I'm doing a survey for the best SQL change script generators out there, specifically for MS SQL Server.
I do know of Redgate SQL Compare, but I'd like to know what others use, and if there are free versions of such software that I could try.
Any suggestions?
Toad is good for this. They have a Sql Server edition.
There's a free edition, but it may be the commercial edition that has the fancy DBA-ish tools. I'm pretty sure we had a time-locked eval copy.
I've used SQLDelta which is pretty good, but I like Redgate better. My personal favourite is the built in database tools for Visual Studio 2008.
ApexSQL, spendy but nice when migrations are down or just not in at all.
I use ApexSQL and I'm happy with it; I tried many different solutions when we had to decide, doing tests and trying trial versions from many different vendors, and in the end we decided to go for Apex, and I had no problems with it. Not cheap, I know, but reliable and fast.
Yes. The Visual Studio database tools are for Team System. You're after the Database Edition (or better).
We use DB Comparer from EMS - they have a large range of tools each specifically targeted for a particular platform (they support SQL Server, MySQL, Interbase/Firebird, PostgreSQL, Oracle etc).
The program allows you to compare 2 databases, and generate scripts for going from each database schema to the other. It works out dependencies and each of the script components are shown in a sort-of visual way (it's really a glorified owner-drawer listbox, I think). You can run bits of the script against the relevant database, save scripts down to files, etc etc.
We use it mostly for keeping our development SQL Server 2005 databases in line with each other.
It's not free, but there is a trial version available and it's not particularly expensive given what it does.
We have quite a number of EMS tools here and they're all pretty good - much prefer using their SQL Manager for SQL Server tool to the ones that come with SQL Server, or any of the commercial offerings we looked at a couple of years ago (Toad, Redgate, Embarcadero etc from memory, I think).
It is free with SQL Server 2005 and later versions. The tool can be found in the following file directory:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\COM\tablediff.exe
According to this link on SQL Server features:
TableDiff.exe...Table Difference tool allows you to discover and reconcile differences between a source and destination table or a view. Tablediff Utility can report differences on schema and data. The most popular feature of tablediff is the fact that it can generate a script that you can run on the destination that will reconcile differences between the tables.
Open DbDiff is nice. http://opendbiff.codeplex.com/ or Db Diff is also nice. http://dbdiff.codeplex.com/