.NET

Installation

OmniDB provides 2 kinds of packages to fit every user needs:

Both application and server can be installed on the same machine.

OmniDB Application

Important: The original repository https://github.com/OmniDB/OmniDB/releases contains only old versions (up to ~2020) and is no longer maintained — see Legacy Features & History for what changed since.

For current versions use the project’s releases page. Since the Go rewrite, every release is a single self-contained archive per platform (plus an optional installer for Windows) — no separate runtime to install first:

Unzip (or untar) the archive for your platform and run the OmniDB app/binary inside — that’s the whole install.

Installation via Homebrew (macOS only – recommended)

For macOS users who prefer using a package manager, OmniDB is available through a custom Homebrew tap:

# Install the latest version:
brew install --cask heptau/tap/omnidb
# To upgrade later:
brew upgrade heptau/tap/omnidb

Homebrew will automatically download the correct ZIP for your architecture (Apple Silicon or Intel), unzip it and place OmniDB.app into your Applications folder.

The cask definition is maintained here: heptau/homebrew-tap – omnidb.rb

Installation via winget (Windows only)

For Windows users who prefer using a package manager, OmniDB is available through the Windows Package Manager, built into Windows 10 and 11:

# Install the latest version:
winget install heptau.OmniDB
# To upgrade later:
winget upgrade heptau.OmniDB

The manifest is maintained here: microsoft/winget-pkgs.

Direct download (all platforms)

These links always point to the latest release. For older versions, checksums, and release notes, see the releases page.

Unzip the archive for your platform and launch the app the normal way: on macOS, drag OmniDB.app into Applications and open it from Launchpad/Spotlight or open -a OmniDB; on Linux, run the OmniDB binary directly; on Windows, run OmniDB.exe (or the installer).

See Desktop App for where the app keeps its data, its menu bar and keyboard shortcuts, and macOS specifics such as importing data from an earlier installation.

OmniDB Server

The same release archive also contains omnidb-server — a separate, headless binary alongside the desktop app (the desktop app actually launches this same binary internally, as a child process, forcing app mode). Run it directly for the browser-accessible server mode, with no desktop shell involved:

user@machine:~$ ./omnidb-server
omnidb-server: listening on 127.0.0.1:52149 — open http://127.0.0.1:52149/omnidb_login/ in your browser

By default OmniDB listens on 127.0.0.1 only and picks a free port automatically. You can specify both explicitly:

user@machine:~$ ./omnidb-server -p 8080 -H 0.0.0.0
omnidb-server: listening on 0.0.0.0:8080 — open http://0.0.0.0:8080/omnidb_login/ in your browser

See Deploying omnidb-server for the full set of options and recommended deployment setups (in particular, why exposing -H 0.0.0.0 directly to the internet without a reverse proxy in front is discouraged — there’s no built-in TLS support).

OmniDB with Oracle

Neither OmniDB app nor server require any additional software to connect to Oracle — unlike previous releases, no separate Oracle Instant Client installation is needed. Oracle connectivity is implemented natively (a pure Go driver), so it works the same way out of the box as every other supported database. The same is true for MS SQL Server and Firebird: both also use pure Go drivers, so no ODBC driver, native client library, or other extra install step is required for either of them.

OmniDB User Database

Upon first run, both server and app create a file ~/.omnidb/omnidb-app/omnidb.db (for OmniDB app) or ~/.omnidb/omnidb-server/omnidb.db (for OmniDB server) in the user home directory, if it does not exist yet — along with an admin superuser account. The desktop app signs in as this user automatically; in server mode its password is randomly generated and printed once to the server’s log output (the line containing initial login: admin / …). This file is also called the user database and contains all users, connections, and other application data. If it already exists (e.g. after an upgrade), OmniDB uses it as-is — it is never overwritten or reset automatically.

OmniDB in the browser

Once omnidb-server is running, open the address it printed on startup (for example http://127.0.0.1:52149/omnidb_login/) in your favorite browser. You will see OmniDB’s sign-in page; sign in as admin with the one-time password from the log. In the next chapters, we will see how to create users and connections and how to work with OmniDB. The desktop app skips this step entirely — it opens the workspace directly.