagged
Permission matrix · grantee × table

SQL

tab

Multi-tab editor. Plans persist. Charts render in place.

:name parameter prompts
Plan history · click any prior run
Result charts · bar / line, group-by + agg

Schema

tab

Drag tables, save the layout, export markdown.

ERD with persisted positions
Hover a table to highlight relations
Markdown export · TOC, columns, FKs

Migrate

tab

Apply, plan, verify — with the engine's gates intact.

Per-step risk and audit
Shadow-DB verify before apply
Same flow as the CLI

Recover

tab

Restore artifacts, export archives, sweep cleanups.

One-click soft-drop restore
Export archives as CSV / JSONL / JSON
Cleanup window visible per artifact

Search

tab

Cross-database table and column search.

Every table, every column
Jump straight to a filtered table view
Workspace-wide saved queries

05 — Bundled, in-process

Same engine. Same connection.

Studio isn't a separate service. It's a UI layer that sits inside the same Node process — sharing the engine your app uses, the migrations your CI runs, the recovery artifacts your team trusts.

One pool

Studio reuses the connection pool your app already runs against. No second set of credentials, no second TLS config.

One graph

The schema parsed at startup powers both the typed query API and Studio's table list. Drift in one is drift in both.

One migration runner

Apply from CI or apply from the Migrate tab — the same risk gates, the same audit rows, the same recovery artifacts.

06 — Go deeper

Pick the surface you actually need.

Each sub-page goes deeper than this overview can. All six sub-pages are live — workspace level, the eight tab surfaces, and how to launch the whole thing in production.

→ live