🥭 MangoDesk

Free Studio 3T-style MongoDB GUI. Local web app: Node + Express + the official mongodb driver, vanilla-JS frontend, no build step.

Build a filter without writing JSON — condition, sort, Run:

Why not Compass?

Compass is free, official and good. Reach for MangoDesk when one of these matters:

• A visual query builder. Compass has no drag-and-drop condition builder — you write the filter as JSON, or ask its AI to write it for you. MangoDesk gives you AND/OR groups, type-aware operators and drag-to-sort strips, the Studio 3T idea, and shows the filter it produces so you can copy it out.
• Nothing to install. npx mangodesk is a 40 KB package that opens in the browser you already have. Compass is a 169 MB Electron download per machine. On a jump host, MangoDesk is one SSH tunnel away; a desktop app isn't.
• A licence you can actually fork. MangoDesk is MIT. Compass is source available under the SSPL.

Use Compass instead if you need the aggregation pipeline builder, schema analysis, embedded mongosh, Atlas integration or AI-generated queries. MangoDesk has none of those and isn't trying to.

Run

npx mangodesk

or from a clone:

npm install
npm start

Open http://localhost:27080 (override with PORT). The server listens on 127.0.0.1 only — the API exposes stored credentials and unauthenticated DB access.

Features

• Connections — startup connection picker; settings form (host, port, user/password, auth DB, TLS, extra options) or a raw connection string, with test-before-save. Stored in ~/.mangodesk.json, or in connections.json next to the app if that file already exists (plaintext — local tool).
• Data browser — sidebar with a connection → databases → collections tree (document counts) and a filter box; Table / Tree / JSON views; pagination, column-click sorting, resizable columns and panels; insert / edit / delete documents; row selection with bulk delete; right-click to copy a value, a field name or the whole document.
• Queries — the query bar takes mongo-shell syntax, not just strict JSON: unquoted keys, ObjectId("…"), ISODate("…"), /regex/i and trailing commas are accepted and normalised before they are sent. Multi-line input, recent-query history, and per-collection recall of filter / projection / sort / skip / limit.
• Editing — inline cell editors typed per BSON kind (bare ObjectId hex, unquoted strings, boolean select, native date picker) that put the original BSON type back on save; Undo on every edit; documents without _id are read-only rather than half-written.
• Explain — query planner verdict (COLLSCAN is called out), the collection's indexes, and the winning plan.
• Query Builder — drag fields from the grid into AND/OR condition groups; type-aware operators and value inputs (ObjectId, date, number, boolean); drag-to-sort and drag-to-projection strips; live filter preview; state is kept per collection; Run sends the query to the Data tab.
• Export — current query results as JSON array, NDJSON, or CSV (streamed). CSV renders BSON scalars as plain values (12.34, not {"$numberDecimal":"12.34"}) and has an Excel mode: UTF-8 BOM, ; separator, CRLF.
• Shell — light and dark themes (follows the OS by default), keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+Enter run, Ctrl+F filter, Alt+←/→ paging, Esc close), visible focus rings.

No local MongoDB?

docker run -d --name mangodesk-test -p 27017:27017 mongo:7

then connect to mongodb://localhost:27017.

Tests

npm test

Covers the pure CSV helpers (escaping, BSON-scalar rendering, dotted field paths).

License

MIT — see LICENSE.