Every site requires a database to function where it stores all of your site’s data and managing MySQL databases is one of the basic requirements of being a professional web developer. Adminer and phpMyAdmin, two of the most popular database managers, come in handy to help developers streamline their tasks efficiently.
phpMyAdmin has been a staple MySQL/MariaDB database administration tool for a long time, whereas Adminer could be an extraordinary alternative. It comes stacked with tons of valuable features and an intuitive user interface (all within a single), lightweight PHP record that you just can deploy quickly on your server.
In this post, you’ll learn about Adminer and phpMyAdmin, which can help you decide which one to use for managing your databases.
What Is phpMyAdmin?
phpMyAdmin is an open-source tool for MySQL that’s available for free. It is fundamentally written in PHP as a versatile web application and has become one of the foremost popular MySQL administration tools over the internet. It supports a wide extent of operations on MySQL and MariaDB.
phpMyAdmin is a popular application for MySQL database administration. Developers can create, update, drop, alter, delete, import, and export MySQL database tables using this phpMyAdmin. Moreover, phpMyAdmin supports many different operations that can be performed via the user interface.
Host PHP Websites with Ease [Starts at $10 Credit]
- Free Staging
- Free backup
- PHP 8.0
- Unlimited Websites
The operations like managing databases, tables, relations, columns, indexes, permissions, users, etc., on MySQL and MariaDB, phpMyAdmin is also used in performing administrative-level tasks such as database creation and query execution.
phpMyAdmin supports RTL and LTR languages, so many users can easily use this software. It can help you run MySQL queries, repair, optimize, check tables, and execute other database management commands.
What Is Adminer?
Adminer (formerly phpMinAdmin), is a tool for managing database content. It got its breakthrough in 2008 when Adminer made it into the CCA finals at SourceForge. Also, the first web hosting providers started to include Adminer as a MySQL managing tool in their portfolio of services.
It natively supports MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MS SQL, Oracle, Elasticsearch, and MongoDB. Adminer is distributed under an Apache license in the form of a single PHP file. Its author is Jakub Vrána, who developed this tool as a lightweight alternative to phpMyAdmin, in July 2007.
Adminer provides:
- An easy-to-use interface.
- Better support for many MySQL features.
- A more remarkable performance.
- Increased security.
Unlike phpMyAdmin, which only supports the management of MySQL and MariaDB databases, Adminer also supports managing other databases such as PostgreSQL, SQLite, MS SQL, Oracle, SimpleDB, Elasticsearch, MongoDB, and Firebird. It is also available in 43 languages.
Adminer vs phpMyAdmin
Adminer and phpMyAdmin are tools for managing database content. phpMyAdmin is one of the most famous tools for these tasks. Whereas Adminer is also famous and it is also a lightweight tool. Here is a detailed comparison between both of them:
| Adminer | phpMyAdmin | |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple editing | Adminer features a special button that is displayed before this operation. | phpMyAdmin allows you to use the clone row feature after altering. Hence it is possible to overwrite the row by mistake. |
| Schema | Adminer uses HTML and JavaScript. | Schema in phpMyAdmin is available after setting up and specifying extra tables in the configuration file and only through PDF or canvas. |
| Database list | Adminer downloads this data asynchronously. | Database list is slow because it displays the number of tables. |
| Customization | Adminer offers advanced customization through a PHP extension class. | phpMyAdmin offers very simple customizations through special tables. |
| Size | The latest full-featured version of Adminer (v4.7.8) comes in at a measly 478 KB, Adminer’s MySQL-only version (354 KB) | phpMyAdmin’s latest version (v5.0.4) is 13.7 MB |
Improve Your PHP App Speed by 300%
Cloudways offers you dedicated servers with SSD storage, custom performance, an optimized stack, and more for 300% faster load times.
Supported Systems
Adminer is available through the plugin for MariaDB, MySQL, SQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL, Oracle, Elasticsearch, MongoDB, and others. Whereas phpMyAdmin supports MySQL or MariaDB 5.5 or newer. A web browser that underpins JavaScript cookies and Bootstrap 4.5 to get to phpMyAdmin PHP 7.2.
Overall Performance
Using phpMyAdmin, you can handle an unlimited amount of data that is exporting a table to SQL, CSV, or spreadsheets.
Adminer also provides a better, friendlier user interface. Customizing tables, columns, and their values is amazingly simple with Adminer. So is importing a database or taking backups. But on average, Adminer is 28% faster.
Database Security
Adminer is secure. Versions 4.6. 2 contain an application security gap that allows programmers to read records on the server. This could happen if web admins leave the Adminer scripts publicly accessible whereas using Adminer. Anyone with web access can reach the path of your phpMyAdmin, which is a security risk, especially if you have not set excellent passwords for your database users.
User Interface
phpMyAdmin is a GUI developed in PHP for creating and managing MySQL databases. phpMyAdmin is an HTML interface designed for creating and overseeing MySQL databases.
Adminer also gives distant better; a much better, higher, stronger, and improved user interface. Customizing tables, columns, and their values is incredibly simple with Adminer, so is importing a database or taking backups.
Synchronization
phpMyAdmin synchronize feature does not work without remote access to the server, which is often impaired by a firewall.
Adminer uses a diverse approach – it can make a Modify send out, which creates change commands to synchronize the target database with the source after running on the inaccessible server.
Enum Type
Adminer offers textarea with one thing per line for enum type creation. In phpMyAdmin,
it is pretty complicated to declare an Enum. If the field type is “enum” or you would have to use a backslash (\) or a single quote (‘’) amongst those values, precede it with a backslash (for example, ‘\\xyz’ or ‘a\’b’).
Foreign Keys
It is not possible to create multi-column foreign keys in phpMyAdmin. It would be best to manually create an index before making a foreign key. Adminer offers a foreign key interface specifically in creating/altering tables compared to phpMyAdmin.
A Few Other Alternatives
When comparing Adminer vs phpMyAdmin, you can consider the following projects:
-
- phpRedisAdmin – Simple web interface to manage Redis databases
- phpPgAdmin – the premier web-based administration tool for PostgreSQL
- CloudBeaver – Cloud Database Manager
- ClickHouse – ClickHouse® is a free analytics DBMS for big data
- Caddy – Fast and extensible multi-platform web server with automatic HTTPS
- MySQL – MySQL Server, the world’s most popular open source database, and MySQL Cluster, a real-time, open source transactional database
- MariaDB – MariaDB server is a community-developed fork of the MySQL server. Started by core members of the initial MySQL group, MariaDB actively works with exterior designers to deliver the foremost featureful, stable, and sanely licensed open SQL server within the industry.
Supercharged Managed PHP Hosting – Improve Your PHP App Speed by 300%
Summary
Adminer is one of the leading choices to use as a phpMyAdmin alternative. Not only does it have a lighter footprint, but it’s also much snappier to work it. It’s under moderate, however constant development. Adminer’s latest version included support for PHP 8 situations, making it future verification. If you’ve got any suggestions, please feel free to write them in the comments section below.
Inshal Ali
Inshal is a Content Marketer at Cloudways. With background in computer science, skill of content and a whole lot of creativity, he helps business reach the sky and go beyond through content that speaks the language of their customers. Apart from work, you will see him mostly in some online games or on a football field.
