A fast, native SQL editor built in Rust using GPUI — the same GPU-accelerated UI framework that powers the Zed editor.
Check out the site.
Note: This is a hobby project and it is actively being built using Spec-Driven Development powered by coding agents.
The long-term goal is to provide a fully open-source alternative to DBeaver and DataGrip, supporting any databases with great performance and awesome experience.
cargo install --git https://github.com/fhsgoncalves/sqlabRequires Rust and a working C++ toolchain.
sq/lab is a desktop SQL editor with a focus on performance and simplicity. It is written entirely in Rust, renders via GPU, and avoids the memory bloat common to Electron-based or JVM-based database tools.
- No garbage collector — predictable memory usage and no runtime pauses.
- Native GPU rendering — smooth scrolling and large result sets via GPUI.
- Small footprint — cold starts in under 5ms and a memory footprint under 20MB.
- Minimal UI — no 200-option settings menus; write queries, run them, see results.
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| SQL editor with syntax highlighting | ✅ |
| Query execution with result grid | ✅ |
| Connection panel with live schema tree | ✅ |
| Tabbed query files | ✅ |
| PostgreSQL driver | ✅ |
| SQL auto completion | ✅ |
| Highlight active query selection | ✅ |
| Passwords stored securely | ✅ |
| Auto save on focus lost | ✅ |
| Terminal panel (supports coding agents) | ✅ |
| Project and file search (with regex and fuzzy matching) | ✅ |
| Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, SQL Inserts, SQL Updates, WHERE clause | ✅ |
| Column type info on result panel | ✅ |
| DDL generation from schema item | ✅ |
| Generate and export diagrams | ✅ |
| In-place data editor | ✅ |
| Table data editor | ✅ |
| Connection and schema selector | ✅ |
| MySQL driver | ✅ |
| SQLite driver | ✅ |
| MSSQL Server driver | ⏳ |
| DuckDB driver | ⏳ |
| Databend driver | ⏳ |
- PostgreSQL — fully supported via
tokio-postgresandrustls. - MySQL — fully supported via
mysql_async. - SQLite — fully supported via
rusqlite. - MSSQL Server — planned / coming soon.
- DuckDB — planned / coming soon.
- Databend — planned / coming soon.
- Rust — core application logic
- GPUI — GPU-accelerated UI framework (from Zed)
- gpui-component — higher-level UI components
- tree-sitter-sql — syntax highlighting
- sqlparser — sql query parsing
- sqlformat — sql query formatting
MIT — see LICENSE.