Introducing Mathesar 0.2.0: Initial Beta Release

We are excited to announce the release of Mathesar 0.2.0. This marks our transition from alpha to beta, which means the project is now more stable, thoroughly tested, and ready to work with production PostgreSQL databases.

We've been working hard to incorporate user feedback, improving Mathesar’s performance, security, and usability to better support your data workflows. The interface is now exponentially faster, ensuring a smoother and more responsive experience for everyday use. We've also transitioned our access control system to PostgreSQL roles to enhance security and reduce deployment risks. There are also many quality-of-life improvements, including support for exporting tables and improved documentation.

We’d love for you to try this release and share your thoughts on how Mathesar is working for you. Let us know what you think of the improvements and what features you'd like to see next. Share your feedback on this GitHub discussion or email us at hello@mathesar.org.

What is Mathesar?

Mathesar is a web application that makes working with PostgreSQL databases both simple and powerful. It empowers users of all technical skill levels to view, edit, query, and collaborate on data with a familiar spreadsheet-like interface—no code needed. It has native database-level access control, can be deployed in minutes, and works directly with PostgreSQL databases, schemas, and tables without extra abstractions. The project is 100% open source and maintained by Mathesar Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

What's new in Mathesar v0.2.0?

This post gives you a peek at some of the improvements in the release. Please see our Release Notes for the comprehensive list of all changes and bugfixes.

New access control system based on PostgreSQL roles and privileges

We've completely redesigned Mathesar's access controls to leverage PostgreSQL's powerful system of roles and privileges. Each Mathesar user will now be assigned to a specific PostgreSQL role so that all their operations on the underlying database will be performed using that role.

The new system gives Mathesar several new capabilities. You can use Mathesar to configure roles and privileges in PostgreSQL and to set granular access control at the individual schema and table level. Plus Mathesar will respect all these configurations when performed directly in PostgreSQL by database administrators outside of Mathesar. Mathesar also no longer needs a database superuser for day-to-day operations.

Substantial performance improvements

Mathesar is now much faster! Most pages load about 5x faster, and large imports run about 50x faster.

Also, you'll no longer need to manually "sync database schema changes" to Mathesar. Now, any DDL changes will be reflected in Mathesar automatically!

To achieve these gains, we've significantly overhauled Mathesar's backend architecture, moving a large chunk of the application code into the database itself, and migrating to a new API.

Table exports

You can now use Mathesar to export a table to a CSV file. Any filters and sorting that you've applied to the table will be reflected in the exported data. And all relevant records will be included in the export, even if they are not shown on the current page within Mathesar.

New User Guide and more in-app help

We've overhauled our User Guide to document all new features and more thoroughly explain the inner-workings of Mathesar. You might even learn a thing or two about PostgreSQL by reading it!

You'll also find more help within the application itself. Look for small gray help bubbles to explain concepts and provides links to more detailed information within the User Guide.

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Here’s the link to our Release Notes again if you’d like to see the full list of all changes and bugfixes.

We look forward to your feedback!

What's next for Mathesar?

We’re always working to make Mathesar more powerful, flexible, and easy to use. Here are some of the features we’re considering building next:

• Better tools for administrators, including SSO (Single Sign-On), a UI for PostgreSQL RLS (Row-Level Security), and support for non-Postgres databases through Postgres FDWs (Foreign Data Wrappers).
• More ways to edit and query data, such as a unified interface for query building and editing, custom input forms, and a built-in SQL editor.
• Expanded support for data types, including location data (via PostGIS), long-form/formatted text (e.g., Markdown), and various file and image types.

Although we're exploring these, our roadmap will ultimately be shaped by feedback from our beta users. If there’s something you’d love to see in Mathesar, let us know at hello@mathesar.org!