apgdiff vs pgquarrel

apgdiff is a free command-line tool that compares two PostgreSQL schema dump files and generates DDL statements to update an older schema or show differences. It takes an original dump and a new dump as inputs; generated SQL can be printed in the terminal or redirected to a file. The project says it can be called from batch jobs or web applications. It is written in Java and requires Java 1.6 or newer. Listed systems include Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and BSD, as well as other systems where Java is available. Version 2.4 is identified as the latest stable release, with binary and source ZIP downloads. Support covers selected ALTER SEQUENCE, ALTER TABLE, ALTER VIEW, COMMENT, CREATE FUNCTION, CREATE INDEX, CREATE SCHEMA, CREATE SEQUENCE, CREATE TABLE, CREATE TRIGGER, CREATE VIEW, and SET search_path statements. Other SQL statements are ignored, and an option reports ignored DDL. For CREATE TABLE column constraints, only NULL and NOT NULL are supported. The project uses the MIT License and recommends reviewing generated upgrade SQL before applying it.

pgquarrel compares PostgreSQL database schemas and produces SQL commands to bring a target schema in line with a source. It connects to PostgreSQL servers and reads catalog metadata directly, rather than depending on tools such as pg_dump. The project describes deploying schema changes to testing, staging, or production as its main use. Filters can narrow comparisons to selected object types or include and exclude schemas by pattern. Output goes to stdout by default, with options to save it to a file, print a summary, or place changes in one transaction. pgquarrel does not manipulate table data with INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, or COPY. Its documented object coverage includes both complete and partial support; inheritance and roles are noted absences, and not all PostgreSQL objects are supported. Output may not work as expected when the source PostgreSQL version is newer than the target. The software is free under the BSD-3-Clause license, distributed as source through GitHub or a Git clone, and the listed latest release is 0.7.0.