post: Unlocking the Power of your Database with Azimutt

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+---
+title: Unlocking the Power of your Database with Azimutt
+date: 2025-06-08 19:20:00
+category: Tools
+permalink: /unlocking-the-power-of-your-database-with-azimutt/
+description: Discover Azimutt, the tool for efficient database design, exploration, and documentation. Learn how it can help you better understand and manage your databases.
+image: /images/unlocking-the-power-of-your-database-with-azimutt/azimutt-overview.webp
+tags:
+---
+
+## Introduction
+
+If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed trying to understand or manage a complex database, you’re not alone. As businesses grow and data flows multiply, navigating sprawling schemas can feel like like trying to navigate a labyrinth without a map.
+But in today’s data-driven world, understanding and managing databases efficiently is more critical than ever.
+
+**Azimutt** is a modern solution for database design and exploration that empowers you to take control of your data structures.
+Whether you're a developer, data architect, or analyst, Azimutt offers powerful tools to enhance your workflow, by helping you better understand and design your databases.
+
+Key features include:
+- **Seamless Exploration**: Navigate even the most complex databases, visualize relationships and dependencies.
+- **Powerful Documentation**: Turn existing databases into a resource of well-organized knowledge.
+- **Schema Creation**: Start from scratch and design databases with ease.
+
+At its core, Azimutt is designed to make your database management feel simple.
+
+![Azimutt overview](/images/unlocking-the-power-of-your-database-with-azimutt/azimutt-overview.webp)
+
+## Getting Started with Azimutt Explorer
+
+The **Azimutt Explorer** lets you effortlessly explore and design your databases. It connects to various database sources and visualize relationships between multiple schemas.
+Supported sources include both direct database connections and schema files in different formats.
+
+### Supported Databases and Schemas
+
+Azimutt supports a wide range of SQL and NoSQL databases, including:
+
+- PostgreSQL
+- MySQL
+- MariaDB
+- SQL Server
+- Oracle
+- BigQuery
+- MongoDB
+- Couchbase
+- Snowflake
+
+For schema files, supported formats include:
+
+- SQL
+- Prisma
+- AML
+- JSON
+
+You can add multiple sources, link them, and visualize their relationships. Learn more in [the Azimutt sources documentation](https://azimutt.app/docs/sources).
+If you prefer to start fresh, you can create an empty database and design its schema using the [AML DSL](https://azimutt.app/aml), a language by Azimutt to define your database schema that we [cover bellow](#Database-design).
+
+### Data Security
+
+Your database credentials are **secure by design**. By default, Azimutt encrypts and stores your credentials locally in your browser, ensuring only you can access them.
+
+For added flexibility, users can opt for:
+- **In-memory storage**: Ideal for sensitive production environments; credentials are erased after the session ends.
+- **Project storage**: Best for less sensitive environments like local development.
+
+To protect your privacy, **Azimutt servers never connect to your databases directly.** Since browsers can't directly connect to databases, Azimutt provides a lightweight **Gateway** component that runs on your local machine. It's easy to launch with a single Node.js command:
+
+```bash
+npx azimutt@latest gateway
+```
+
+Learn more about how Azimutt safeguards your data in the [data privacy documentation](https://azimutt.app/docs/data-privacy).
+
+### Open Source
+All Azimutt components are open source and available on GitHub: [Azimutt GitHub Repository](https://github.com/azimuttapp/azimutt).
+
+Azimutt is **open source**, fostering transparency and innovation. The entire project is available on [GitHub](https://github.com/azimuttapp/azimutt), welcoming contributions and collaboration from the developer community.
+
+## Organize Your Schemas with Layouts
+
+Large databases often have numerous tables, making it challenging to navigate and understand their structure.
+Azimutt’s **Layouts** provide a focused approach to database visualization.
+
+### What Are Layouts?
+
+Layouts allow you to focus on specific aspects of your database, such as a particular domain, feature, or business area. Instead of visualizing every table in a single, overwhelming diagram, you can choose which tables, attributes, and documentation to display, ensuring you see only the most relevant information.
+
+For example:
+
+- Focus on **users** for user management systems.
+- Highlight **products and carts** in an e-commerce database.
+
+By organising tables, attributes, and documentation into separated views, Layouts make it easy to focus on specific aspects of your schema.
+
+[Learn more about Layouts](https://azimutt.app/docs/layouts).
+
+### Key Layout Features
+
+![An example of Layout for the Gospeak database](/images/unlocking-the-power-of-your-database-with-azimutt/gospeak-database-example.webp)
+
+#### Entities
+Entities are the core components of a database. You can display selected entities, their rows, and the relationships between them.
+You can [add relations between tables of different databases](https://azimutt.app/docs/follow-relations).
+
+#### Groups
+Groups visually connect tables that belong to the same context or concept. You can name them and they appear as a colored background behind the entities, making relationships clear at a glance.
+
+For example, in the screenshot above, the "Partners" group is highlighted in purple.
+
+### Database documentation
+
+
+On Azimutt there are two types of [documentations](https://azimutt.app/docs/documentation).
+The first one is "Schema documentation". You can add comments, notes and tags on any table.
+
+![Schema documentation](/images/unlocking-the-power-of-your-database-with-azimutt/schema-documentation.png)
+
+The second one is "Layout documentation". This documentation is displayed on the Layout using Markdown elements.
+You can explain the Layout purpose, use-cases, examples, etc.
+
+![Layout documentation](/images/unlocking-the-power-of-your-database-with-azimutt/layout-documentation.png)
+
+
+### Database design
+
+Azimutt created its own schema language: [AML](https://azimutt.app/aml) (Azimutt Markup Language)
+You can use it do design your databases schemas:
+
+```aml
+users
+  id uuid pk
+  name varchar
+  email varchar unique
+  role user_role(admin, guest)=guest
+
+posts
+  id uuid pk
+  title varchar
+  content text | in markdown
+  created_at timestamp=`now()`
+  created_by uuid -> users(id) # inline relation
+```
+
+Take a look at a [real world example](https://azimutt.app/docs/aml#full-example).
+
+You can even use the [VS Code extension](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=azimutt.vscode-aml) that brings syntax highlighting and other developments utilities.
+
+### Database analysis
+
+[Azimutt analyzer](https://azimutt.app/blog/improve-your-database-design-with-azimutt-analyzer) provides tools to analyse your schemas and make recommendations on how you could improve them.
+
+Current [checks](https://azimutt.app/use-cases/analyze) includes:
+
+- Missing primary keys
+- Missing foreign keys
+- Inconsistent types
+- Big tables with too many columns
+
+
+## Conclusion
+
+Azimutt bridges the gap between complexity and clarity in database management.
+
+Azimutt’s combination of **exploration**, **documentation** and **analysis** features make it an essential tool for database management and design for  teams of any size.
+From startups to enterprises, Azimutt will help you work smarter, and faster.
+Whether you’re documenting existing schemas or building new ones, Azimutt streamlines the process while keeping your data secure.
+
+## Try it !
+
+To experience the difference Azimutt can make in your database workflows, visit [Azimutt’s website](https://azimutt.app).
+
+Azimutt provides different databases [as examples](https://azimutt.app/gallery), I recommend using the [e-commerce demo](https://azimutt.app/45f571a6-d9b8-4752-8a13-93ac0d2b7984/c00d0c45-8db2-46b7-9b51-eba661640c3c?token=9a59ccbb-7a58-4c88-9dfc-692de6177be9) (77 tables over 9 databases) to play with.