Switching from DataGrip to a native SQL client

I keep an eye on the JetBrains forums and the usual threads where database people complain. DataGrip users are different from most: they actually like their tool. The autocomplete is respected, the refactorings are real, and nobody calls it ugly. What they don't like is everything wrapped around it — the subscription ladder, the account you need even for the free tier, and the small pause while a JVM warms up so you can look at a table.

So here is the honest comparison for anyone weighing a switch, including where DataGrip still beats me.

The three things that wear people down

1. The price never ends

DataGrip is a subscription. At my last check: $109 for the first year as an individual, dropping to $65/yr if you keep renewing, or $259 per user per year for organizations. There is a free tier for non-commercial use — genuinely free, and I'll come back to that — but it requires a JetBrains account and it excludes exactly the commercial work most people do for a living.

Three years of individual DataGrip is $239 and climbing. SQLly is $100 once, or $200 for a lifetime license. That's not a discount; it's a different relationship with the idea of paying for software. A database client is not a streaming service. It should not have a renewal date.

2. The platform underneath

DataGrip rides on the IntelliJ platform, which means a JVM between you and your data. It's well-tuned for what it is, but "well-tuned for a JVM app" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Cold starts, indexing pauses, and a memory footprint that grows with your open tabs are part of the deal.

SQLly is a native Rust application. It talks to each database in its own wire protocol, renders on the GPU, and streams results with backpressure — a 50-million-row result spills to disk instead of eating your RAM. The mechanics are in streaming huge result sets. The short version: time-to-first-rows is the number you feel, and native wins it.

3. The account wall

The free tier of DataGrip needs a JetBrains account before you run your first query. SQLly's free tier needs nothing: download, add a server, work. Two saved servers, unlimited databases on each, no trial clock, no tracking. I sell licenses, not sign-ups.

What carries over when you switch

• Your SQL. .sql files are files. They open as-is, and SQLly directives can add pivots and charts to the ones you already have.
• Your connections. Re-added by hand in minutes: host, credentials, database. There's no config importer — a half-done import would be worse than none.
• Your habits. Editor, explorer, execution plans, results grid. An afternoon, not a training course.

One thing you won't miss: SQLly's IntelliSense reads your live schema, foreign keys included, and writes JOIN ... ON clauses from the real relationships in your database. DataGrip's completion is good; mine reads the actual foreign keys and finishes the clause for you. Details in IntelliSense that writes JOIN ON from foreign keys.

The feature DataGrip never had

Guardrails. SQLly warns or asks before an UPDATE or DELETE runs without a WHERE clause, supports read-only connections, wraps risky statements in a rollback, and locks production databases behind an explicit switch. If you touch production from your laptop — and everyone does, whatever they claim in the retro — this is the feature that pays for the license on the first save. The full story is in catch UPDATE/DELETE without WHERE before it runs.

When to stay with DataGrip

Stay if you live inside JetBrains IDEs all day and the shared keybindings and project model genuinely matter to you. Stay if your work leans on DataGrip's diff and refactoring tools, or on engines SQLly doesn't support yet — Db2, Snowflake and friends are on the roadmap, not shipped. And if your use is truly non-commercial, their free tier is a fair deal and you should take it. The comparison page keeps the same honest scorekeeping, including the rows DataGrip wins.

Try it in five minutes

• Open the live preview: the real workbench in your browser, sample data included, no install, no account.
• If it feels right, download SQLly and re-add one server.
• Run your heaviest everyday query and watch time-to-first-rows.

Free tier, no trial clock. If it doesn't beat your current setup on the queries you actually run, you've lost five minutes and gained a strong opinion. I'll take those odds.

FAQ

Is SQLly really one-time? What's the catch? $100 buys the app and every 1.x update; each version is supported for at least two years, and a future major upgrade is $50. The $200 lifetime license covers all versions forever. The catch is that this only works while people keep telling each other about it, which is why you're reading this article.

Can I use SQLly commercially for free? The free tier is for hobbyists and organizations up to 100 employees. If you're a bigger org or you need more than two saved servers, that's what the license is for.

Does SQLly have DataGrip's code inspections and refactorings? No, and I won't pretend otherwise. SQLly's bet is different: autocomplete grounded in your real schema and foreign keys, guardrails for destructive statements, and speed. If deep refactoring across a huge codebase is your daily work, DataGrip earns its subscription.

What databases does SQLly support? Thirty engines: SQL Server, PostgreSQL, the MySQL and SQLite families, DuckDB, ClickHouse, Oracle, libSQL/Turso, Redis with dedicated tooling, and more. Every engine is in every tier — no edition ladder.