head to head · open source
drawDB vs dbx
drawDB has 40,223 GitHub stars, 3,350 forks, 241 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. dbx has 28,664 stars, 2,616 forks, 1,406 open issues and last shipped yesterday. drawDB leads on adoption by 40% (40,223 vs 28,664 stars). drawDB is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; dbx is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. drawDB has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, dbx 9%. dbx was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (database), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| drawDB | dbx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 29K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 2.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick drawDB if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dbx if
- You want the dbx feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and dbx fits your workflow better
About drawDB
drawDB Free, simple, and intuitive database schema editor and SQL generator. DrawDB is a robust and user friendly database entity relationship diagram (ERD) editor right in your browser. Build diagrams with a few clicks, export and import SQL scripts, generate migrations, customize your editor, and more without creating an account. See the full set of features on here. Getting Started Local Development Build Docker Build If you want to enable sharing, set up the server and environment variables according to .env.sample . This is optional unless you need to share files. Contributing Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for…
read the full drawDB overview →
About dbx
90+ databases in 25 MB. Desktop, Docker, CLI, built in AI assistant, and MCP Server. <img src="
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Frequently asked questions
Is drawDB or dbx more popular?
drawDB has 40,223 GitHub stars and dbx has 28,664. drawDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are drawDB and dbx free?
Both are open source. drawDB is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and dbx under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between drawDB and dbx?
drawDB is written in JavaScript and dbx in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, drawDB or dbx?
Choose drawDB if you want the larger community (40,223 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose dbx if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.