Navicat Data Modeler Essentials App Reviews

This app has most of the modelling features needed. The interface is not very friendly. You continually have to click the + button to add anything. The table columns are on a seperate screen than the map. I was hoping to interactively do database design work, however with the constant switching between columns and maps it was much easier on paper. There are many other interface issues, handlebars that block text making it impossible to see, small fonts, too much wasted space around text and column definitions, etc. To it’s credit there are a lot of DB modeling features, just needs a more interactive interface. If you ar looking to document your data model this app might work. If you are willing to spend some time working around the interface I am sure it will have the features you need for modeling. For design work it is just too cumbersome.

The Navicat products had a record of reasonable trade-offs in functionality between their "full" and "essentials" versions. With this release, however, the "essentials" version has been crippled beyond usefulness. * No printing; * No exporting; * Documentation is for the full version.

This is a great piece of software if you are only looking to model a database design. Just dont expect it to go beyond modeling. You CANNOT reverse or forward engineer a database with this software. You CANNOT export any SQL scripts to create the database you design. Bottom line, you can get a visual design, but then you must go and create your databases by hand. The $10 price tag is attractive, but you get what you pay for… the ability to do nothing but visually design something. Now, if they add the feature to export SQL scripts for a design, then that might make it worth even 19.99 to buy.

Dont mean to be so critical, but if all you can do is draw a layout (no print, no pdf, no sharing of any kind) users are better off using pencil and paper. I might try the premium version, but this one is a nice waste of time.

I just needed a simple diagramming model, like a Visio for Mac, to do DB diagrams. This tool looked great at first, everything I needed with a nice interface. However, after working for a while, saving as I went, it crashed and lost most of my work. Thats just unacceptable. Programming 101.

Useful for basic modeling. I enjoy the interface. Was looking for UML support for class modeling, however, and this falls just short.

Very good app, works really nice and I like it a lot.

Really nice app with useful features, I really like it

Helps me optimized all my projects and I can increase my productivity level. Thats really helpful app and I like it a lot.

Thats really good app with very useful features and easy in use interface.

Wonderful app that solves many problems and I really appreciate the way it works. Brilliant app

One of the best data modeler apps out there, worth downloading

Very cool app. Love it.

For the fact that this is the only DB modeler on the App Store (I could find), this is still terrible. For me, I find that all DB Modelers should work just like MySQL Workbench. I don’t always use MySQL, but I can use Workbench regardless. I can’t find a good reason to keep this on my Mac. The interface isn’t very intuitive. Context menus appear in random locations on screen. The tables and notes are clunky.

Navicats import and modeling abilities are decent, considering other options are very limited. Its a nice way to visually map migrations and see where things stand in your databases. However, the Print buttons in the application do not work. They do not do anything, unfortunately, which means you cannot share your work with anyone else--unless they too own a copy of Navicat.

While the app is visually appealing, it currently has a serious show-stopper if you want to use it to document an existing MSSQL database. It currently has no way to create a primary key on a table and set it as an identity field. That by itself could be worked around as long as you could make the setting in SSMS, but the app also can’t update an existing model. You have to create it from scratch each time you make a change in the actual db. This prevents you from doing anything other than auto-generating your model if you intend to use it in conjunction with the actual db. Hopefully a fix is forthcoming.

I started creating a database design for use in SQLite. I added some foreign keys and rather than 2 foreign keys showing up, 3 did. Then I deleted the 3rd and wham, “Applicaiton quit unexpectedly.” I’m so glad I got the “essentials” first and didn’t buy any in app purchases. I had high hopes, but obviously this thing needs work. If you do want to use this product, save often.

This version has a problem with the foreign key diaolog. It stores links the wrong tables and fields, making the foreign keys unusable, when you have more than one foreign key in a table. Hope to get an update soon for this.