Navicat

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Navicat is a series of graphical database management and development software produced by PremiumSoft CyberTech Ltd. for MySQL, Oracle, SQLite and PostgreSQL. It has an Explorer-like graphical user interface and supports multiple database connections for local and remote databases. Its design is made to meet the needs of a variety of audiences, from database administrators and programmers to various different businesses/companies that serve clients and share information with partners.^[1][2]

The initial version of Navicat was developed in 2001 by a Hong Kong University of Science and Technology student in six months. The main target of the initial version was to simpify the management of MySQL installations.^[3] In 2008, Navicat for MySQL was the winner of the Hong Kong ICT 2008 Best Business Grand Award and Best Business (Product) Gold Award.^[4]

Navicat is a cross-platform tool and works on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux platforms. Upon purchase, users are able to select a language for the software from eight available languages: English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

Officially released in March 2002, the Windows version of Navicat for MySQL became the first product offered to the public by PremiumSoft. Subsequently, the company released two additional versions of Navicat for MySQL on the Mac OS X and Linux operating system in June and October 2003 respectively.^[5][6]

PremiumSoft continued to expand their Navicat series by releasing Navicat for PostgreSQL for Windows in October 2005 and then for MAC OS X in June 2006. The Linux version of Navicat for PostgreSQL would not be released until 3 years later in August 2009.^[7]

In August 2008 Navicat decided to further continue their product line and branch out into the Oracle community, creating Navicat for Oracle for Windows and Mac. In August of the following year they followed up with a version for the Linux Platform.^[8] The Oracle version of Navicat supports most of the latest Oracle objects features including Directory, Tablespace, Synonym, Materialized View, Trigger, Sequence, and Type, etc.^[9][10]

Navicat for SQLite was released for Windows and Mac OS X simultaneously in April 2009, and the Linux version soon followed two months later in June of the same year.^[11] In April 2010, Navicat Premium began including Navicat for SQLite starting from version 9 to expand the usability of Navicat Premium.^[12]

In 2009, PremiumSoft released Navicat Premium, a series of Navicat software that combines all previous Navicat versions into a single version and can connect to different database types including MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL simultaneously, allowing users to do data migration between cross databases. Navicat Premium version also supports cross-platform administration, serving Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. In April 2010, version 9 of Navicat Premium was released, which added the connectivitity of SQLite database to Navicat Premium, allowing Navicat Premium to connect to MySQL, Oracle, Postgresql and SQLite in a single application. In November 2010, support for Microsoft SQL Server was added.^[12][13]

Navicat Lite is a free version of the software made available for download at the official website in October 2007 for non-commercial use only. Previously, Navicat was an exclusively commercial software package since its release in 2002. The Lite editions of Navicat lack several features found in the Standard editions, including form view, record filtering, visual query building, and options for import, export and backup of data.^[14] Aside from Navicat Lite, a thirty days fully functional trial version is also available for download at the official website.^[15]

Microsoft SQL Server is currently the newest addition to the list of database Navicat supports. The new line of product, called Navicat for SQL Server, was released in November 2010 for the Windows platform and Mac OS X. Also at the release, the SQL server version was included in the Premium version of Navicat.^[16]

Some of its features include^[17]:

• Visual query builder
• SSH and HTTP tunneling^[2]
• Data and structure migration and synchronization^[18]
• Import and export and backup of data^[19]
• Report builder
• Task scheduling and wizards tool

There are differences in the features available across operating systems.^[14]

Navicat also supports forks of MySQL such as Drizzle, MariaDB, OurDelta, and Percona

Below is a table of different versions and releases of Navicat.^{[20][21][22][23][24]}

• Comparison of database tools

• Official website