Strata
A database admin client you host yourself. Browse data, run SQL and manage schema from a React app over a thin PHP and PDO JSON API. Credentials never leave the browser, and it ships as a zip — no Node, no Composer.
What the work involved
Strata is a database client you host yourself. It browses data, runs SQL and manages schema from a React and TypeScript interface, talking to a thin JSON API written in PHP over PDO.
The constraint that shaped it was the install: it ships as a zip, with no Node and no Composer on the far end. That rules out the usual build-on-the-server answer and pushes the whole application into files that can be dropped onto shared hosting — the kind of place where a database admin tool is most needed and least likely to be installable.
Credentials never leave the browser. The API is deliberately thin: it holds no session of its own and stores nothing, which keeps a self-hosted tool from becoming a credential store someone forgets they deployed. The current release is v1.2.2, and the source is public.
A tool that runs arbitrary SQL has to be honest about what it is about to do. So the interface treats destructive operations as a separate class of action rather than another button, and shows the statement it is going to send before it sends it — the person at the keyboard is the safeguard, and they need the information to be one.