How to Install Beekeeper Studio on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04
If you’re looking for a slick database client that actually does something useful (and doesn’t turn your terminal into a labyrinth), Beekeeper Studio is worth the install. Below is a no‑frills walkthrough that gets it up and running on the latest LTS releases without any of the usual “you need to set a bunch of environment variables” drama.
1. Why you’ll want Beekeeper Studio
I’ve seen developers ditching pgAdmin or MySQL Workbench because they’re either bloated with plugins or have that annoying “save my password in the OS keychain” prompt that never works. Beekeeper Studio cuts out the fluff and gives you a clean, keyboard‑friendly interface. It supports Postgres, MySQL, SQLite, MariaDB, and even MongoDB via drivers—so if you’re juggling multiple backends, you won’t be forced to switch apps mid‑night.
2. Prep your machine (quick sanity check)
# Make sure the system is up‑to‑date sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
Because a stale libssl or missing glibc can cause the installer to crash mid‑download, and nobody wants that in a weekend project.
3. Pick your installation method
Beekeeper Studio ships as a .deb, a Snap, or via a third‑party PPA. The .deb is the most straightforward for LTS users; it respects your system’s libraries and doesn’t pull in the entire Snap store.
Option A: Install from the official .deb
# Download the latest Debian package (adjust the URL if a newer release appears) wget https://github.com/BeekeeperStudio/beekeeper-studio/releases/download/v1.28.0/beekeeper-studio_1.28.0-1_amd64.deb -O beekeeper.deb # Install it sudo dpkg -i beekeeper.deb || sudo apt-get install -f
dpkg -i will fail if dependencies are missing; apt-get install -f tells APT to fetch whatever else is required. It’s a common pattern for any .deb you download directly.
Option B: Snap (if you prefer the sandbox)
sudo snap install beekeeper-studio --classic
The classic confinement lets it access your local files, which is handy when you want to open a local SQLite file or dump schema to disk. It’s marginally slower on first launch, but otherwise identical.
4. Launch and connect
# If installed via .deb: beekeeper-studio &
You should see the familiar splash screen. The first time you run it, Beekeeper will prompt for a default connection location; I usually point this at ~/Documents/Beekeeper. It’s handy because all of your queries and export files live in one folder.
When you add a new database:
1. Hit “New Connection.”
2. Pick the backend (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.).
3. Fill out host, port, user, password.
4. Click “Test Connection” – this step is crucial; it catches typos before you waste time digging into logs.
If you’re on a local dev machine with localhost and the default ports, leave everything at its defaults—Beekeeper will remember them.
5. Common hiccups (and how I fixed them)
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| App crashes on launch with “cannot find libssl.so” | Missing system library | sudo apt install libssl1.1 (or the version matching your distro) |
| “Permission denied” when trying to write query results | Snap confinement | Move to a writable directory or install via .deb |
| Query editor shows garbled characters | Wrong character set | In connection settings, choose UTF‑8 for both client and server |
I once ran into the first issue after a kernel upgrade that bumped libssl from 1.1 to 3.0. The app simply refused to start until I reinstalled the older library. If you see that error, it’s not a bug in Beekeeper; it’s your distro doing its thing.
6. A word on performance
Beekeeper is built with Electron, which means it’s heavier than native tools like psql or mysql. On modest hardware (e.g., a 2‑core laptop), you’ll notice the memory footprint hovering around 250 MB when idle and up to 500 MB during heavy query sessions. If you’re on an older machine, consider sticking to the CLI for nightly maintenance tasks.
That said, I’ve used it on a mid‑range Ryzen 7 with no hiccups, even while editing large JSON blobs in MongoDB. For most developers, the trade‑off is worth the modern UI and instant syntax highlighting.
7. Wrap‑up
Downloading the .deb from GitHub and letting dpkg handle dependencies gets Beekeeper Studio up on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04 in under five minutes. The app itself is lean enough that you won’t feel like it’s hogging your desktop, and its connection wizard makes setting up new databases a breeze.
