With the right SQL code completion tools by your side, you can get approximately 2 to 4 times more productive with your daily coding routine, as evidenced by our clients in success stories. Empowered with context-sensitive suggestions, advanced code formatting, and productivity boosters, you can streamline monotonous operations and work every day with a far sharper focus on things that require your attention the most. After all, you want to work smart and make it a pleasure, don’t you?
That is why we are here. Today we’ll be comparing the code completion-related features of two major solutions for SQL developers—Devart’s dbForge SQL Complete and Microsoft’s very own Azure Data Studio—and see which one gains the upper hand when it comes to accelerating database development and making the user more effective.
Let’s start with the general information and capabilities of both tools.
A quick overview of SQL Complete
dbForge SQL Complete is a high-end add-in that seamlessly integrates into SQL Server Management Studio and Visual Studio; both of these rank among the top Microsoft IDEs, and the latter, sure enough, ventures far beyond SQL.
However functional these IDEs may be, SQL Complete substantially enhances them with IntelliSense-style suggestions, instant statement expansion, rich formatting capabilities, predefined and custom code snippets, as well as safe refactoring with auto-correction of references to the objects you need to rename. Among other things, we should mention a set of built-in data aggregation and manipulation tools and a T-SQL Debugger for complex queries, stored procedures, triggers, and functions.
A quick overview of Azure Data Studio
Azure Data Studio is a cross-platform database IDE that delivers a solid SQL editor with IntelliSense completion, smart code snippets, integration of version control, and a built-in terminal. You also get a few other goodies, such as customizable server and database dashboards, but overall, Azure Data Studio is not about in-depth administration or server configuration.
Generally, Microsoft recommends using Azure Data Studio if your work is mostly about editing or executing queries if you need the ability to quickly chart and visualize result sets, and if you are comfortable working with the command line.
This is why it makes sense to compare it with SQL Complete—both of these solutions focus on fast and efficient query writing and both support CLI. Now we only have to find out which one makes it all better.
Code completion comparison: dbForge SQL Complete vs Azure Data Studio
For your convenience, we have divided all features into 3 categories: SQL code completion (obviously, this category is the biggest one), SQL code formatting, and Productivity enhancements.
| Features | dbForge SQL Complete | Azure Data Studio |
| SQL code completion | ||
| Context-sensitive suggestion of keywords | Yes | Yes, but not context-sensitive |
| Context-sensitive object suggestions | Yes | Yes, but not context-sensitive |
| Context-sensitive object suggestions for CTE | Yes | Yes |
| Context-sensitive object suggestions in the SQLCMD mode | Yes | No |
| Name suggestions for objects on linked servers | Yes | No |
| Sorting of suggested keywords by relevance | Yes | No |
| JOIN clause auto-generation | Yes | No |
| Phrase completion | Yes | No |
| Auto-generation of table aliases | Yes | No |
| Column picker for quick list building | Yes | No |
| Wildcard expansion | Yes | Yes |
| Expansion of INSERT, EXEC, ALTER, and UPDATE statements | Yes | No |
| Exclusion of databases from suggestions | Yes | No |
| Highlighting of identifier occurrences | Yes | Yes |
| Pair highlighting | Yes | No |
| Highlighting of matching columns in the INSERT statements | Yes | No |
| Named regions | Yes | No |
| Parameter information for functions | Yes | No |
| Quick object information | Yes | Yes |
| Row count information | Yes | No |
| SQL code formatting | ||
| SQL formatting | Yes | Yes |
| Formatting in files and directories | Yes | No |
| Quick selection of formatting profiles | Yes | Yes |
| Automated formatting from the command line | Yes | No |
| Productivity enhancements | ||
| SQL snippets | Yes | Yes |
| Semi-transparent suggestion box | Yes | No |
| Current statement execution option | Yes | Yes |
| Semicolon insertion | Yes | No |
| Generation of CREATE/ALTER scripts for server objects | Yes | Yes |
| Copy Data As from the grid to XML, CSV, HTML, JSON, Excel | Yes | Yes |
| Go to Definition for database objects | Yes | Yes |
| Recovery of recently closed documents | Yes | No |
| T-SQL Analyzer | Coming soon in v7.0 | No |
| Auto-suggesting non-aggregated columns for GROUP BY clause | Coming soon in v7.0 | No |
| Find Invalid Objects CLI | Coming soon in v7.0 | No |
| Command Line Wizard | Coming soon in v7.0 | No |
| Releases | ||
| First release | v1.0 (November 19, 2010) | v1.0 (September 24, 2018) |
| Latest release (at the time of publication) | v6.15 (Dec 18, 2023) | v1.48 (Feb 28, 2024) |
| Total number of releases | 140 | 79 |
As you can see, SQL Complete is the clear winner here. It expands the capabilities of SSMS so greatly that it basically leaves no chance for Azure Data Studio to overcome it any day soon in this respect.
Conclusion
That said, if using SSMS is just fine with you, and if you need to give a powerful boost to your daily SQL coding, you don’t need Azure Data Studio really. The combination of SSMS and SQL Complete is your best bet.
What’s more, besides the completion, formatting, and productivity features that have been mentioned in the comparison above, SQL Complete delivers quite a few other things that you will most certainly find highly useful in your daily work:
- Smart renaming of database objects and variables
- Alias refactoring and custom alias mapping
- Search for invalid objects
- Versatile data management in the SSMS results grid
- Data visualization
- Query execution warnings and notifications
- Transaction reminders
- Query execution history
- Custom SSMS window title
- Tab coloring
- Document Outline window for simplified navigation
Try it all free of charge — download SQL Complete for a free 14-day trial and make your daily work with SQL an easy breeze.
