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Native Beekeeper Studio Alternative for Mac.

Beekeeper Studio is a friendly cross-platform database client built on Electron. The Community Edition is free; paid tiers start at $108 per year (Indie) and add AI from the Professional tier ($168 per year). Electron bundles Chromium so even at idle the app uses 200-400 MB of RAM. TablePro is native SwiftUI for Mac. 80 MB at idle, under 1 second to start.

Feature
TablePro
Beekeeper Studio
Price
Free
Free / from $108/yr Indie
Open Source
Community Edition GPLv3
Technology
Native (SwiftUI)
Electron (Chromium)
Startup Time
<1s
~3s
Memory Usage
~80 MB
~200-400 MB
Databases
18+
17+
AI Assistant
Free tier
Pro tier ($168/yr)
iOS App
iCloud Sync
SSH Tunneling
Inline Editing
ER Diagrams
Vim Mode
Dark Mode
Cross-Platform

Benchmarks

The numbers.

Cold start

~1sTablePro
2-5sBeekeeper Studio

RAM idle

~80 MBTablePro
300-500 MBBeekeeper Studio

Download size

~30 MBTablePro
~315 MBBeekeeper Studio

Summary

Strengths of each.

TablePro

  • 80 MB RAM vs ~200-400 MB for Electron
  • Under 1 second start vs ~3 seconds
  • Native SwiftUI, not Electron
  • Apple Silicon arm64 native
  • AI SQL assistant in the free tier (Beekeeper requires Pro)
  • iOS app with iCloud sync

Beekeeper Studio

  • Cross-platform (Linux, Windows, Mac)
  • Active community, ~20k+ GitHub stars
  • Free Community Edition under GPLv3
  • 17+ databases including BigQuery and CockroachDB

Migration

Switch from Beekeeper Studio.

  1. 1

    Install TablePro

    brew install --cask tablepro. Beekeeper stays installed.

  2. 2

    Re-enter your connections

    Beekeeper stores connections in its own format. Recreate each in TablePro or paste the connection URL.

  3. 3

    Compare for a week

    Run both side by side. The startup speed and RAM difference are obvious by day three.

TablePro

See it in action.

TablePro interface showing the data grid and SQL editor

Decision

Which one is right for you?

Choose TablePro if...

you work mainly on Mac and want a real native app instead of a Chromium runtime.

Choose Beekeeper Studio if...

you split time between Mac, Linux, and Windows and want feature parity across all three.

Verdict

Beekeeper Studio is the best Electron-based DB client. TablePro is the best Mac-native one.

FAQ

Common questions.

Why is Beekeeper Studio heavier than TablePro?

It's built on Electron, which bundles Chromium. Even an idle Electron app is hundreds of MB of RAM. TablePro is native SwiftUI; idle stays at 80 MB.

Does TablePro work on Apple Silicon?

Yes. Universal Binary, native arm64 and x86_64. Beekeeper Studio runs on M-series via the bundled Chromium.

Is TablePro really free?

Yes. AGPLv3 open source. Beekeeper has a free Community Edition too; both are honest about that.

Can I import Beekeeper connections?

Not yet. TablePro doesn't read Beekeeper's connection store. Recreate connections by hand.

Does TablePro work on Linux and Windows?

No. TablePro is Mac-native by design. If you need cross-platform, Beekeeper Studio is the pragmatic pick.

Try TablePro for free.

Free and open-source. No account required.

Download for Mac