Redgate Software

Definition

Redgate Software is a UK-based company that builds tools for managing SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Oracle databases across the development lifecycle, best known for products like SQL Compare, SQL Prompt, and Flyway, which bring version control, comparison, and automated deployment practices to database schema changes. Its overarching focus is database DevOps: treating schema and data changes with the same rigor as application code changes.

Overview

Redgate was founded to address a gap that persisted even as software teams adopted version control and continuous delivery for application code: database schema changes were frequently handled manually, tracked loosely if at all, and deployed with ad hoc scripts, creating a mismatch between how fast application code could ship and how carefully database changes had to be handled. Redgate's products grew around making database change management as disciplined and automatable as application code deployment. Mechanically, Redgate's tools work by comparing and scripting database state. SQL Compare, one of its earliest and best-known products, diffs the schema of two SQL Server databases and generates the exact T-SQL needed to synchronize them, removing manual diffing and reducing deployment errors. SQL Prompt adds IntelliSense-style autocompletion and code formatting inside SQL Server Management Studio. Redgate also acquired Flyway, an open-source database migration tool that applies versioned SQL migration scripts in order and tracks which have already run, which extended Redgate's reach from SQL Server specifically into PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, and other engines. Within the database tooling landscape, Redgate is best understood as occupying the "database DevOps" niche alongside tools like Bytebase and Liquibase, distinguishing itself through deep, mature SQL Server-specific tooling (a legacy of its origins) combined with broader multi-database migration support through Flyway. It differs from general-purpose GUI clients like DBeaver or SSMS by focusing specifically on change management, comparison, and pipeline integration rather than day-to-day querying and browsing. In practice, teams use Redgate's tools to integrate database schema changes into CI/CD pipelines: generating migration scripts automatically from schema diffs, running them through review and approval gates, and deploying them alongside application releases rather than as a separate, manual step. This is common in enterprises running SQL Server at scale that want database changes to move at the same pace as application releases without sacrificing auditability. The trade-offs include licensing costs for the commercial products (though Flyway has a free community edition), a learning curve around adopting migration-based schema management if a team has previously worked with unversioned manual scripts, and the fact that its deepest feature set remains most mature for SQL Server, with other engines supported more through Flyway's more general migration model than through SQL Server-specific comparison tooling. Redgate also sells its products largely as bundles rather than fully independent tools, so teams sometimes end up licensing more capability than they immediately need to get the specific feature, such as schema comparison, that motivated the purchase.

Key Features

• SQL Compare generates sync scripts from schema diffs automatically
• SQL Prompt adds autocompletion and formatting inside SSMS
• Owns Flyway, an open-source multi-database migration tool
• Focuses on database DevOps: version-controlled schema changes
• CI/CD pipeline integration for automated database deployments
• Deepest tooling maturity around Microsoft SQL Server
• Extends beyond SQL Server via Flyway to Postgres, MySQL, Oracle

Use Cases

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Frequently Asked Questions

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