On balance, SQL Source Control is much easier and more natural tool for most database folks.

The SSDT table designer is amazing, combining the SSMS table designer and a query window and allowing you to use whichever you prefer. This makes the learning curve much more difficult for people who are used to working in SSMS.

If your developers and DBAs prefer to work in SSMS, SQL Source Control may feel very natural to them, but Visual Studio is full of new concepts: Solutions files? Project files? MSBuild? The list goes on. Redgate SQL Source Control plugs right into SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), whereas SSDT lives in Visual Studio (VS). Choosing a tool that is easy to adopt will make your life much easier and lead to a far greater chance of success. Implementing database source control or continuous integration is a big change for your team and it will be hard on your developers and you will move more slowly to begin with. Other model-based tools certainly exist (see ApexSQL source control, DBmaestro and dbForge Source Control for example) but none are anywhere near as widely used or trusted for SQL Server databases as either SSDT or Redgate SQL Source Control. SSDT and SQL Source Control are the two most widely used tools in Europe and North America for model-based source control and deployment of SQL Server databases. I believe it’s important to use widely used and supported tools wherever possible. So what about alternative model-based solutions? To avoid getting tangled up in higher level debates about whether to adopt a migrations-based or a model-based source control solution – or even a hybrid, this blog post is specifically scoped to model-based source control solutions.

I’ve written about the relative pros and cons here but the tl dr is that neither are perfect, both hold value, and generally you do need to pick one or the other. I hope this post will help you to decide which is more likely to suit you and your team.īut first… Why SSDT or SQL Source Control and not something else?įirstly, there are two styles of database source control and deployment: Model (aka “state”) and Migrations. Now, dear reader, I’m going to review and compare the two most popular tools to help you put it all together: Microsoft SSDT/Visual Studio Database Projects and Redgate SQL Source Control.

Last year I delivered a session on GroupBy all about how to do Database DevOps right, and back in May I wrote a blog post for BOU about how to screw it up. My name’s Alex, and I care about databases, DevOps and data protection.

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