# QueryProxy vs Bytebase

> Both put a review in front of production SQL. Bytebase is a database DevOps platform built around schema change; QueryProxy is a small approval portal for ad-hoc queries.

- Updated: 2026-09-08
- Source: https://queryproxy.com/compare/bytebase/
- Language: en-US
- Author: Muhammet ŞAFAK

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Bytebase is a database DevOps platform: schema migration pipelines, change review, SQL editor and access control across a fleet of databases. QueryProxy does one of those things — the approval in front of an ad-hoc query — and is deliberately small.

## At a glance

| Aspect | QueryProxy | Bytebase |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Primary job | An approval in front of every ad-hoc query | Schema change management and database DevOps, with query review alongside |
| Scope | One thing, deliberately | A platform — migrations, CI/CD integration, schema drift, review workflows |
| Approvals in chat | Slack and Teams cards with HMAC-verified Approve/Reject buttons | Chat integrations available; check their docs for the current surface |
| Licensing | AGPL-3.0, every feature, no paid tier | Open-source core with paid plans; some features are tier-gated |
| Deployment | One container plus a worker; SQLite by default, no Redis | Self-hosted or cloud, with a heavier footprint |
| Result masking | Applied in the result stream before anything is written to disk | Supported; availability depends on plan |
| Fit | A team that wants production reads gated, and nothing else changed | An organisation standardising its whole database change process |

Both products exist because the same thing is true: nobody should hold standing
credentials to a production database, and nobody should run an unreviewed
statement against one. Where they part company is scope.

**Bytebase is a platform.** Its centre of gravity is the schema change: a
migration is authored, reviewed, checked against policy and rolled out across
environments, with the database fleet and its drift managed alongside. Ad-hoc
query review is one capability within that.

**QueryProxy is a portal.** It does not know what a migration is. A developer
submits SQL against a connection a DBA granted them, the statement is parsed
before it runs, a DBA approves it from the web queue or from a Slack card, and
the result comes back limited, masked and written to an audit log nobody can
edit. That is the whole product.

## Which problem do you have?

If your incidents come from schema changes going out badly, the approval portal
is not your bottleneck and Bytebase is the more direct answer.

If your incidents come from people needing production data to debug something
real — and the only paths in are a shared password, an ad-hoc tunnel, or a DBA
running queries on other people's behalf all day — then that is what QueryProxy
was built for, and a platform is more than the problem needs.

## The licensing difference

QueryProxy is AGPL-3.0 in full. There is no paid tier, no enterprise edition and
no capability held back: data masking, the audit log, Slack and Teams approvals
and two-factor authentication are all simply present. The trade is the one the
AGPL always makes — if you modify it and offer it over a network, those
modifications are open source too.

Bytebase's model is an open-source core with paid plans, which is a perfectly
ordinary way to fund a larger product. It does mean the version you evaluate and
the version you eventually want may not be the same version, so it is worth
checking their current pricing page against the features you need rather than
trusting a comparison table — including this one.

## When to choose Bytebase instead

- Schema migrations are the problem you actually have. QueryProxy does not manage migrations, review DDL pipelines or track schema drift, and it is not trying to.
- You want one platform across dozens of database instances with fleet-wide policy, environments and CI/CD hooks.
- You need commercial support with an SLA, which an AGPL side project does not offer.

## Frequently asked

### Is QueryProxy a Bytebase alternative?

For the narrow job of approving ad-hoc queries against production, yes. For schema change management, no — QueryProxy has no migration pipeline and does not intend to add one. Teams sometimes run both, with Bytebase owning migrations and QueryProxy owning day-to-day read access.

### Which one is easier to self-host?

QueryProxy is smaller by design — one docker run starts the portal, the queue worker and the scheduler in a single container, with SQLite and no Redis. Bytebase is a larger platform, and a larger platform is more to run.

### Is Bytebase open source?

Bytebase has an open-source core with paid plans layered on top, and some capabilities are tier-gated. QueryProxy is AGPL-3.0 in full, with no feature held back behind a licence.