pgbrowser

A k9s-style terminal UI for browsing PostgreSQL clusters. Navigate databases, schemas, tables, and data with keyboard-driven drill-down — no GUI required.

Inspired by k9s for Kubernetes, pgbrowser brings the same hierarchical browsing experience to PostgreSQL.

Features

• Split-panel layout — left panel lists items, right panel shows a live preview that updates as you move the cursor
• Hierarchical navigation — browse Databases > Schemas > Tables with Enter/Esc drill-down
• Live preview — schema-level shows tables preview, table-level shows columns/indexes/data tabs
• Cluster-wide query — run read-only SQL across every database in the cluster from the databases view, with results in a combined table showing a database column; live progress indicator shows which database is being queried (Querying 3/10: mydb)
• SQL query panel — built-in query editor at the table level with results table (Ctrl+E to execute)
• CSV export — save query results to a timestamped CSV file in the current directory with Ctrl+S (works in both the cluster query panel and the table-level query panel)
• Panel focus cycling — Tab moves focus between left panel, detail tabs, query input, and query results
• Breadcrumb trail — always know where you are in the cluster hierarchy
• Live fuzzy filtering — press / to filter whichever panel has focus
• Command mode — press : to jump directly to a resource level (:databases, :schemas)
• Table detail tabs — view Columns, Indexes, and Sample Data (first 50 rows) with [/] tab switching
• Estimated row counts — fast row count estimates (no full table scans)
• Keyboard-driven — vim-style j/k navigation, no mouse required
• Fast startup — single binary, connects and renders in under a second
• Cross-platform — macOS (Intel + Apple Silicon), Linux (amd64 + arm64), Windows

Installation

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew tap zagware/tap
brew install pgbrowser

Manual Download

Download the latest binary for your platform from the Releases page.

macOS / Linux

# Extract and move to your PATH
tar -xzf pgbrowser_darwin_arm64.tar.gz
sudo mv pgbrowser /usr/local/bin/

Windows

Download the .zip archive from Releases, extract, and add pgbrowser.exe to your PATH.

Usage

# Connect to a PostgreSQL cluster
pgbrowser --url "postgres://user:password@host:5432/dbname"

# Local development (peer auth)
pgbrowser --url "postgres://localhost/mydb"

# Show version
pgbrowser version
pgbrowser --version

# Show help
pgbrowser --help

Key Bindings

Key	Action
j / k / Up / Down	Move up/down in lists
Enter	Drill into selected item
Esc	Go back one level
Tab	Cycle focus between panels
/	Live fuzzy filter (applies to focused panel)
:	Command mode (:databases, :quit)
[ / ]	Switch tabs in table detail view
Ctrl+E	Execute SQL in query panel
Ctrl+S	Save query results to CSV (when results are shown)
q	Quit

Layout

pgbrowser uses a split-panel layout that shows more information at a glance:

┌──────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┐
│ Tables           │ Columns | Indexes | Data      │
│ ▸ users          │  id       bigint   NOT NULL   │
│   orders         │  email    varchar  NOT NULL   │
│   products       │  name     varchar  YES        │
│                  ├──────────────────────────────┤
│                  │ Query [Ctrl+E to run]         │
│                  │ SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 10  │
│                  │──────────────────────────────│
│                  │ id │ email       │ name       │
│                  │  1 │ foo@bar.com │ Alice      │
└──────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┘

• Database level — database list (left) + cluster query panel (right) — run SQL across all databases with live per-database progress; Ctrl+S saves combined results to pgcluster_*.csv
• Schema level — schema list (left) + live tables preview (right)
• Table level — table list (left) + detail tabs + query panel (right); Ctrl+S saves results to pgquery_*.csv

Navigation Hierarchy

Cluster (connection info)
  +-- Databases (right panel: cluster query — run SQL across all DBs)
       +-- Schemas (right panel previews tables)
            +-- Tables (right panel shows detail + query)
                 +-- Columns   (name, type, nullable, default)
                 +-- Indexes   (name, definition)
                 +-- Data      (first 50 rows)
                 +-- Query     (SQL editor + results)

Screenshots

Coming soon — pgbrowser is in active development.

Requirements

• PostgreSQL 12 or later
• A valid PostgreSQL connection string

License

pgbrowser binaries are distributed under a proprietary license. See LICENSE for terms.

Copyright (c) 2026 Zagware. All rights reserved.