MicrosoftSQL Server JDBC for macOS
This tutorial shows how to set up a data source and connect to a Microsoft® SQL Server® database using the Database Explorer app or the command line. This tutorial uses the Microsoft JDBC Driver 4.0 for Microsoft SQL Server to connect to a Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Express database.
Step 1. Verify the driver installation.
I am looking for a free ODBC driver to connect to SQL server 2008 R2 from Excel 2011 on a Mac OS X. Thank you, Scott Hi, Based on my research, JDBC driver is a better.
If the JDBC driver for SQL Server is not installed on your computer, find the link on the Driver Installation page to install the driver. Follow the instructions to download and install this driver on your computer.
Step 2. Set up the data source.
You can set up a data source using the JDBC Data Source Configuration dialog box, which you can open from the Database Explorer app or at the command line.
- Open the Database Explorer app by clicking the Apps tab on the MATLAB® Toolstrip. Then, on the right of the Apps section, click the Show more arrow to open the apps gallery. Under Database Connectivity and Reporting, click Database Explorer. Alternatively, enter
databaseExplorer
at the command line. - In the Data Source section, select Configure Data Source > Configure JDBC data source.Or, enter
configureJDBCDataSource
at the command line.The JDBC Data Source Configuration dialog box opens. - In the Name box, enter a name for your data source. You use this name to establish a connection to your database.
- From the Vendor list, select
MICROSOFT SQL SERVER
. - In the Driver Location box, enter the full path to the JDBC driver file.
- In the Database box, enter the name of your database. In the Server box, enter the name of your database server. Consult your database administrator for the name of your database server. In the Port Number box, enter the port number.
- Click . The Test Connection dialog box opens. Enter the user name and password for your database, or leave these boxes blank if your database does not require them. Click .If your connection succeeds, the Database Explorer dialog box displays a message indicating the connection is successful. Otherwise, it displays an error message.
- Click . The JDBC Data Source Configuration dialog box displays a message indicating the data source is saved successfully. Close this dialog box.
After you complete the data source setup, connect to the SQL Server database using the Database Explorer app or JDBC driver and command line.
Step 3. Connect using the Database Explorer app or the command line.
Connect to SQL Server Using Database Explorer App
- On the Database Explorer tab, in the Data Source section, click .
- In the Connect to a Data Source dialog box, select the data source you defined from the Data Source list. Enter a user name and password, or leave these boxes blank if your database does not require them. Click .The Catalog and Schema dialog box opens.
- Select the catalog and schema from the Catalog and Schema lists. Click .The Database Explorer app connects to the database and displays database tables in the Data Browser pane. A data source tab appears to the right of the pane. The title of the data source tab is the data source name that you defined during the setup. The data source tab contains empty SQL Query and Data Preview panes.
- Select tables in the Data Browser pane to query the database.
- Close the data source tab to close the SQL query and the database connection.
Tip
To close the database connection, close all tabs that have titles beginning with the name of the corresponding data source. For example, if the data source name isMS SQL Server
, and two tabs namedMS SQL Server
andMS SQL Server1
are open, then close both tabs.To close all database connections, close the Database Explorer app.
Connect to SQL Server Using JDBC Driver and Command Line
- Connect to a SQL Server database using the configured JDBC data source, user name
username
, and passwordpwd
. For example, this code assumes that you are connecting to a JDBC data source namedMSSQLServer
. - Close the database connection.
See Also
Apps
Functions
close
|configureJDBCDataSource
|database
Related Topics
How can I connect to a remote SQL server using Mac OS X? I don't really need a GUI, but it would be nice to have for the color coding and resultset grid. I'd rather not have to use a VM.
Is there a SQL client for Mac OS X that works with MS SQL Server?
![Jdbc Jdbc](/uploads/1/2/5/2/125281914/545630750.png)
closed as not constructive by casperOneJul 3 '12 at 13:47
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance. If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
25 Answers
Let's work together on a canonical answer.
Native Apps
Java-Based
- Oracle SQL Developer (free)
- SQuirrel SQL (free, open source)
- DBeaver (free, open source)
- SQL Workbench/J (free, open source)
- Metabase (free, open source)
- Netbeans (free, open source, full development environment)
Electron-Based
(TODO: Add others mentioned below)
The Java-based Oracle SQL Developer has a plugin module that supports SQL Server. I use it regularly on my Mac. It's free, too.
Here's how to install the SQL Server plugin:
- Run SQL Developer
- go to this menu item: Oracle SQL Developer/Preferences/Database/Third-party JDBC Drivers
- Click help.
- It will have pointers to the JAR files for MySQL, SQL Server, etc.
- The SQL Server JAR file is available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/jtds/files/
This will be the second question in a row I've answered with this, so I think it's worth pointing out that I have no affiliation with this product, but I use it and love it and think it's the right answer to this question too: DbVisualizer.
I thought Sequel Pro for MySQL looked pretty interesting. It's hard to find one tool that works with all those databases (especially SQL Server 2005 . . . most people use SQL Server Management Studio and that's Windows only of course).
When this question was asked there were very few tools out there were worth much. I also ended up using Fusion and a Windows client. I have tried just about everything for MAC and Linux and never found anything worthwhile. That included dbvisualizer, squirrel (particularly bad, even though the windows haters in my office swear by it), the oracle SQL developer and a bunch of others. Nothing compared to DBArtizan on Windows as far as I was concerned and I was prepared to use it with Fusion or VirtualBox. I don't use the MS product because it is only limited to MS SQL.
Bottom line is nothing free is worthwhile, nor were most commercial non windows products
However, now (March 2010) I believe there are two serious contenders and worthwhile versions for the MAC and Linux which have a low cost associated with them. The first one is Aqua Data Studio which costs about $450 per user, which is a barely acceptable, but cheap compared to DBArtizan and others with similar functionality (but MS only). The other is RazorSQL which only costs $69 per user.Aqua data studio is good, but a resource hog and basically pretty sluggish and has non essential features such as the ER diagram tool, which is pretty bad at that. The Razor is lightning fast and is only a 16meg download and has everything an SQL developer needs including a TSQL editor.
So the big winner is RazorSQL and for $69, well worth it and feature ridden. Believe me, after several years of waiting to find a cheap non windows substitute for DBartizan, I have finally found one and I have been very picky.
My employer produces a simple, proof-of-concept HTML5-based SQL client which can be used against any ODBC data source on the web-browser host machine, through the HTML5 WebDB-to-ODBC Bridge we also produce. These components are free, for Mac, Windows, and more.
Applicable to many of the other answers here -- the Type 1 JDBC-to-ODBC Bridge that most are referring to is the one Sun built in to and bundled with the JVM. JVM/JRE/JDK documentation has always advised against using this built-in except in experimental scenarios, or when no other option exists, because this component was built as a proof-of-concept, and was never intended for production use.
My employer makes an enterprise-grade JDBC-to-ODBC Bridge, available as either a Single-Tier (installs entirely on the client application host) or a Multi-Tier (splits components over the client application host and the ODBC data source host, enabling JDBC client applications in any JVM to use ODBC data sources on Mac, Windows, Linux, etc.). This solution isn't free.
All of the above can be used with the ODBC Drivers for Sybase & Microsoft SQL Server (or other databases) we also produce ...
Squirrel SQL is a Java based SQL client, that I've had good experience with on Windows and Linux. Since it's Java, it should do the trick.
It's open source. You can run multiple sessions with multiple databases concurrently.
I vote for RazorSQL also. It's very powerful in many respects and practically supports most databases out there. I mostly use it for SQL Server, MySQL and PostgreSQL.
DbVisualizer supports many different databases. There is a free edition that I have used previously. Download from here
I have had good success over the last two years or so using Navicat for MySQL.The UI could use a little updating, but all of the tools and options they provide make the cost justifiable for me.
I like SQLGrinder.
It's built using Cocoa, so it looks a lot better and feels more like an Mac OS X application than all the Java-based application mentioned here.
It uses JDBC drivers to connect to Microsoft SQL Server 2005, FrontBase, MySQL, OpenBase, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and Sybase.
Free trial or $59.
I use the Navicat clients for MySQL and PostgreSQL and am happy with them. 'good' is obviously subjective... how do you judge your DB clients?
When this question was asked, Microsoft's Remote Desktop for OS X had been unsupported for years. It wasn't a Universal Binary, and I found it to be somewhat buggy (I recall that the application will just quit after a failed connection instead of allowing you to alter the connection info and try again).
At the time I recommended the Open Source CoRD, a good RDP client for Mac.
Since then Microsoft Remote Desktop Client for Mac 2 was released.
I've been using Oracle SQL Developer since the Microsoft software for SQL Server is not currently available on Mac OS X. It works wonders. I would also recommend RazorSQL or SQLGrinder.
I use AquaFold at work on Windows, but it's based on Java and supports Mac OS X.
I've used (DB Solo) and I like it a lot. It's only $99 and comparable to many more expensive tools. It supports Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase, MySQL, PostgreSQL and others.
Not sure about open-source, but I've heard good things about http://www.advenio.com/sqlgrinder/ (not tried it, I prefer to write Python scripts to try things out rather than use GUIs;-).
This doesn't specifically answer your question, because I'm not sure in any clients exist in Mac OS X, but I generally just Remote Desktop into the server and work through that. Another option is VMware Fusion (which is much better than Parallels in my opinion) + Windows XP + SQL Server Management Studio.
I use Eclipse's Database development plugins - like all Java based SQL editors, it works cross platform with any type 4 (ie pure Java) JDBC driver. It's ok for basic stuff (the main failing is it struggles to give transaction control -- auto-commit=true is always set it seems).
Microsoft have a decent JDBC type 4 driver: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D483869-816A-44CB-9787-A866235EFC7C&displaylang=en this can be used with all Java clients / programs on Win/Mac/Lin/etc.
Those people struggling with Java/JDBC on a Mac are presumably trying to use native drivers instead of JDBC ones -- I haven't used (or practically heard of) the ODBC driver bridge in almost 10 years.
It may not be the best solution if you don't already have it, but FileMaker 11 with the Actual SQL Server ODBC driver (http://www.actualtech.com/product_sqlserver.php) worked nicely for a client of mine today. The ODBC driver is only $29, but FileMaker is $299, which is why you might only consider it if you already have it.
I've used Eclipse with the Quantum-DB plugins for that purpose since I was already using Eclipse anyway.
Ed: phpMyAdmin is for MySQL, but the asker needs something for Microsoft SQL Server.
Most solutions that I found involve using an ODBC Driver and then whatever client application you use. For example, Gorilla SQL claims to be able to do that, even though the project seems abandoned.
Most good solutions are either using Remote Desktop or VMware/Parallels.
Try CoRD and modify what you want directly from the server.
It's open source.
For MySQL, there is Querious and Sequel Pro. The former costs US$25, and the latter is free. You can find a comparison of them here, and a list of some other Mac OS X MySQL clients here.
Steve
Since there currently isn't a MS SQL client for Mac OS X, I would, as Modesty has suggested, use Remote Desktop for the Mac.