Top 5 Free Database Diagram Design Tools

by Anthony Thong Do

A database schema is the blueprints of your database, it represents the description of a database structure, data types, and the constraints on the database. And designing database schemas is one of the very first and important steps to start developing any software/website.

To help you determine the right tool for you to design database schema diagrams, we've curated a list of 5 of the best free online tools to do it.

Top 5 Free Database Diagram (ERD) Design Tools

dbdiagram.io

Pricing: Free with unlimited objects and diagrams

dbdiagram.io is a quick and simple database designer to help you draw your database diagrams using their own Domain-specific language (DSL).
They have a simple language to define, you can easily edit/copy without leaving keyboard
They focus exclusively on drawing database relationship diagrams
Allow you to save and share your diagrams online.
Designed for developers, DBA, data analysts
Their UI looks simple and neat, with pretty diagrams.

Draw.io

Pricing: Free for web-based usage, paid for Atlassian (Confluence/JIRA) apps.

Draw.io is a free online diagram software for making flowcharts, process diagrams, etc.
Allows different types of charts like flowcharts, org charts, UML, ER and network diagrams.
Allows saving your diagrams to cloud storage services like GDrive, Dropbox and OneDrive, or to your own computer
Visual interfaces not as nice as lucidchart.

Lucidchart

Pricing: Free with limited objects, $4.95-$20/month

Lucidchart is cloud-based and collaborative diagram software. Lucidchart helps your team create not only database diagram but also flowcharts, process maps, UML models, org charts,.. on any device across the platform you already use.
Free plan comes with a limit of 3 diagrams and 60 objects per diagram
Good experience and collaborative
Integrated with G Suite, Microsoft Office...
Good if you are more of a designer and want drag-and-drop interface

SQLDBM

Pricing: Free (Beta) with unlimited diagrams and objects

SqlDBM offers you an easy, convenient way to design your database absolutely anywhere on any browser, working away without need for any extra database engine or database modelling tools or apps.
They incorporates any needed database rules and objects such as database keys, schemas, indexes, column constraints and relationships
Only support MySQL and MS SQL
Support Forward Engineering and Reverse Engineering
100% drag and drop UI
Support version history

QuickDBD

Pricing: free for 1 public diagram and 10 tables, plans at $14/month for unlimited tables and private diagrams.

QuickDBD helps you quickly draw a diagram using just text input.
It quickly captures ideas, and you can draw schema diagrams using only the keyboard.
Support exporting to SQL, PDF and Word

ORIGINAL Blog