Tad
A free desktop viewer for CSV, Parquet, SQLite and DuckDB files with pivot-table exploration.
- Verified facts
- 4 of 4
- Alternatives ranked
- 5
- Approved reviews
- 0
- Visits sent from here
- 0
About Tad
Tad is a desktop app for opening and exploring tabular data files without loading them into a spreadsheet or writing SQL. It opens CSV, TSV and Parquet files, compressed CSVs, and SQLite or DuckDB database files, and it can open a whole folder so you can flip between data files from a sidebar. Under the hood it uses DuckDB, which keeps large files responsive. The main view works like a pivot table: you group by columns, filter, sort, see histograms for numeric columns, and export the filtered result as CSV or Parquet or paste it into Excel or Google Sheets. It's aimed at data engineers and analysts who want a quick look at a file. Tad is free and MIT-licensed, with installers for macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon), Linux and Windows. The author calls it a hobby project, so releases are infrequent and you should expect rough edges.
Best for: Analysts and data engineers who want to quickly explore large CSV or Parquet files.
Pros and cons
What works
- Opens large CSV and Parquet files quickly via DuckDB
- Pivot, filter and histogram tools without writing SQL
- Free and MIT-licensed, on Mac, Windows and Linux
Why people leave
- Read and explore only; no editing of the underlying data
- Hobby project with infrequent releases and known rough edges
- No connections to server databases like PostgreSQL in the desktop app
Top Tad alternatives
See all 5- 1
DBeaver76.8Full database IDE that also reads CSV and DuckDB, plus connects to server databases.
- 2
Beekeeper Studio74.4Friendly SQL client for SQLite, DuckDB and server databases with an editable data grid.
- 3
TablePlus72.5Polished native client if you need to edit data and work with many database engines.
- 4
DB Browser for SQLite68.8Free open-source SQLite tool that can also edit data and import CSVs into tables.
- 5
Harlequin64.8Terminal SQL IDE built on DuckDB, for people happy to query CSV and Parquet with SQL.
Why people left Tad
In reviewers' own words, from reviews of the apps they moved to. These are their opinions, not ours.
No switching stories yet. If you moved away from Tad, review the app you switched to and tell us why.
Reviews
No approved reviews yet. How we verify reviewers
Write a review of Tad
Tad: common questions
Is Tad free?
Yes. Tad is free, open-source software.
Is Tad open source?
Yes. The source code is on GitHub at antonycourtney/tad.
What platforms does Tad run on?
Tad is available for macOS, Windows and Linux.
What are the best alternatives to Tad?
The highest-ranked Tad alternatives right now are DBeaver, Beekeeper Studio and TablePlus. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.