cd /news/open-source/chat-with-your-database-in-plain-eng… · home topics open-source article
[ARTICLE · art-3901] src=dev.to ↗ pub= topic=open-source verified=true sentiment=↑ positive

Chat with your database in plain English — locally, for free

DB-GPT is an open-source framework that allows users to query databases using plain English, automatically translating natural language questions into SQL and executing them locally without requiring SQL knowledge. It supports multiple database systems including PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and others, and can visualize results as charts. The tool is fully self-hosted, MIT licensed, and has garnered over 17,000 GitHub stars.

read1 min views17 publishedMay 20, 2026

"What were our top 10 customers last quarter by revenue, as a bar chart?" DB-GPT translates that to SQL, runs it against your database, and renders the chart. No SQL knowledge required. Fully local. MIT licensed. 17K GitHub stars — almost no English content. DB-GPT is an open-source framework that puts a natural language interface on top of your databases. You connect PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, or others — then ask questions in plain English. It generates the SQL, executes it, and can visualize results automatically. Think Metabase meets AI, but fully self-hosted and free. PostgreSQL · MySQL · MariaDB · SQLite · ClickHouse · DuckDB · Spark SQL Clone the repo, copy .env.example to .env , add your database connection string, then docker compose up -d . Open localhost:5670 → admin / admin → Settings → Database → Add → paste connection string. Full docker-compose: chinese-ai-tools-english-guide/tools/db-gpt Once your database is connected: DB-GPT generates SQL for each, runs it, returns results. Charts render automatically in the UI. Settings → LLM Provider → Ollama → Base URL: http://ollama:11434/v1 → Model: llama3 For best SQL accuracy use sqlcoder — fine-tuned specifically for SQL generation. Pull it with docker exec -it ollama ollama pull sqlcoder . Both let you query databases with natural language: DB-GPT if you want a complete self-contained app. Vanna.ai if you're embedding the capability programmatically into your own product.

A ready-to-import workflow JSON is in the repo (integration/n8n-workflows/db-gpt-query.json
). POST {question, db_name}
→ returns {answer, sql, data}

. → chinese-ai-tools-english-guide Previous articles in this series: Your data never leaves your machine. No API keys, no cloud, no SQL knowledge needed.

── more in #open-source 4 stories · sorted by recency
── more on @db-gpt 3 stories trending now
sponsored brought to you by zahid.host 4,200+ EU-deployed projects
reading about agents? ship yours in a single git push.

Run your AI side-project on zahid.host

EU-based hosting, git-push deploys, automatic HTTPS, no cold starts. Free tier with a custom domain — perfect for shipping the agent you just read about.

$git push zahid main
Live at https://your-agent.zahid.host
Get free account → Pricing
from €0/mo · no card required
LIVE [news/chat-with-your-datab…] indexed:0 read:1min 2026-05-20 ·