Show HN: TextQuery – Query CSV, JSON, XLSX Files with SQL

https://textquery.app/

by shubhamjain • 1 year ago

163 57 1 year ago

textquery.app

gkbrk• 1 year ago

Feels like `clickhouse local` or `duckdb` with a price tag. Especially since duckdb even has a nice UI now.

shubhamjain5• 1 year ago

Author here. It uses DuckDB under the hood, which is a fantastic piece of software.

Yes, even DuckDB has UI now, but I didn't find it to my taste. There's no table view, filters are a bit weird, and not exactly keyboard accessible. TextQuery also has Visualize feature to quickly create charts and tabs to run things in parallel. Again, it's personal preference, but there are advantages in being a desktop-first app.

mkayokay• 1 year ago

For CSV files you can also import them directly into a SQLite file using https://sqlitebrowser.org/

XLSX would be the same workflow with "save as" CSV and then push it into SQLite.

shubhamjain5• 1 year ago

IIRC, SQLlite requires you to define a schema first, which can be a bit tedious. DuckDB is actually a better tool for this in every regard, since it can parse CSV files quite well. The latest version includes support for XLSX as well.

My personal take is, yes, it's possible in multiple other ways, but I just like having a well-designed GUI app do it for me. Just how TablePlus does for Database Management.

bob1029• 1 year ago

I just like having a well-designed GUI app do it for me.

MSSQL/SSMS supports this with some fancy techniques.

This wizard was created to improve the current import experience leveraging an intelligent framework known as Program Synthesis using Examples (PROSE). For a user without specialized domain knowledge, importing data can often be a complex, error prone, and tedious task. This wizard streamlines the import process as simple as selecting an input file and unique table name, and the PROSE framework handles the rest.
PROSE analyzes data patterns in your input file to infer column names, types, delimiters, and more. This framework learns the structure of the file and does all of the hard work so users don't have to.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/i...

account-55• 1 year ago

You can import CSV files into sqlite without a schema, and you can turn of the ability to auto guess a columns data type if needed.

bdcravens• 1 year ago

Congrats on launching, but this feels like an uphill climb to get paying customers. You need to find the intersection of potential customers that know SQL but don't want to use one of the open source options. (perhaps data analysts working in restricted environments where the only option is a web browser)

mritchie712• 1 year ago

this is a tarpit idea I've fallen into multiple times. It's really hard to make money from a desktop SQL client, let alone now that DuckDB has a good, free UI.

hultner2• 1 year ago

Can you use that with for instance a postgres server? I thought it would only work with DuckDB (sqlite?) databases.

Exuma• 1 year ago

As OSX user... if there is a nice pristine OSX app (like Postico) I will pay for it even if theres a free version (easily, hands down) if the UI/UX is nice, and pro version has extra features. So I'm definitely someone who would pay.

zipping1549• 1 year ago

I think someone who's willing to use SQL will also be willing to convert such files into, well, proper DB.

flysand72• 1 year ago

For a lot of files where you would want to perform a quick one-time analysis, I don't think it's worth starting up a new database, and write scripts that parse the file from the source format and import it into the database. The one time I did it for postgres it took me maybe 2-4 hours to finish the script and start looking at the data. Next time it would be maybe an hour, but it's still a time.

So I guess I can see how not having to do the conversion for quick one-time analysis could be beneficial.

imachine1980_• 1 year ago

A few hours ago this would have been useful, I will probably give it a try in few days. On another note, I recommend clarifying in the heroes page that it's about a one-time purchase, because that's a really big plus.

sidcool• 1 year ago

Pricing is too weird.

ayhanfuat• 1 year ago

Congratulations. I do see value in quickly seeing, querying files in a nice desktop interface. I am curious why there is no parquet support though. If duckdb is running in the background it is probably easy to support it?

dowager_dan992• 1 year ago

parquet support would be pretty easy I think, but also way outside the target market user. These are the features that are really hard to avoid: easy, but not free, no benefit.

shubhamjain5• 1 year ago

I am planning to add it soon. It shouldn’t be hard. Just have to figure out the UI part.

dowager_dan992• 1 year ago

I think I'm your target user, but I currently use DuckDB for this type of work, so unlikely to buy your product. That said, lots of devs pay for Rider and/or DataGrip - sometimes with their own money - so maybe there is a market here?

account-55• 1 year ago

To be completely honest I tend to use either powershell or Nushell to query these sorts of files. I do also use sqlite as well when needed.

leftcenterright• 1 year ago

does that also work with xlsx files without much pain?

account-55• 1 year ago

Nushell has it built in: https://www.nushell.sh/commands/docs/from_xlsx.html

Powershell can query excel files in various ways and there's a module for native powershell excel work: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/ImportExcel/5.4.2

tobilg• 1 year ago

Try https://sql-workbench.com if you‘d like to do this directly in the browser, for free. Including Parquet and Arrow support as well.

amir_karbasi• 1 year ago

Your tool has been awesome! Seeing what it can do inspired me to write a POC that connected to an enterprise IBM application that I used to implement: https://github.com/karbasia/tririga-data-workbench (also uses DuckDB and Perspective with some additional hacks to make it work with IBM's tool).

lowleveldesign• 1 year ago

Coongrats on the release.

It reminds me of Log Parser Studio [1] on Windows. Using SQL to query text and log files is a great idea.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170710212920/http://gallery.te...

whoomp12342• 1 year ago

oh man, I remebmer solving this problem by connecting these files into SQL SERVER and joining agains them. Those were the days

thisislife2• 1 year ago

Still do something similar by using a simple python script to import such files into SQLite and then query the db with SQL. And, if I remember right, now there are free SQLite GUI db readers that also easily allow you to do this.

jamroom• 1 year ago

Quick question - is it possible to import multiple files at once? I frequently get ZIP files full of csv/xlsx files that I need to search through. I didn't see a way to import more than 1 file at a time. Thanks!

ok_computer• 1 year ago

You may want to try something similar to Python Polars scan_csv for lazy evaluation of same schema csv directories. It also supports a SQL context where you can use a subset of Ansi Sql instead of learning the functional api to start.

shubhamjain5• 1 year ago

Thanks for the feedback! It is something on my mind. Will think about the best way to implement it.

hermitcrab4• 1 year ago

Pay Once, Use Forever ... Free updates

I suspect the vendor is going to regret that, further down the line.

_ink_• 1 year ago

No worries. They will just break their promise, just like most companies that claimed something similar.

hultner2• 1 year ago

I actually have some apps still which I bought for life years back but doesn't offer that anymore. For instance blink shell for iOS devices.

delusional• 1 year ago

I don't know. We had a pretty well established model that included free updates, but required a new purchase for a new major version down the line. I think that worked pretty well.

rsstack2• 1 year ago

The license entitles you to receive lifetime updates for the major version. When we release the next major version, you can optionally renew the license.

Fairly common. JetBrains started that way too. Will they one day have a major version that's using a subscription model? Perhaps. But they will likely not regret this too much.

hermitcrab4• 1 year ago

The license entitles you to receive lifetime updates for the major version.

Where does it say that?

That is common and it is the model I use for my own software. But that isn't what I understood from their website.

Home page: "Pay Once, Use Forever. We hate needless subscriptions as much as you do. TextQuery comes with a perpetual license with free updates."

Pricing page: "Perpetual license Lifetime updates"

Which strongly implies every update is free, forever.

flysand72• 1 year ago

Is it just me, or the images on the website aren't loading? Using firefox, from what I searched it seems like it could be just a firefox issue. The cdn links are https bt when navigating there manually it says the connection is not private.

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2• 1 year ago

This does seem pretty neat. Any plans to expand to include XML as well?

moxplod• 1 year ago

I could use this.

Questions: What file sizes have you tested?

What about a directory with similar CSV files - I have a use case where similar structure CSV, 2 TB data broken into 700 files. Instead of 1 large file. Would that work?

nathanwallace• 1 year ago

Readers may also enjoy Steampipe [1], an open source tool to live query 140+ services with SQL (e.g. AWS, GitHub, CSV, Kubernetes, etc). It uses Postgres Foreign Data Wrappers under the hood and supports joins etc with other tables. (Disclaimer - I'm a lead on the project.)

1 - https://github.com/turbot/steampipe

jeadie• 1 year ago

There’s also https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai

somerandom2407• 1 year ago

You might have a wider audience if you put in on the app store. I only install very well-known software outside of the app store. For anything more niche, I need it to be on the app store to offer some assurance that it is not malicious and that sandboxing is enforced.

ByteAtATime• 1 year ago

Have you seen duckdb? https://duckdb.org/

It's basically what you're building, but more low-level. Really cool, to be honest -- serves the same market too. Do you have any significant differentiator, other than charts?

shubhamjain5• 1 year ago

TextQuery actually uses DuckDB under the hood :) DuckDB is no doubt an excellent piece of software already. The differentiator is that GUI client is just a good lever to make many things easier.

In context of TextQuery: you can use tabs you can work on multiple queries. With Table editor you can edit multiple field values at once. During import, you can have better control over what the final table would look like (select/deselect columns, define data/time format etc.)

Again, it's a personal preference. Some people swear by psql, and some can't live without TablePlus/Postico.

freilanzer• 1 year ago

They're also developing a gui: https://duckdb.org/2025/03/12/duckdb-ui.html

gitroom• 1 year ago

pretty cool seeing someone care about a good ui for this kind of tool - always annoys me when the workflow is clunky, you think people actually care more about small features or is it just all about price

jklowden• 1 year ago

Uh huh. The No SQL zombie yet shuffles on.

Anyone who knows SQL sees dozens of problems immediately. What enforces data integrity? How do we know the records are NF1? How do we perform a join, or test existential quantification, without table names? How do we know all supposed "dates" are valid dates, and not my uncles ex-wife’s maiden name? How does one reference XML attributes from SQL?

The answer produced by SQL are only as good as the data they’re drawn from. The quality and internal consistency of those data are enforced by the DBMS. No amount of pretty graphs and syntax highlighting changes that. The effective of SQL depends on the knowledge of the practitioner. No tool changes that, either.

Gormo• 1 year ago

Another tool in the same vein is 'q': https://harelba.github.io/q/

mutagen• 1 year ago

This looks awesome. I'm the target audience. I do quite a bit of development around SQL Server and there's an endless stream of CSV and XLSX files coming and going that need spot checks and quick looks. I use ModernCSV quite a bit and would have purchased that if it built these SQL features in. I've used DuckDB directly a few times to join and query CSV and XLSX files, I'll pay my own $$ for something that quickly streamlines this.

I can import into SQL Server but there's too much ceremony needed (column types, etc) for quick looks at data I'm going to answer a question about and then discard. After a quick look at TextQuery I'm running into the same issues (although TextQuery is just a couple of clicks instead of 5+). I was also seeing an error yesterday from associating XLSX files with TextQuery but that seems to have gone away today.

Show HN: TextQuery – Query CSV, JSON, XLSX Files with SQL

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