A Clash of SSMS Add-Ins: Comparison of dbForge SQL Complete and SSMS Tools Pack

We'll discuss two productivity-focused add-ins that help us achieve more in less time. They're a great way to extend the functionality of the SSMS.

Jordan Sanders

Feb. 08, 23 · Review

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SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is one of the most proven database administration and management tools. Whether you use SQL Server Management Studio for Database Administrators or just for database development, it's a proven tool. We want to increase our capabilities, adapting this tool to our specific needs. For this, we use a range of SSMS add-ins and extensions.

We'll discuss two productivity-focused add-ins that help us achieve more in less time. They're a great way to extend the functionality of the SSMS. They make it more flexible and enhance our SQL codings with autocompletion, snippets, and refactoring.

These are SSMS Tools Pack and dbForge SQL Complete. Let's first take a brief overview of both products, then look at features that might interest you. It helps you decide whether SQL Complete is better than SQL Server Management Studio.

The Overview of dbForge SQL Complete

We start with dbForge SQL Complete, available for SSMS and Microsoft Visual Studio. It offers IntelliSense-like context-based code completion, SQL formatting, and smart refactoring with auto-correction of references. This makes coding up to four times faster.

It's suitable for your own use, but it helps to form and unify SQL standards for corporate teamwork. This tool has a powerful T-SQL debugger, tab coloring, and document outline. SQL Complete has many features, and a clean interface — all of that make your work more convenient.

Pricing: DBForge SQL Complete is available in three editions: Free Basic (Express), Standard, and Professional. The Express edition is a unique offering that comes completely free of charge. There is no other way to extend the code completion functionality in SSMS for free.

SQL Complete can also be purchased in a package called dbForge SQL Tools, which includes fifteen essential products that cover nearly any aspect of SQL Server development, management, and administration.

The Overview of SSMS Tools Pack

While the second contender, SSMS Tools Pack, doesn't come close to being as versatile and powerful as the first contender, it does offer quite a bit of functionality. It is a SQL Server Management Studio plugin that was created to boost the user's productivity. It's easy to use and delivers a handy SQL editor, CRUD procedure generation, snippets, formatting, convenient search with filtering, and SQL execution history. Like SQL Complete, it also includes features that aren't essential yet, like tab coloring and the ability to export to Excel spreadsheets.

Pricing: SSMS Tools Pack is a commercial product with licenses available in Small, Large, and Enterprise team packages. A free version is available for one computer for sixty days.

Feature Comparison of dbForge SQL Complete and SSMS Tools Pack

To make this comparison, we used the latest versions of tools — SQL Complete v6.12.8 and SSMS Tools Pack v5.5.2. Read the feature descriptions carefully. Some may be far more critical for your particular goals than others.

Feature	dbForge SQL Complete	SSMS Tools Pack
Compatibility
SSMS integration	Yes	Yes
Visual Studio integration	Yes	No
Improved code quality
Find invalid objects	Yes	No
CRUD procedure generation	Yes	Yes
Generation of the CREATE/ALTER script for server objects	Yes	No
Execution Plan Analyzer	No	Yes
Renaming of objects, variables, and aliases	Yes	No
T-SQL Debugger	Yes	No
Run on multiple targets	Yes	Yes
Safe work with document environment and databases
Various options for executing statements	Yes	Yes
Execution warnings	Yes	Yes
Execution notifications	Yes	No
Transaction reminder	Yes	Yes
Run At Status Bar Element	No	Yes
Tab coloring	Yes	Yes
Custom SSMS main window title	Yes	Yes
Execution history of SQL statements	Yes	Yes
Tab management	Yes	Yes
Quick Connect Active SQL Editor Window	No	Yes
Document sessions	Yes	No
Operations with data in the SSMS data grid
Results Grid data visualizers	Yes	No
Copy Data As from the SSMS grid to XML, CSV, HTML, and JSON	Yes	No
Copy Results Grid headers (column names + types)	Yes	No
Export to Excel from the SSMS Results Grid	No	Yes
Grid aggregates	Yes	Yes
Find in Results Grid	Yes	Yes
Generate Script As from the SSMS data grid	Yes	Yes
Increased coding productivity
Context-sensitive suggestion of object names and keywords	Yes	No
Expand SELECT *	Yes	Yes
Object information	Yes	No
Parameter information	Yes	No
SQL snippets	Yes	Yes
New query template	No	Yes
‘Go to definition’ for database objects	Yes	Yes
Highlighted occurrences of identifiers	Yes	No
Named regions	Yes	Yes
Document Outline window	Yes	No
Unified SQL standards
SQL formatting	Yes	Yes
Multiple predefined formatting profiles	Yes	No
Preservation of the original formatting for any selected piece of code	Yes	No
Command-line interface	Yes	No
Settings
Import/Export Settings Wizard	Yes	Yes
Quick search for options	Yes	No
Releases
Initial release	v1.0 (November 19, 2010)	v1.0 (May 1, 2008)
Latest release (as of September 2021)	v6.12 (September 12, 2022)	v5.5 (July 1, 2020)
Total quantity of releases	133	41

The Verdict of Comparison of dbForge SQL Complete and SSMS Tools Pack

We saw that dbForge SQL Complete has more features than SSMS Tools Pack. It offers more to improve productivity, provides a much wider range of data operations, has noticeably more advanced formatting, and supports a command line interface. You should also be aware that SQL Complete is updated more frequently.

If you're looking for an SSMS Tools Pack alternative, then SQL Complete is the best solution for you. It's compatible with both Microsoft Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio. It doesn't take a lot of effort to see how effective it is.

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