Writing SQL is only part of the story. A more time- and resource-consuming task is cleaning, optimizing, and maintaining it to make sure it produces the expected results. In this context, well-formatted SQL gains significance, greatly accelerating workflows for developers, DBAs, and data analysts.
A long, messy, single-line query is hard to follow and parse. It may hide errors and inefficiencies, making it difficult to debug and optimize for better performance. Even with no logical or syntax errors, a poorly formatted SQL query may be a challenge to decompose into logical blocks and explain, which may lead to misinterpreted data.
This is why the ability to format SQL online is highly appreciated by anyone involved in writing, optimizing, or analyzing SQL. An SQL beautifier turning a long, poorly readable query into a clean hierarchy is becoming a tool of choice for developers, database admins, DevOps engineers, and data analysts alike. In addition to saving the time required to parse SQL queries, using an SQL formatter online brings consistency and standardization into workflows, ensuring conformity with the generally accepted industry guidelines.
Fortunately, there are quite a lot of online SQL formatters and beautifiers that help you bring clarity and order into your queries. Let's look at some of them.
As we are about to delve into our detailed SQL formatter comparison, let's briefly stop at how we selected our list of the best SQL formatter tools. In our research, we tested and evaluated various products: free and paid, database-specific and universal, standalone and integrated. For each tool we considered for our rating of the best SQL code formatters, we took into account multiple aspects:
Based on these criteria, we put together a list of the best online SQL formatters available today.
Here's our list of the best online SQL formatters. We hope it will help database developers, administrators, and analysts choose the SQL beautifier that best meets their requirements.
Devart SQL Formatter & Beautifier Online is a browser-based SQL formatter that instantly styles SQL queries for readability. Thanks to multiple available formatting profiles, it can deliver SQL queries structured to meet your standards and regulations. With Devart SQL Formatter & Beautifier Online, SQL styling is as simple as pasting your code in the tool's window and selecting the required profile. Designed with a focus on SQL Server syntax, the tool handles SQL queries of any complexity.
| Key pros | Key cons |
|---|---|
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✅ Ease of use ✅ Free online availability ✅ Choice of formatting profiles ✅ Data security |
❌ Lack of support for some SQL dialects ❌ Functionality limited to basic code formatting options |
While the functionality of Devart SQL Formatter & Beautifier Online may be somewhat limited, you can enjoy advanced SQL formatting features in dbForge desktop tools, such as dbForge SQL Complete, an add-in for SSMS and Visual Studio, and dbForge Studio for SQL Server, all-in-one AI-powered IDE.
Boost your coding productivity and quality with an intelligent AI-powered SQL writing and formatting assistant.
Devart Online MySQL Formatter lets you quickly style your MySQL queries by simply pasting them into your browser. The tool supports several formatting profiles, thus allowing you to choose the MySQL structure that meets your needs. Devart Online MySQL Formatter instantly structures your code, arranging it in a clean and easily readable hierarchy.
Key pros |
Key cons |
|---|---|
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✅ User friendliness ✅ Free online availability ✅ Choice of formatting profiles ✅ Data security |
❌ Support for MySQL and MariaDB only ❌ Limited functionality |
Devart Online MySQL Formatter is an efficient solution when you need to quickly style your SQL. For advanced code writing and formatting, check out dbForge Studio for MySQL featuring AI-assisted code completion, code editing and validation, as well as customizable SQL formatting.
Manage your databases with confidence in a full-featured IDE that provides a convenient space for writing, editing, and analyzing MySQL and MariaDB code.
Code Beautify SQL Formatter is a free online SQL styling tool that supports several SQL dialects and turns any query into a cleanly indented hierarchy. Besides formatting, it can also remove comments from the code, leaving only the meaningful content and reducing the overall query size. Code Beautify SQL Formatter supports both pasting the code directly into its window and uploading code from a file or via a URL.
However, Code Beautify SQL Formatter does not offer a choice of formats and only delivers standard SQL.
Key pros |
Key cons |
|---|---|
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✅ Free tool ✅ Support for multiple SQL dialects ✅ Comment removal and code compression |
❌ Support for only the default formatting profile ❌ Lack of syntax validation |
SQL Pretty Printer instantly structures code using the selected format. The tool supports a number of SQL dialects that it can process and offers quite a list of output formats, from various SQL profiles to programming languages.
However, SQL Pretty Printer does not validate code input, formatting even incorrect or incomplete queries, which may be a disadvantage.
Key pros |
Key cons |
|---|---|
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✅ Free tool ✅ Wide selection of output formats and options ✅ SQL visualization features |
❌ Lack of SQL validation |
ChartDB SQL Formatter presents a simple and transparent interface for beautifying SQL code. You can either paste your SQL into the tool's window or upload a file, and it will rearrange it in a standard SQL format. ChartDB SQL Formatter supports the most popular SQL dialects; however, its formatting options are rather limited.
At the same time, there is no code validation; the tool formats both correct and incorrect SQL alike.
Key pros |
Key cons |
|---|---|
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✅ Free tool ✅ Selection of supported SQL formats |
❌ Lack of SQL validation ❌ Limited formatting options |
Aiven SQL Formatter is designed for instant online styling of SQL code. You can choose from a number of supported dialects and customize the output by setting the options to your preferences.
Before beautifying the code, Aiven Code Formatter validates it and returns an error message whenever the input SQL is incorrect or incomplete.
Key pros |
Key cons |
|---|---|
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✅ Free tool ✅ Selection from among multiple SQL dialects ✅ IDE integrations ✅ SQL validation |
❌ Limited formatting options |
Redgate SQL Formatter is a free online SQL beautifier that instantly turns raw code into structured SQL. It offers basic functionality with a few formatting options and no choice of dialects—only SQL Server is supported.
However, Redgate SQL Formatter includes code validation, displaying an error message if the code pasted into its window is incorrect.
Key pros |
Key cons |
|---|---|
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✅ Free tool ✅ Multiple output formats ✅ SQL validation |
❌ Lack of support for other SQL dialects |
Poor SQL offers instant SQL styling and beautifying. While not explicitly supporting the selection of SQL dialects, the tool consumes SQL code written according to various standards: SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle PL/SQL, or PostgreSQL. To bring the formatted SQL up to your requirements, you can set the formatting options as necessary.
Poor SQL validates the code pasted into the input window and displays a warning if any errors are present.
Key pros |
Key cons |
|---|---|
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✅ Free tool ✅ Offline work ✅ Selection of formatting options ✅ SQL validation |
❌ Lack of explicit selection of SQL dialects |
The table below presents a summary of our research of the best SQL formatter tools on the market.
| Tool | Best for | SQL Server support | Syntax validation | Formatting customization | Free |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Devart SQL Formatter & Beautifier Online | Developers, DBAs, and analysts using SQL Server in enterprise-grade projects | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Devart Online MySQL Formatter | MySQL/MariaDB developers and DBAs | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Code Beautify SQL Formatter | Individual developers and analysts working with multiple SQL dialects | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| SQL Pretty Printer | Developers and teams needing flexible SQL formatting options | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| ChartDB SQL Formatter | Developers and analysts who need easy and lightweight SQL formatting | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Aiven SQL Formatter | Database developers working across multiple SQL dialects | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Redgate SQL Formatter | SQL Server developers working in enterprise-grade environments | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Poor SQL | Individual SQL Server developers | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
With so many SQL formatting tools available today, choosing the right one for your organization may be a challenge. However, if you approach it armed with a definite list of requirements, making the choice becomes more straightforward. This is what you should look for when picking an SQL beautifier online:
If, however, your project involves multiple databases with different SQL dialects, opt for a tool that supports all of them. From this point of view, a good idea may be choosing ChartDB SQL Formatter or Aiven SQL Formatter.
In 2026, SQL remains a major language for database management, shared across multiple tools and platforms. Its clarity, readability, and correctness directly affect the performance and productivity of applications using SQL databases. Moreover, AI-assisted SQL generation makes queries increasingly complex and hard to debug and optimize in their raw format.
Online SQL formatters make query management easier by instantly bringing code to a standardized style, clarifying its structure, and revealing the inherent logic. Browser-based code beautifiers become even more valuable in distributed teams working in multi-database environments, aiming for rapid iteration. Lightweight and straightforward, they provide instant results, accelerating the work of database developers, administrators, and data analysts.
If you are looking for a reliable online SQL formatter, try Devart SQL Formatter & Beautifier Online and Devart Online MySQL Formatter for instant styling and validation of your SQL queries. These free tools can enhance your database management workflows by bringing clarity and readability into your code in an easy, zero-setup manner.
The list of best SQL formatters includes such tools as Devart SQL Formatter & Beautifier Online, Aiven SQL Formatter, and Redgate SQL Formatter. These tools support SQL Server and include the code validation feature.
Yes. Many browser-based tools, such as Devart SQL Formatter & Beautifier Online, Poor SQL, Code Beautify SQL Formatter, and others, offer instant SQL formatting with output customization.
An SQL formatter restructures SQL code to make it readable through line breaks, indentation, highlighting, etc. An SQL linter validates the code, checking it for potential syntax errors or inconsistencies. Many online SQL beautifiers, for example, Aiven SQL Formatter and Redgate SQL Formatter, combine the features of a formatter and a linter, styling the code and simultaneously validating its quality.
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