Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials Reviews & Insights

Score8.2 out of 10

55 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Business Problems Solved

Redgate SQL Compare has proved to be an invaluable tool for a variety of users in different departments across organizations. Senior software engineers rely on it to compare schemas between development, QA, and production databases, and according to their experiences, it works flawlessly. Multiple departments use SQL Compare to identify differences between databases and gather an initial assessment of the database for potential performance issues. The application development team relies on this tool to assist with developing and generating SQL scripts for deployments, while DBAs utilize it for quick and easy comparison of different databases in various environments, including production environments. A small web development team also benefits from Redgate SQL Compare by efficiently managing SQL databases across different environments, eliminating the tedious task of comparing and synchronizing schemas. In addition, Redgate's SQL Compare proves essential in creating upgrade scripts and managing database schema changes for application upgrades and deployments. Overall, the tool is widely appreciated for its ability to synchronize database structures and code, troubleshoot issues by identifying changes in data between two times, and facilitate efficient troubleshooting and issue resolution.

Reviews

14 Reviews

Essential tool belt for data developers

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

May 1, 2024

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use SQL toolbelt for data development, research and data management. I like the tools like SQL Prompt for formatting, SQL Search for searching the database for certain keywords, SQL Compare to compare schema between different environments and deploying changes from Dev to production environment using the script generator, SQL Source Control to commit schema changes to github.

Pros

SQL Search and SQL Data compare are pretty good tools. SQL Search helps with keyword search in the database object names and in the stored proc codes.
SQL Data Compare tool helps me do a comparison of schema changes between dev environment and production. I can pick what objects need to be deployed to production, generate a script to run on the production environment.

Cons

SQL Source Control needs some improvement. Even after getting help from Redgate customer service, it was not able to identify the users who made changes to the schema. It is still a good tool to identify the objects that are changed since last commit to github, and allows to commit changes for versioning.

Likelihood to Recommend

The tools described earlier are pretty useful for any developer.

Verified User

Employee in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

24 years of experience

Redgare SQL Compare saves us time and money

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

June 3, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SQL Compare is an integral part of our deployment process. All of our production database deployments go through SQL compare for database objects. We have also used it in one-off scenarios in test or dev servers to save time. We not only use the tool manually but we have also used the SDK for automation. It is very flexible and easy to use.

Pros

UI is very intuitive.
SDK is flexible.
Lightweight and fast. Easily handles hundreds to thousands of objects in a single database.

Cons

UI is a little outdated.
It does automap columns but, when it comes to object renaming it would be nice to have more functionality. We tend to just do renames manually.

Likelihood to Recommend

We have actually been able to use this not only manually but in our DevOps and release process, we have been able to use the SDK to add automation so certain business scenarios we can accomplish with very little effort. We are in an AWS environment with multiple AZs and Active Directories and this tool handles it with no problem. We ensure we have an available endpoint and it is easy to deploy no matter where the DB's are.

Steven Gockley, MBA, MCSA

DBA / Sr. Data Analyst in Information Technology at Boostability (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

View profile

Redgate SQL Compare is great.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

June 2, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I'm a senior software engineer that works on a large web application. My primary use case for Redgate SQL Compare is for comparing schemas between, development, QA, and production databases and for that it works absolutely flawlessly. The ability to choose objects for deployment has also come in very handily in cases where I need to maintain some differences between my environments. I also use the greater suite of Redgate tools and believe the tool belt provides excellent value for myself and the other engineers in our department.

Pros

Allows selecting objects for deployment.
Table and owner mapping is also a nice touch.
Great number of options for customizing the deployment script being generated.

Cons

My tool belt sometimes loses it's license forcing me to fiddle with it to get it working again.

Likelihood to Recommend

I think it's the best schema comparison tool available and it's both fast and customizable.

Josh Sayers

Sr. Software Engineer in Information Technology at All Covered (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Fantastic time saving SQL tool

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

May 3, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Redgate SQL compare to quickly and easily compare date between or development, test, staging and production environments. It allows us a very easy mechanism to assist in troubleshoot production or development issues. It provides a quick means of seeing differences between our different environments. Prior to using this it was very difficult to determine differences between environments.

Pros

Comparison of data
Deployment of schemas
Massive time saver

Cons

Honestly I would not change a thing about it

Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited for
- Deployment of db schemas
- Comparison of data between environments
- Easy creation of SQL scripts
- Allows easy synchronization of databases
- Allows you to easily create deployment scripts.

Features such as these have offered massive time savings for our development group. Highly recommend this product.

Verified User

Team Lead in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

Very handy tool to quickly see DDL differences between same objects on different databases.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

September 11, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Used for code and database object DDL comparison to identify changes.

Pros

Compare DDL in multiple databases or with objects in source code repository
SQL code comparison in stored procs, views, indexes, triggers or just sql files
Pick objects to deploy changes from one server to another

Cons

It would be good to have an option to ignore differences changes in comments or blank lines or tabs

Likelihood to Recommend

Very well suited for comparing DDL changes between objects on two separate databases. It does not work to compare objects with different names.

Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

Redgate SQL Compare from the DBA perspective

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

August 27, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SQL Compare is being used by multiple departments across the organization. My area, Database Service, uses SQL Compare regularly when we're pulled in to look at performance issues. Since we have several thousand databases with many clients and a custom deployment process that doesn't necessarily deploy all objects exactly the same, we utilize SQL Compare as one of our main tools to look for differences between databases to gather an initial assessment of the database to determine if we may be missing an object, permission or any other database component.

On the application development side, they will use SQL Compare to assist with developing and generating SQL scripts for deployments.

Pros

Ease of use, doesn't require a lot knowledge or experience to use the tool.
UI is easy to navigate with several options filter content and results are grouped by content which makes comparing differences easy to find. Differences are also color coded and highlighted in code windows so you can pinpoint issues quickly.
Ability to pick and choose which items you want to sync at a push of a button directly to the database or generate the necessary code snippet needed to deploy to multiple databases using a deployment process.

Cons

Would like more filter options, like just looking for index differences between databases and tables and not seeing all the other differences that may exist in other components like triggers, extended properties, etc.
A 'Golden Copy', I compare multiple databases that are similar but not exactly the same but you're only can compare 2 databases at a time. I'd like to have the ability to save components from multiple sources to make a golden copy but also have the option to compare the 3 the same time.

Likelihood to Recommend

We use SQL Compare to troubleshoot performance problems quite a bit since our data model is more like a template and not everything is 100% in sync and customization occurs between different client databases. We continually get pulled into performance issues and the developers will say Client A is performing different than Client B, why? Using SQL Compare, we usually find that one client was tuned and had indexes altered or added that weren't deployed to all clients or other objects weren't deployed correctly during the release.

On the other hand, since our data model practices allow client databases to drift I tried to create a new golden image by trying to compare multiple databases based on the same data model and found it to be a very difficult process to complete using SQL Compare. SQL Compare gave me too much information and doesn't allow enough filtering to eliminate a lot of the noise.

Kevin R. Zakoski

Database Engineer III in Information Technology at LTCG (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

15 years of experience

View profile

Redgate SQL Data Compare: a tool every DBA needs in their kit

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

March 12, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I primarily use Redgate SQL Data Compare when troubleshooting issues to determine what has changed in a database between two times. It is great for ad-hoc troubleshooting, then recovering from the issue.

Pros

Provides many options for setting the comparison key
Provides flexibility about what you are comparing (database, backup, scripts)
Makes it easy to filter down to just what you are looking for

Cons

Would be cool if it could read transaction logs to find what caused the change

Likelihood to Recommend

I think every DBA needs a tool like Redgate SQL Data Compare for day-to-day work and troubleshooting of issues.

Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

SQL Data Compare, not pretty, but it works

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

February 8, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Redgate SQL Compare is used in multiple departments within our organization. My company hadn't used Redgate products previously to my hiring, but it is spreading out through the company.
One of the challenges working with data, especially in different environments, is finding differences/changes that have occurred in the data. Redgate SQL Compare makes this very easy to accomplish, highlighting the differences and even giving you the option to update the data on one of the systems.

Pros

Data comparison
Data update

Cons

Speed of execution. It can be slow to run, especially on large datasets.

Likelihood to Recommend

Full disclosure, I'm a huge fan of Redgate and their SQL products and have been for years. Redgate SQL Compare is well suited anytime you have sets of data you want to compare or update. If you have large tables that you're trying to compare, however, it may take a very long time to compare. It also can take a little time to figure out the user interface — both in setting up the comparison and analyzing the results.

Verified User

Team Lead in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

Redgate SQL Compare: the only SQL comparison tool you'll ever need!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

September 10, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

My small web development team uses Redgate SQL Compare to help us manage our SQL databases across different environments (development, QA, and production, etc.). It eliminates the tedious and manual task of comparing database schemas and synchronizing them and their data across these different environments.

Pros

Simple and easy comparison of database schemas and data. Differences can be copied or synced from one database to another with a click of a button.
You can save "projects" so that you can easily rerun a previous comparison whenever you need to.
It has a very simple, easy to learn interface. I've never needed to read any documentation or watch any tutorials in order to figure out how to do something.

Cons

I honestly can't think of anything I don't like or anything I would change.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you maintain different copies of the same database (whether on the same server or on different servers) this is a must have tool. For example, in web development, it's common to have a development database, a testing/QA database, and a production database. This tool makes it easy to compare those different databases for any differences and synchronize changes and data between them. Now, when you deploy a new set of features to production, you can use this to deploy any accompanying database changes. However, if your application includes code that manages the database (for example, a new module or feature might include code to apply related database schema changes when it's installed), then this tool might not be necessary.

Richard Davies

Senior Web Application Developer in Information Technology at City of Portland (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

View profile

Redgate SQL Compare -- What's to compare, save time and money!

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

June 29, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SQL compare is used in the department mainly during releases and the occasional issue finding (differences between live and dev environments).
Years before we did use a source control solution, but that caused more problems than it solved, so I use this software to deploy DB changes from our dev to live platforms. It's more manual, but it gives me the opportunity to review the differences, and from time to time question the choices of the changes!

Pros

It allows you to set up projects for repetitive comparisions.
It organises object differences very well, with filters and searches available on top.
Redgate displays the differences between objects very clearly at script level.
It's created deployment scripts that you can either run yourself, or complete using the application.

Cons

So far so good. I have to be honest, it's not a complicated application, and so far hasn't caused me any issues or to question the choices of the developers!

Likelihood to Recommend

Redgate is just a massive timesaving tool for releasing changes from our dev to live platforms. Being able to choose all the objects that need scripting out to alter, create, and drop statements with the click of a few buttons, taking into consideration all the dependencies, is brilliant. Coupled with that, the ability to review the differences along the way for last-minute issue spotting is hugely helpful.

Verified User

Manager in Information Technology (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

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Redgate SQL Compare from the DBA perspective

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

August 27, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

On the application development side, they will use SQL Compare to assist with developing and generating SQL scripts for deployments.

Pros

Ease of use, doesn't require a lot knowledge or experience to use the tool.
UI is easy to navigate with several options filter content and results are grouped by content which makes comparing differences easy to find. Differences are also color coded and highlighted in code windows so you can pinpoint issues quickly.
Ability to pick and choose which items you want to sync at a push of a button directly to the database or generate the necessary code snippet needed to deploy to multiple databases using a deployment process.

Cons

Would like more filter options, like just looking for index differences between databases and tables and not seeing all the other differences that may exist in other components like triggers, extended properties, etc.
A 'Golden Copy', I compare multiple databases that are similar but not exactly the same but you're only can compare 2 databases at a time. I'd like to have the ability to save components from multiple sources to make a golden copy but also have the option to compare the 3 the same time.

Likelihood to Recommend

Kevin R. Zakoski

Database Engineer III in Information Technology at LTCG (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

15 years of experience

View profile