Navicat Data Modeler 3 review: Simple but powerful data management tool

A review of trail cum premium Navicat Data modeler software to design database via data modeling for dedicated database developer and/or an administrator. An er diagram tool for macOS, Windows and Linux OS.

Managing data in a systematic way makes our work a lot easier, and maintaining a database is undoubtedly one of the best and proven ways to manage a lot of data seamlessly. Well, the time has changed, and besides structural data, we sometimes have to deal with semi-structured and unstructured data, and dealing with them is a real challenge if you want to do them with traditional database management applications.

However, if your task is limited, just with structured data, some database management tools can really get the job done for you. Working with databases sometimes involves the need to create a connection between different tables within a database, or a connection with multiple databases.

When it is all about connecting multiple tables or databases, things might get complicated pretty fast, and that’s when you need a proper data modeling tool, where you can work with the tables create connections between them in the most effortless way before you proceed with the actual database. That being said, I will talk about the Navicat Data Modeler 3. It is almost a few weeks now that I am using this program for the purpose of data modeling, and thus, I’m here with a review. Even though I’m not profound in dealing with databases, thus if I can understand it then anyone can. Here, I will talk about how you do the functions stand out if you really need to deal with complex sets of data using the Navicat Data Modeler 3.

So, without any further delay, let’s get started with the review of Navicat Data Modeler 3.

Navicat Data Modeler 3.0 Features:

Let’s start the review with the features of Navicat Data Modeler 3. This is something that you should really look at before you can take your decision of using the software.

• With Navicat Data Modeler 3, you can create database models using professional tools to create tables, and see different views of the same. The user interface of Navicat Data Modeler 3 is also very simple, and all the features are available in the menu bar and toolbar so that you don’t face any troubles finding the most appropriate tools.

• With Navicat Data Modeler 3, you can create 3 types of data models, which includes physical, conceptual and logical data models, for different requirements. Just choose the most appropriate data model depending upon which suits your requirements, and your target audience. Besides that, you can even convert between data models, if your requirements change with time.

• Reverse engineering is one of the cool features of Navicat Data Modeler 3, where you can create and find the schematic of the databases, which are already prepared. Once you get hands-on your existing database models, you can create ER diagrams (Entity Relationship Diagram), see the existing structures and relationships by taking advantage of the different elements of Navicat, without tampering or changing actual data. Using Navicat Data Modeler 3, you can reverse-engineer databases through Direct Connection, ODBC on Windows and Mac, MySQL, Maria DB, Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and SQL Lite.

• With the comparison and synchronization option available on Navicat Data Modeler 3, you can find differences between an existing database, and the database model that is prepared by you and generate a synchronization script, which can be useful to write updates to the remote database from data model already prepared by you. This feature adds more flexibility to this program.

• SQL code generation is one of the most useful features of Navicat Data Modeler 3, which can help you export the SQL code that is generated from an existing database model. All the small details added by you to the data model will be retained in the final SQL code, which can later be executed to automatically create the required database for you.

• With Navicat Cloud, you can sync all your progress to the cloud, so that you can get access to them from anywhere, and this should definitely fuel your productivity. All data models you create, the changes you make will always be synchronized with the Navicat Cloud in real-time.

• Navicat Data Modeler 3 is presently available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and hopefully, the support for Chromebook and other platforms will be available soon by the developers of this program.

Download Navicat Data Modeler 3.0

The best thing about the Linux installation is it available in the AppImage form which makes it a universal Linux app, that you can install on any Linux regardless of its base or flavours. For example same Navicat Modeler image for Ubuntu and CentOS Linux operating systems.

Here we are showing how to install it on Linux Mint but the steps will be the same for Ubuntu, CetnOS, Debian, Fedora and other Linux OS.

1. Here is the link to download the current version of Navicat Data Modeler. Use your browser to download the supported OS version. Here we are using the Linux AppImage.

2. After downloading, open the command terminal and type:

cd Downloads

3. Now Change the permission of the downloaded file

chmod +x modeler3-en.AppImage

4. Run the script to open the Navicat Data Modeler on Linux

./modeler3-en.AppImage

So, that was a lot. All the features that it has to offer, makes Navicat Data Modeler 3 a premium data modelling tool for different platforms.

Pros:

Now to help in your decision, whether you should go for Navicat Data Modeler 3 or not, So I am here with the Pros in the review of using Navicat Data Modeler 3.

• Navicat Data Modeler 3 comes with a very easy and user-friendly interface, which I have already discussed in the future section. Almost all kinds of tools are available to create tables, and if you use Microsoft Access and other popular database tools, you can feel right at home using Navicat Data Modeler 3. Even if you are not an expert in dealing with databases, Navicat Data Modeler 3 will not be tough for you to work with.

• The ability to add layers to your database is really handy if you are having a really large database, and you want to get a better view of your database, in a layered structure. Besides that, you can even add images to your database, to help you get a practical view of working with a database. Besides that, the ability to add shapes to the data model can be useful, if it is associated with some computer program, data is to be added to and from the database through some computer program, or it is a part of a flowchart.

• Navicat Data Modeler 3 can even print out data models, to make it easy to show it to others, or you can even save it as a PDF document. This can be useful, after a database is already prepared, and you want to fix some issues. Data models created by using Navicat Data Modeler 3, can be used as a subtle form of documentation for existing databases to troubleshoot issues.

• Navicat Data Modeler 3 is very lightweight, and it will hardly affect your computer’s performance in any way, even after making your work with databases a lot easier than ever before. It consumes a little less than 250 MB of space on your hard drive, which isn’t something that would matter in today’s world of technology.

• Navicat Data Modeler 3 can create data models for several target databases, and it also has support for different versions of each of them. Besides the recent versions of each of the database tools, Navicat Data Modeler 3 has support for the older versions of the target databases, which means it will not be an issue for you if you work with legacy database tools, or your organization hasn’t updated to the latest database management tools yet.

• Navicat Data Modeler 3 maintains a history of the activities carried out by you while working with a data model, and you can find them in the bottom left corner of the user interface. If you have made some mistakes, and you want to get back to an old revision of your data model, you can simply click on the appropriate revision to get back the data model that was persistent during that time. However, the history is retained only for the current session. The changes made by you in the earlier sessions will not be retained, however.

• I have already discussed the user interface and appearance of the program, and it seems to be really satisfying. But there is a cherry on the pie. Besides the regular light mode available on Navicat Data Modeler 3, there is a dark mode, as well, which, to be honest, is one of the best things, most users were actually like. That proves, the developers of the program even peeped into the small parts of the development, which is evident from the availability of a dark mode. 

Talking about the pricing, it is available at $199 for a non-commercial edition and $349 for enterprise one, which is really reasonable for such a feature software. If you deal with databases a lot, getting Navicat Data Modeler 3 can be a cool deal for you at this price. However, you also have the chance to try the software out for 14 days, before you make the investment.

So, those were the pros. Navicat Data Modeler 3 really makes it easy to work with complex databases, and you will hardly face troubles using it with your new and existing projects.

Cons:

Let’s have a look at the problems I faced with Navicat Data Modeler 3. There aren’t many. Let’s just find out.

• While reviewing the Navicat Data Modele 3 which was in its Beta state, thus, sometimes the program stopped responding when I tried establishing a connection with external databases. I waited a few minutes before considering it to be a futile attempt, and I had to restart the program to get it working. This doesn’t happen every time, but I will recommend you save your model from time to time so that you never lose your progress if the program stops responding.

So that’s the only con I faced using Navicat Data Modeler 3.0. I didn’t find any other significant con of using the program.

Navicat Data Modeler 3.0 review Bottom line:

So if you deal with a lot of data models, and keep facing troubles, Navicat Data Modeler 3 can be your best tool to make your everyday job a lot easier. The cloud storage by Navicat is the cherry on the pie, as your data models are always with you, no matter where you are. Hopefully, the only problem I faced should be resolved in the coming updates to make it one of the best data modeling programs.

I also hope the program goes through more improvements, and I wish more features are added to the program to make it easy to deal with different models. All said Navicat Data Modeler 3 is worth trying out if you want to make database and data models handling a piece of pie for you.

So that was the Navicat Data Modeler 3 review. Do you have any questions or have anything valuable to add? I would like to get a penny for your thoughts in the comment section below.

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