Re: ERD (Entity Relation Diagram) and reverse engineering tool.

On Jan 9, 2012, at 7:46 AM, DrYSG wrote:

> Now that I have PostGreSQL, PostGIS installed, I wanted to try out some ERD
> tools to see what is happening inside of it (20M records, 20 tables).
>
> I stumbled on this open source tool: http://www.sqlpower.ca/page/architect
> which looks simple enough, and has lot of features, screenshots, and video
> tutorials.
>
> But I was curious if you have something else that you recommend for looking
> at PostGreSQL databases.
>
> Here is the PostGreSQL wiki where I found it:
>
> http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Community_Guide_to_PostgreSQL_GUI_Tools
>
> I would not mind if we had to pay $100 - $200 for a tool either, it does not
> have to be free.
>
> Another one that looks interesting is RISE:
>
> http://www.risetobloome.com/Page_1_S.aspx?ITEM=1853
> http://www.risetobloome.com/Page_1_S.aspx?ITEM=1355
>
> I am also looking at the DEVART tools (dotConnect for PostGreSQL) and I like
> it a lot.
> Has anyone tried this? Does it provide ERD tools?
>
> http://www.devart.com/dotconnect/postgresql/
>

I haven't tried any of the ones you have listed. I have used DBVisualizer in the past:

http://www.dbvis.com/

The free version does not weed out all the system tables, but you can do that your self easily enough be just selecting the schema you want. I've created some complex ERDs from it and it was nice enough to save them in a vector format that I could edit with Illustrator. I can be painfully slow. I left it running overnight for my biggest ERD.