DBngin: Instant Local Server for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Redis

Docker might be an easy solution as an all-in-one tool for setting up a Local Development Environment. But on the other hand, it eats up a huge portion of your system resources to get up and running, and we hate it when our computer becomes lagging and clumsy.

In this post, you will learn a quick and easy way to install a local database server without experiencing the heaviness of Docker.

An introduction to DBngin

DBngin is a free, lightweight database version management tool that helps you quickly install and manage multiple database servers on macOS.

Some advantages of DBngin:

• Native and lightweight.
• No dependencies. Start and run without downloading any additional packages.
• No command required.
• Multiple versions & ports. Currently, it supports multiple versions of MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Redis.
  

So if you are setting up a local developing environment for MySQL, with DBngin, you can have:

• A local MySQL database server.
• Multiple local MySQL database servers.
• Multiple local MySQL database servers of various versions, and run all of them at the same time.

The same goes for PostgreSQL and Redis, you can create as many database servers as you need to.

Installing DBngin

Currently, DBngin only supports macOS. You can download it from here.

The design is simple and straightforward, you don’t need any instructions on how to use like Docker. A couple of clicks is all you need.

Start a local database server

Start DBngin and hit the + button at the top right to start a new database server.

To continue with the example, we will start a local MySQL server here. Select MySQL from the Service Dropdown list, and select its version. Name the server and hit Create. 

Back to the Database Control Panel, hit Start button to start the server you just created. DBngin will now use the MySQL binaries to set up a local database server and create a default MySQL database for you.

And you’re good to go.

Stop the database server

After you start the server, even if you quit DBngin, the server is still on and you can continue working on it. When you don’t need it on anymore, open DBngin and hit Stop from the Control Panel.

If you have any pre-installed homebrew services, you can start and stop them directly from DBngin too.