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Getting started with Flare ​

Flare is a desktop app for working on databases safely. It supports Firebase, PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, Supabase, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis and S3 storage, with the same tools for each. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Get Flare ​

Flare is not taking new accounts yet. While that lasts, join the waitlist and Flare emails you when it opens to you. The one way in before then is an invitation from a team that already uses Flare: the link in the invitation's email lets you make an account with the address it was sent to.

Once you have an account, download Flare for your system and sign in. What each plan includes is on flare.tools.

Your account ​

A Flare account is an email address and a password. When accounts are open, you can make one on flare.tools or on the app's sign in screen. Flare sends an email to confirm the address. If you made the account in the app, it waits and signs you in by itself once you open that email. Forgot your password? on the sign in screen sends a link to choose a new one.

Your account is not a Google account. Google comes in only if you work on Firebase: you connect a Google account inside the app, and Flare opens that account's Firebase projects with it. You can connect more than one. Settings, Account and connections lists them, and is where you choose your picture, which your teams see beside your name.

Connect a database ​

Flare opens on your list of connections. Choose New connection (the + next to the search) and either:

  • paste a connection string for PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB or Supabase, such as postgres://user:password@host:5432/database, and Flare fills in the rest; or
  • choose the kind of database: PostgreSQL, MySQL or SQLite, Firebase or Supabase, Redis, MongoDB or Cassandra, or S3 storage (AWS S3, Cloudflare R2 and MinIO).

Then fill in the details. Each kind asks for what it needs: a host and port, a database file for SQLite, or a bucket endpoint and keys for S3. Firebase asks for a Google account instead of a password and lists the projects it can reach.

Give the connection a name and a tag. Tags are Local, Development, Staging or Production. You can show a tag under a name of your own, such as QA, and Flare still treats the connection as the tag you chose.

Tag production as Production

Flare asks before any change on a connection tagged Production. For the riskiest changes, such as deleting many rows, it makes you type the connection's name. Flare never guesses production from a name, so the tag is the only way it knows.

Saved connections and their passwords stay on your computer, and Flare's servers never see them. They only leave if you turn on sync or share them in a team folder, and then only end to end encrypted. Sync, teams and plans says what does leave your computer.

Open it ​

Choose the connection to open it. Flare starts on the Dashboard, or on Storage for S3. The rail on the left lists that database's tools. Where things are walks through them.

A few things work everywhere:

  • The command palette (Ctrl K, or ⌘K on a Mac) jumps to any tool, connection, table, collection or saved query. It also runs commands, including ones plugins add.
  • Activity lists every change you've made, with undo where Flare can undo it exactly.
  • Settings, at the bottom of the connection list, holds your account, sync, appearance and themes, plugins, projects and teams.

Next ​