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amacneil/dbmate

A lightweight, framework-agnostic command-line tool for managing plain SQL database migrations across teams and environments.

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What is it?

Dbmate keeps a database schema in sync across developers and production servers by running timestamp-versioned SQL migration files. It ships as a standalone binary, so it can be used alongside Go, Node.js, Python, Ruby, PHP, Rust, C++, or any other stack that talks to a supported database.

Migrations are written as plain SQL with `migrate:up` and `migrate:down` sections in one file. Each migration runs inside a transaction by default, and applied versions are recorded in a `schema_migrations` table. Dbmate can also dump the resulting schema to a `schema.sql` file so schema changes show up as readable diffs in git.

The tool supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite, ClickHouse, BigQuery, and Spanner through its PostgreSQL interface. Connection details come from a `DATABASE_URL` variable or a `.env` file, and commands include create, drop, wait for the database to become ready, and rollback.

Key features

  • 01Plain SQL migration files with up and down sections
  • 02Timestamp-versioned migrations to avoid version conflicts between developers
  • 03Migrations run atomically inside a transaction by default
  • 04Dumps a schema.sql file for reviewing schema changes in version control
  • 05Reads connection URLs from environment variables or a .env file

Use cases

  • Keeping schema changes in sync across a team working on one application
  • Managing migrations for several services written in different languages
  • Creating and dropping test databases in CI before running a test suite
  • Running migrations in production or in containers with a wait-for-database step

Quick start

  1. 1

    Install via Homebrew on macOS

    brew install dbmate
  2. 2

    Check the installed tool shows its help

    dbmate --help
  3. 3

    Install via NPM as a dev dependency

    npm install --save-dev dbmate

Things to know

  • Requires a database connection URL, so you need a running database server such as PostgreSQL, MySQL or SQLite.
  • PostgreSQL connections require TLS by default, so local setups often need sslmode=disable added.

Topics

#database-migrations#sql#postgresql#mysql#sqlite#cli#golang#schema#clickhouse#cpp

FAQ

What is dbmate?
A lightweight, framework-agnostic command-line tool for managing plain SQL database migrations across teams and environments. Dbmate keeps a database schema in sync across developers and production servers by running timestamp-versioned SQL migration files. It ships as a standalone binary, so it can be used alongside Go, Node.js, Python, Ruby, PHP, Rust, C++, or any other stack that talks to a supported database.
Is dbmate free to use? What license does it have?
dbmate is open source under the MIT license. Check the license terms before using it in commercial products.
Is dbmate still maintained?
Actively maintained. The last commit to dbmate was on Oct 18, 2026.
What can I use dbmate for?
Keeping schema changes in sync across a team working on one application Managing migrations for several services written in different languages Creating and dropping test databases in CI before running a test suite Running migrations in production or in containers with a wait-for-database step
How do I install dbmate?
Install via Homebrew on macOS: brew install dbmate Check the installed tool shows its help: dbmate --help Install via NPM as a dev dependency: npm install --save-dev dbmate
Where can I get dbmate?
The source code and installation instructions are on GitHub: https://github.com/amacneil/dbmate

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