Compare Database Monitoring Approaches

Scripts and database-native screens are useful for a known problem happening now. Mini DBA adds continuous collection, shared history, alerts and investigation workflows so evidence is still available when the incident has passed and the estate contains more than one database platform.

Community, trial and licensed Mini DBA

The same Console and Engine are used throughout, so an evaluation does not require learning a temporary product or recreating the monitored connection after purchase.

Capability	Community Edition	14-day trial	Licensed Mini DBA
Cost	Free	Free evaluation	Subscription by monitored SQL connection
Monitored connections	One database server	Complete evaluation	Licensed connection count
Live diagnostics and history	Included	Included	Included
Alerts and notifications	Not evaluated or retained	Included	Included
AI Assistant	Bring Your Own AI	100,000 Mini DBA tokens per user daily, or BYO AI	100,000 Mini DBA tokens per user daily, or BYO AI
Database MCP Server	Available monitoring data excluding alerts	Monitoring and alert data	Monitoring and licensed alert data
After the period ends	Continues free	Automatically becomes Community Edition	Continues while licensed

Read the full Community Edition explanation or review current pricing.

Scripts and snapshots compared with continuous monitoring

Operational need	Scripts or native snapshots	Mini DBA continuous monitoring
Live investigation	Strong when the right script is available and the symptom still exists.	Live activity, metrics, waits, queries, plans, locks, files and health views share one workflow.
Incident already ended	Evidence may be absent unless collection was designed and running beforehand.	Retained metric, query, alert, wait and deadlock history supports investigation after the event.
Alerting	Requires separate scheduling, thresholds, state, suppression and delivery code.	Licensed Engines evaluate alerts, retain alert evidence and send configured notifications.
Mixed database estate	Different scripts, permissions, output and storage for each platform.	One Console covers SQL Server, Azure SQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB and Oracle with platform-specific diagnostics.
Team access	Knowledge and output can remain with the script author.	Browser access provides a shared investigation view across connected Engines and sites.
AI and MCP	Context assembly and tool interfaces must be built and maintained.	Optional AI context and MCP tools use the monitoring evidence already collected.
Maintenance	You own compatibility, storage, scheduling, security and presentation.	Mini DBA owns the monitoring product while your team retains infrastructure and access control.

Scripts remain valuable for specialist checks and one-off validation. Mini DBA is most useful when you need repeatable collection, historical evidence, alerts and a consistent workflow across servers or teams.

One product across supported database platforms

Microsoft data platforms

Monitor SQL Server and Azure SQL activity, waits, queries, plans, deadlocks, storage, health and platform-specific resource limits.

Open-source databases

Monitor PostgreSQL, MySQL and MariaDB sessions, queries, locks, host pressure, storage, replication and engine-specific health.

Oracle

Monitor sessions, SQL, waits, memory, I/O, tablespaces, capacity, scheduler activity and database health.

Choose the evaluation path that fits

Use the online demo when you want to explore the Console without installing anything. Download Mini DBA when you want to test collection, permissions, history and alerts against your own environment.

TRY ONLINE DEMO Download Mini DBA