RDB is a native, lightweight database editor for many engines — one small binary that speaks PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Redis, Valkey, MongoDB, SQLite, Cassandra, SQL Server, Oracle, and ClickHouse today, with room to grow.
The goal is simple: give people a fast, local-first tool that opens instantly, stays out of the way, and handles a wide range of databases without shipping a browser engine to do it.
Most cross-engine database GUIs are Electron apps: hundreds of megabytes, slow to start, heavy on memory. The lightweight alternatives usually speak only one engine. RDB aims to sit where those two miss each other — broad engine support and a native footprint.
- Native & fast. GPU-rendered UI via Slint, no webview. Aggressive release
profile (
opt-level=z, LTO,panic=abort, strip) keeps the binary small and startup instant. - Local-first & private. Your data and queries stay on your machine. Connection secrets live in the OS keychain (AES-GCM encrypted-file fallback), never in plaintext config.
- One tool, many engines. A common
Drivertrait (crates/core) means the UI never hardcodes an engine beyond a single dispatch enum. Adding an engine is a newdriver-*crate — the rest of the app doesn't change. - Boring where it counts. Predictable behavior over clever features; a small, auditable codebase over a large one.
- More engines, added as independent
driver-*crates behind the same trait. - Deeper query ergonomics: filtering, export in common formats, charts.
- Quality-of-life for real day-to-day database work, kept lean.
Further out (aspirational, not committed yet):
- A community extension surface — let people add engines and panels the community builds and maintains, without forking the app. An agent panel is one of the things that could live here.
- Not a hosted service — it's a desktop editor you run locally.
- No telemetry, no account, no cloud dependency to use the core app.
See CLAUDE.md for the current architecture and crate layout.