TOP (10) free SSMS plugins

Before I started working with SQL Server, I really didn’t see any databases in person ... I remember that they installed SQL Server Management Studio 2005 and gave me the task of actively pedaling. After a couple of weeks, as it were, my query writing performance was clearly in the skirting area ...

A more experienced colleague looked at me in bewilderment and advised me to put a couple of plug-ins for SSMS ... after that, it became clearly more fun.

In this post I want to share my top list of free plug-ins for the SSMS , which is most often used.

To begin with, sore ... Intellisense Support SSMS 2005was not and had to write everything with his hands. The first Intellisense “signs” appeared in SSMS 2008 . Since then, the functionality has not expanded significantly. Of course, later there was highlighting of non-existent objects in the code, but there is no need to talk about high-quality built-in Intellisense to this day.

If you previously had to put cracks on paid products, now it’s superfluous, because there are a number of good plugins that implement the T-SQL tooltip at a fairly high level. The first is SQL Complete Express , which I often used before (now the parser has become worse). The second is more functional, but more demanding on system resources.

dbForge SQL Complete Express



Apex SQL Complete



If you work with databases, then keeping in mind where certain objects are used is quite problematic. Especially when the scheme is constantly changing ... In SSMS there is no good functionality for finding objects, but there are a number of good plugins that I want to introduce.

RedGate SQL Search

I have been using this plugin for a very long time. Its main feature is that during the first search it saves all user objects in the local cache on disk. And then the search goes inside this cache. This approach has its pros and cons. A definite plus - the search is very fast. Cons also appear when the scheme in the database is constantly changing and in order to do a search you have to regularly update the local cache and wait ...



dbForge Object Search

Appeared relatively recently. Unlike its predecessor, this plugin does not cache information, but directly accesses metadata when searching. Accordingly, we have a faster first search and do not need to think about updating the cache (by doing this, the search is slower each time).

There are, of course, minor differences between them. For example, this plugin has syntax highlighting, and the previous one does not have this feature. But the general functionality of these two plugins is approximately equivalent: navigation through the tree of objects, search by type ...



Apex SQL Search

This product, in addition to the functionality described above, can also show dependencies and search for data in tables. Possibilities are an order of magnitude greater, but the main minus is the speed of work.



SSMSBoost

A very good plugin that expands the possibilitiesThe SSMS . Search for objects. Export data from Result to Excel . Session recovery with all open documents and much more.

SQL Code Guard

This plugin also has the ability to search for objects, but not for this functionality it ended up on my list. Using it, you can also search for potential errors and conduct statistical analysis of the code. Something similar already exists in Visual Studio , but there are fewer opportunities.



Previously, SQL Server Express owners had a lot of questions about where to get SQL Server Profiler ... Now, there are at least two good alternatives. The only drawbacks in which the lack of the ability to work with XEventand support for graph analysis with deadlocks.

Express Profiler

The first alternative is a very worthy Open Source project



dbForge Event Profiler

The second alternative has appeared recently and has more functionality. For example, in SQL Server Profiler, I have long lacked the ability to sort in the final trace. In this product, such an opportunity has already been implemented. But if in general, too, far from the convenience of work.



SQL Sentry Plan Explorer Free

In real-life tasks, analyzing the execution plan in SSMS is very inconvenient. In my own opinion, one of the best alternatives for working with Execution Planthis modest product. The only minus in it is not full integration into SSMS



A little afterword ...

I hope I was able to show that convenient work in SSMS is still possible. At the moment, my personal choice of plugins for SSMS is : RedGate SQL Search and SQL Sentry Plan Explorer .

It was not possible to consider all the abundance of paid and free plug-ins. Therefore, if readers have the opportunity to share their list of free products, I will be glad to see your comments.

UPDATE 2019-06-03:
Recently launched its first open source index maintenance program for SQL Server and Azure. I would like to develop it in the future, therefore I will be glad to fitbacks.

Link to the program sources:
www.github.com/sergeysyrovatchenko/SQLIndexManager

Discussion of the new functionality:
www.sql.ru/forum/1312218/sql-index-manager-besplatnaya-utilita-po-obsluzhivaniu-indeksov-dlya-sql-server- i-azure