pgAdmin 4
PostgreSQL administration and management tool
Quick Take: pgAdmin 4
pgAdmin 4 is the Swiss Army knife for PostgreSQL management. It's not pretty, it's not fast, and the web-based UI is its biggest weakness. But it's free, official, and packed with administrative features that no other free tool matches. The Explain visualizer alone is worth having pgAdmin installed. For developers who primarily write queries, TablePlus is a better daily driver. For anyone who manages PostgreSQL servers — creating users, configuring backups, monitoring performance, designing schemas — pgAdmin is indispensable.
Best For
- •PostgreSQL database administrators
- •Developers who need query performance analysis (EXPLAIN)
- •Teams who want a shared, server-based database management tool
- •Students learning PostgreSQL administration
Install with Homebrew
brew install --cask pgadmin4What is pgAdmin 4?
pgAdmin 4 is the official open-source administration and management tool for PostgreSQL. It provides a web-based GUI where you can create and manage databases, write and run SQL queries, monitor server performance, design schemas with an ERD tool, and manage users and permissions. It's the tool that the PostgreSQL Global Development Group recommends, and it comes bundled with many PostgreSQL installers by default. The 'web-based' part deserves some explanation. pgAdmin 4 runs as a local web application — you install it on your Mac, and it opens in a browser tab or an embedded browser window. This is different from native apps like TablePlus or Sequel Ace. The advantage is that pgAdmin works identically on macOS, Linux, and Windows, and can be deployed as a shared server-based tool that your whole team accesses through a browser. The disadvantage is that it doesn't feel like a Mac app — it feels like a web app, because it is one. Why use pgAdmin in 2026 when native tools like TablePlus exist? Two reasons: it's free with no feature restrictions, and it has features that no other free tool matches. The query tool with execution plan visualization, the ERD designer, the server monitoring dashboard, the backup/restore GUI, and the pgAgent job scheduling interface are all included. TablePlus is faster and prettier, but its free tier limits you to 3 tabs and 2 connections. DBeaver is universal but Java-heavy. pgAdmin is purpose-built for PostgreSQL, free forever, and covers administrative tasks that developer-focused tools skip.
Deep Dive: pgAdmin's Role in the PostgreSQL Ecosystem
How the official admin tool fits into the broader world of PostgreSQL management tools.
History & Background
pgAdmin has been around since 1998, making it one of the oldest continuously maintained open-source database tools. pgAdmin III (the previous major version) was a native C++ application using wxWidgets. pgAdmin 4, released in 2016, was a ground-up rewrite as a Python/Flask web application. This architectural shift was controversial — users lost the native speed of pgAdmin III in exchange for cross-platform consistency and the ability to deploy pgAdmin as a web service. A decade later, the web-based approach has proven pragmatic for teams, even if individual users sometimes miss the native feel.
How It Works
pgAdmin 4 is a Python application using Flask for the backend and JavaScript (jQuery, React for newer components) for the frontend. It communicates with PostgreSQL through psycopg2 (the standard Python PostgreSQL adapter). The desktop application bundles a Python runtime and launches a local web server. The server mode deployment uses the same codebase behind nginx or Apache. This dual-deployment architecture is unique among database tools and is why pgAdmin is popular in both individual and team settings.
Ecosystem & Integrations
pgAdmin integrates with the broader PostgreSQL ecosystem: pg_dump/pg_restore for backups, pgAgent for job scheduling, and PostgreSQL's built-in statistics views for monitoring. It also works with PostgreSQL extensions like PostGIS, pgcrypto, and pg_stat_statements. The pgAdmin team coordinates with the PostgreSQL core development team to support new features as PostgreSQL versions are released.
Future Development
Active development focuses on modernizing the frontend (moving from jQuery to React), improving performance for large schemas (databases with thousands of tables), and enhancing the query tool with better autocomplete powered by PostgreSQL catalog introspection. There's also work on better dark mode support and improved accessibility.
Key Features
Query Tool with Explain Visualizer
The query tool is pgAdmin's core feature. Write SQL with syntax highlighting and autocomplete, execute queries, and browse results in a data grid. The standout feature is the graphical Explain visualizer — run EXPLAIN ANALYZE on a query and see the execution plan as a visual tree with node costs, row estimates, and timing data color-coded by expense. This is genuinely useful for performance tuning — you can spot sequential scans, nested loops, and missing indexes at a glance.
ERD Tool (Entity Relationship Diagram)
pgAdmin includes a visual schema designer where you can create tables, define columns, and draw relationships by clicking and dragging. You can also reverse-engineer an existing database into an ERD to visualize the schema. The generated diagram can be exported as an image for documentation. For PostgreSQL, this is built in — DBeaver charges for Enterprise for ERD, and TablePlus doesn't have one at all.
Server Dashboard and Monitoring
A real-time dashboard shows server activity: active connections, transactions per second, locks, blocking queries, and resource usage. For developers running a local PostgreSQL instance, this helps identify slow queries and connection leaks. For DBAs managing production servers, it provides at-a-glance health monitoring without setting up separate monitoring tools.
Backup and Restore GUI
pgAdmin wraps pg_dump and pg_restore in a GUI. Select a database or specific tables, choose a format (SQL, custom, tar, directory), set options (data only, schema only, with or without ownership), and run the backup. Restoring works the same way — select a file and a target database, configure options, and run. This saves memorizing pg_dump command-line flags.
User and Role Management
Create, modify, and delete PostgreSQL roles and users through a form-based interface. Set login privileges, connection limits, password expiration, and role membership. Grant and revoke permissions on databases, schemas, tables, and functions. This is significantly easier than writing GRANT and REVOKE SQL statements by hand, especially for developers unfamiliar with PostgreSQL's permission model.
pgAgent Job Scheduling
pgAgent is a job scheduling agent for PostgreSQL, and pgAdmin provides the GUI to manage it. Schedule SQL scripts or batch jobs to run at specified times — daily database maintenance, report generation, data cleanup. The schedule builder supports cron-style scheduling with a visual editor. This turns PostgreSQL into a lightweight job server without external scheduling tools.
Who Should Use pgAdmin 4?
1The PostgreSQL DBA
Managing multiple PostgreSQL servers across development, staging, and production environments, this DBA uses pgAdmin as their central management console. They monitor server health through the dashboard, investigate slow queries with the Explain visualizer, manage user permissions through the role editor, and schedule nightly backups through pgAgent. pgAdmin handles the administrative work that a query tool like TablePlus wasn't designed for.
2The Backend Developer
Building a Django application with a PostgreSQL database, this developer uses pgAdmin during development to verify migration results (checking table structures after running `manage.py migrate`), inspect data during debugging (browsing rows to see why a query returns unexpected results), and test raw SQL queries before embedding them in application code. The free, unrestricted access means they never hit the limits that TablePlus's free tier imposes.
3The Database Student
Learning PostgreSQL for a university course, this student uses pgAdmin's visual tools to understand concepts. The ERD tool helps them visualize table relationships. The Explain visualizer shows how the database executes their queries. The form-based table creator teaches them about data types, constraints, and indexes without requiring them to memorize CREATE TABLE syntax. Everything is free and available on any platform.
How to Install pgAdmin 4 on Mac
pgAdmin 4 is available as a Homebrew cask or a direct download from pgadmin.org.
Install via Homebrew
Run `brew install --cask pgadmin4`. This installs the desktop application, which includes a bundled Python runtime and web server.
Launch pgAdmin
Open pgAdmin 4 from Applications. It starts a local web server and opens a browser window (or embedded window). The first launch asks you to set a master password for encrypting saved server credentials.
Register a Server
Right-click 'Servers' in the left tree > Register > Server. Enter a name, then in the Connection tab, enter Host (localhost for local), Port (5432), Database (postgres), Username, and Password. Click Save.
Open the Query Tool
Expand your server in the tree, select a database, then click Tools > Query Tool (or press the Query Tool toolbar button). Write SQL and click the Play button (or F5) to execute.
Pro Tips
- • If pgAdmin feels slow on first load, give it a moment — the Python web server takes 3-5 seconds to start. Subsequent page loads are faster.
- • Use the 'Server Group' feature to organize servers by environment: Development, Staging, Production. This prevents accidentally running queries against the wrong database.
- • Enable 'Auto-Commit Off' in the Query Tool for write operations on production databases. This lets you review changes before committing them.
Configuration Tips
Use Keyboard Shortcuts in the Query Tool
F5 executes the query. F7 opens the Explain visualizer. Ctrl+Space triggers autocomplete. Ctrl+/ toggles line comments. Learning these shortcuts makes pgAdmin's query tool significantly faster to use — the mouse-heavy interface is its weakest point, and shortcuts bypass it.
Set Up Shared Server Mode for Teams
pgAdmin can run in 'server mode' where it's deployed as a web application accessible by multiple users through a browser. Configure it on a shared Linux server, and your whole team gets centralized database management with role-based access control. This eliminates the need for everyone to maintain their own local connections and credentials.
Alternatives to pgAdmin 4
pgAdmin is the official free tool for PostgreSQL, but several alternatives offer different tradeoffs.
TablePlus
TablePlus is a native Mac app that's dramatically faster, cleaner, and more pleasant to use. It supports PostgreSQL plus many other databases. The catch: the free tier limits you to 3 tabs and 2 connections. The paid version costs $89/year. If you can afford it and primarily write queries, TablePlus is a better daily driver. pgAdmin is better for administration tasks (user management, backup, monitoring) and is free without restrictions.
DBeaver Community
DBeaver supports 80+ databases and is free. But it's a Java/Eclipse app with even more overhead than pgAdmin. For PostgreSQL-specific tasks, pgAdmin's purpose-built features (Explain visualizer, pgAgent, PostgreSQL-specific DDL forms) are superior to DBeaver's generic interface.
Postico
Postico is a Mac-native PostgreSQL client with a beautiful, minimal interface. It's great for browsing data and writing queries. But it costs $40+ and lacks pgAdmin's administrative features — no Explain visualizer, no ERD, no server monitoring, no backup GUI. Postico is for developers; pgAdmin is for administrators.
Pricing
pgAdmin 4 is completely free and open source under the PostgreSQL License (a permissive OSI-approved license similar to MIT). There are no paid tiers, no feature restrictions, and no commercial licensing requirements. Development is sponsored by the pgAdmin Development Team and the PostgreSQL community. EDB (EnterpriseDB) employs several core developers and provides commercial support separately.
Pros
- ✓Completely free with no feature restrictions or connection limits
- ✓Official PostgreSQL administration tool — purpose-built and comprehensive
- ✓Graphical Explain visualizer for query performance tuning
- ✓ERD tool for visual schema design and documentation
- ✓Server monitoring dashboard with real-time metrics
- ✓Backup/restore GUI wrapping pg_dump and pg_restore
- ✓Cross-platform with identical experience on macOS, Linux, Windows
- ✓Can be deployed as a shared web server for team access
Cons
- ✗Web-based UI feels sluggish compared to native apps like TablePlus
- ✗Startup time is 3-5 seconds (Python web server initialization)
- ✗Interface is cluttered and has a steep learning curve for new users
- ✗Higher memory usage than native database clients
- ✗PostgreSQL only — no MySQL, MongoDB, or Redis support
- ✗The tree-based navigation can be tedious for databases with many schemas
Community & Support
pgAdmin is developed by the pgAdmin Development Team with support from the broader PostgreSQL community. The project lives on GitHub (github.com/pgadmin-org/pgadmin4) and has an active mailing list for support. Documentation on pgadmin.org is extensive, covering every feature in detail. The PostgreSQL community — one of the largest open-source database communities — provides indirect support through forums, Stack Overflow, and the PostgreSQL mailing lists. EDB offers commercial support for organizations that need SLAs.
Frequently Asked Questions about pgAdmin 4
Our Verdict
pgAdmin 4 is the Swiss Army knife for PostgreSQL management. It's not pretty, it's not fast, and the web-based UI is its biggest weakness. But it's free, official, and packed with administrative features that no other free tool matches. The Explain visualizer alone is worth having pgAdmin installed. For developers who primarily write queries, TablePlus is a better daily driver. For anyone who manages PostgreSQL servers — creating users, configuring backups, monitoring performance, designing schemas — pgAdmin is indispensable.
About the Author
Related Technologies & Concepts
Related Topics
Database Tools
Desktop applications for managing and querying databases on macOS.
PostgreSQL Ecosystem
Tools and services for working with PostgreSQL databases.
Sources & References
Fact-CheckedLast verified: Feb 23, 2026
- 1pgAdmin Official Website
Accessed Feb 23, 2026
Research queries: pgAdmin 4 Mac 2026 PostgreSQL admin tool