apgdiff vs sqldef

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.

sqldef is a free command-line tool for managing relational database migrations with SQL DDLs. Users maintain a SQL file describing the desired schema; sqldef compares it with the current database schema to generate and apply changes. It lists support for MySQL, MariaDB, TiDB, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, and SQLite3. The workflow can export the current schema and use a dry run to preview migrations before execution. It can also compare two SQL files without a database connection, for schema validation, CI/CD, and migration script generation. Repeated runs are safe: when the database matches the desired schema, another run shows no changes. Rename annotations are documented for tables, columns, indexes, and ENUM values. Each database tool is distributed as a single binary without dependencies. Linux, macOS, Windows, and self-hosted availability are listed. Linux binaries and Docker images are available, but Debian packages are not; a Homebrew tap is listed for four database tools. Source files use the MIT License, while the parser uses Apache License 2.0.