What is Mathesar?
Mathesar is a straightforward open source tool that provides a spreadsheet-like interface to a PostgreSQL database. Our web-based interface helps you and your collaborators work with data more independently and comfortably – no technical skills needed.
You can use Mathesar to build data models, enter data, and even build reports. You host your own Mathesar installation, which gives you ownership, privacy, and control of your data.
Mathesar is a non-profit project. Our goal is to make understanding and working with data easy for everyone.
Databases have been around for a long time and solve common data problems really well. But working with databases often requires custom software. Or complex tooling that people struggle to get their heads around.
We want to make existing database functionality more accessible – in a user-friendly way.
Mathesar is built and maintained by the Mathesar Foundation, a US-based nonprofit.
+ databases in our personal life
We're a group of industry veterans with a love of open source. Our core team members have founded startups and worked at a variety of companies – from nonprofits to large multinational companies. We've also led projects in large open source communities like Creative Commons, CiviCRM, and Ember.js.
“My husband and I use a database-backed application to track movies. Movies we own, movies we want to watch, movies we’ve watched.
I had to write a bunch of code for it, but it would have been much faster to build it using Mathesar – if it had existed!”
“I have an older relative who has been compiling family genealogy data for years through an arduous process of paper forms in the mail. I’d like to digitize it for future generations! Spreadsheets are a poor fit because of the data’s highly relational nature. And the family wants to maintain privacy, making existing solutions unappealing.
With Mathesar, our family will eventually be able to collaboratively manage this data and visualize it in new and exciting ways!”
“As someone who really enjoys cooking at home, I’m thinking Mathesar would be a great for storing all my recipes in one place. Being able to search and filter my recipes based on ingredients and cooking time would be really cool. I’m excited to give it a try!”
“I intend to use a database to maintain a personal diary, but with data tracking!
I’ll be logging my daily life: my anime watching habits, exercise routine, work progress, social interactions etc., I can analyze this data to gain valuable insights into my own behavior and lifestyle.
Mathesar is going to make all of this a breeze!”
“I’m using a database (and planning to use Mathesar) to store and analyze info I collect about various countries. e.g. cost of living, tax rates, population statistics, economic statistics, etc.
I’m tentatively calling it the Country Comparator.”
“I’m using a database to enable people to make better choices about which credit card to get. In the current market, credit card benefits, eligibility requirements, etc. frequently change. Mathesar allows me to make these frequent changes quickly and without much hassle and share the updated data easily.”
“I’ve been slowly starting to build a small wine collection and keeping track of all of my notes has been a huge pain. Using a system like Mathesar would allow me to easily maintain the information and compare wines across vintage, varietal, region and producer.”
“I’m using Mathesar as a training log for my rock climbing sessions. I’m able to group and keep track of climbs in different areas, along with their difficulty. I previously used a basic spreadsheet for this, but without real relationships connecting my data, I quickly lost track of my progress.”
“Mathesar is the perfect place to organize my home library. It’s an easy way to keep track of what’s in my collection, maintain notes about my favorite books, and see all the ones I have yet to read.”
“I’m always balancing fitness goals, books I want to read, TV shows I need to catch up on, and ongoing projects. Mathesar would help me keep track of it all in one place, making it easy to stay organized and on top of my priorities.”
Mathesar will always be 100% open source and self-hostable.
We’re currently funded through the generous support of:
We plan to release a cloud hosted version of Mathesar with paid plans at some point in the near future. This will help us fund the project in the long-term.
We remain committed to open source principles and will not create closed-source features or accept funding that would compromise our values.
