Azure Data Studio

I have always used SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) when interfacing with an MS SQL server or Azure SQL Server. Recently, I have began using Azure Data Studio, an open source alternative from Microsoft (although with limitations).

I have not used it for long, but my experience can be summed up to the following bullets:

• Round Trip and queries towards the server do not block the UI like in SSMS, but is instead handled in the background as it should be.
• Even though background processing works without blocking, the UI seldomly show this fact meaning that background completed processing might show up after a couple of seconds without warning.
• Intellisense is in their for general SQL, but it is not as context aware like in SSMS, e.g. it does not automatically suggest table names unless specified with the full schema.
• It does not provide much help in the form of designing tables, everything needs to be done by SQL.
• It provides extensions, similar to VSCode, that can be installed to increase functionality, e.g. connecting to other databases such as Postgres.
• It has built in support for data charting (although I was unable to get this feature to work)

Azure Data Studio is very nice if you know SQL and frequently use SQL. If however database management / table / schema design is something you seldomly due, and thus require a bit more help in the process, SSMS is in my opinion more attractive due to it provides much more functionality that helps with designing tables and such.

In any case, I think Azure Data Studio will replace SSMS in the future for the majority of users - I will definitely use it for simpler queries that I know by hand.