Alternatives to Tad
A desktop viewer for CSV and Parquet files and SQLite and DuckDB databases, with pivot tables. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Tad
A desktop viewer for CSV and Parquet files and SQLite and DuckDB databases, with pivot tables.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Tad.
VisiData
An interactive terminal multitool for exploring, cleaning and converting tabular data in many formats.
VisiData explores CSV, JSON, Excel and SQLite data in the terminal under GPL-3.0 with histograms, but needs WSL on Windows and uses keyboard commands.
DB Browser for SQLite
Opens a SQLite file in a spreadsheet-like window so you can look at the data without writing SQL.
DB Browser for SQLite opens and edits SQLite files in a spreadsheet-style window with plotting, but does not open Parquet files or offer pivot tables.
Harlequin
A SQL IDE that runs in the terminal, with adapters for DuckDB, SQLite, Postgres and more.
Harlequin queries DuckDB and SQLite from a terminal SQL IDE instead of a graphical pivot viewer, and is installed through Python.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
DuckDB
In-process analytical database that queries CSV, JSON and Parquet directly.
Datasette
Publishes SQLite databases as an explorable website and JSON API.
Zui
A desktop application for exploring data, and the official front end to Brim Data's SuperDB.
sqlite-utils
A Python command-line tool and library for creating, querying and transforming SQLite databases.
trdsql
Query structured files with SQL from the command line.
