The Best Database Proxy Software in 2026
We researched database proxy software from official websites, including pricing pages, plan tables and product documentation. Products are ranked on their core routing and connection-management job, value for money and verified features, so buyers can compare the category itself.
Our top picks
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Top ranked
Heimdall Database Proxy#1 of 319.4/10A broad database proxy with pooling, routing, analytics, security, and failover.
Free plan
-
Runner-up
ProxySQL#2 of 319.2/10A free, open-source proxy for routing, pooling, balancing, and managing database traffic.
Free plan
-
Top-ranked free plan
ShardingSphere-Proxy#3 of 319.0/10A self-hosted proxy for routing, scaling, and high availability across four database protocols.
Free plan
Advertiser disclosure: iTechGuides is reader-supported. Vendors can pay for top positions in our rankings and for a place on other products' pages, and we may earn a commission when you click some links. Bought places stand at the number bought; this page and our disclosure say so. Paying vendors may get a fuller, more detailed review from our editors, and that review can change their score. How we rank.
The full ranking 31 tools, best first
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Best forBroad, enterprise-grade database proxying
A broad database proxy with pooling, routing, analytics, security, and failover.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
9.4/10★★★★★Visit Heimdall Data -
Best forFree, mature MySQL/PostgreSQL proxying
A free, open-source proxy for routing, pooling, balancing, and managing database traffic.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
9.2/10★★★★★Visit ProxySQL -
Best forOpen-source multi-database proxy deployments
A self-hosted proxy for routing, scaling, and high availability across four database protocols.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
9.0/10★★★★☆Visit ShardingSphere -
Best forModern MySQL/PostgreSQL proxy teams
A self-hosted Rust proxy for pooling, routing, failover, consistency, and database visibility.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
8.8/10★★★★☆Visit TurbineProxy -
Best forAdvanced PostgreSQL proxy engineering
A deep self-hosted PostgreSQL proxy for teams building advanced traffic and failover control.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
8.7/10★★★★☆Visit HeliosProxy -
Best forEnterprise MariaDB proxy operations
A feature-rich MariaDB proxy for routing, failover and production database operations.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
8.6/10★★★★☆Visit MariaDB -
Best forManaged edge database connectivity
A managed edge proxy for Workers applications connecting to existing databases.
- Automatic failover
- Connection pooling
8.5/10★★★★☆Visit Cloudflare -
Best forFree PostgreSQL pooling and sharding
A free PostgreSQL proxy with pooling, routing, replica balancing, and sharding.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
8.4/10★★★★☆Visit PgDog -
Best forPostgreSQL HA and replication proxying
A feature-rich PostgreSQL proxy for teams running their own database clusters.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
8.3/10★★★★☆Visit Pgpool-II -
Best forFree PostgreSQL pooling with sharding
A focused, free PostgreSQL proxy for pooling, routing, failover, and sharding.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
8.2/10★★★★☆Visit PgCat -
Best forMySQL sharding and distributed transactions
A focused Linux proxy for MySQL sharding, routing, pooling, and distributed transactions.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
8.1/10★★★★☆Visit DBLE -
Best forManaged MySQL proxying on Alibaba Cloud
A focused managed proxy for MySQL workloads needing routing, pooling, and failover support.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
8.0/10★★★★☆Visit Alibaba Cloud -
Best forFocused PostgreSQL pooling and routing
A focused self-hosted proxy for PostgreSQL pooling, routing, balancing, and observability.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
7.9/10★★★★☆Visit Odyssey -
Best forMulti-tenant PostgreSQL pooling
Open-source PostgreSQL pooling with multi-tenancy, routing, metrics, and cluster resilience.
- Query routing
- Load balancing
- Connection pooling
7.8/10★★★★☆Visit Supavisor -
Best forMature, free PostgreSQL connection pooling
A mature, free PostgreSQL pooler for self-hosted infrastructure.
- Load balancing
- Connection pooling
7.7/10★★★★☆Visit PgBouncer -
Best forPostgreSQL pooling with Patroni
A focused PostgreSQL pooler for teams that need Patroni-aware fallback and routing.
- Automatic failover
- Load balancing
- Connection pooling
7.6/10★★★★☆Visit PgDoorman -
Best forOpen-source MySQL sharding
A focused, self-hosted MySQL proxy with broad routing and sharding controls.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
7.5/10★★★★☆Visit kingshard -
Best forMySQL sharding and multi-cluster proxying
A self-hosted MySQL proxy for sharding, routing, pooling, and multi-cluster operations.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
7.4/10★★★★☆Visit Gaea -
Best forOpen-source MySQL proxy with sharding
A Linux self-hosted proxy for MySQL routing, pooling, splitting, and sharding.
- Query routing
- Connection pooling
7.3/10★★★★☆Visit Cetus -
Best forPostgreSQL sharding and distributed transactions
A focused self-hosted choice for PostgreSQL sharding and distributed transactions.
- Query routing
- Connection pooling
7.2/10★★★★☆Visit SPQR -
Best forMySQL-compatible distributed SQL routing
A self-hosted MySQL-compatible proxy for sharding, routing, optimization, and distributed SQL.
- Query routing
- Load balancing
- Connection pooling
7.1/10★★★★☆Visit Mycat2 -
Best forLightweight PostgreSQL connection pooling
A focused, open-source PostgreSQL pooler for self-hosted infrastructure.
- Connection pooling
7.0/10★★★★☆Visit pgagroal -
Best forManaged Tencent MySQL proxying
A managed MySQL proxy for routing, pooling, balancing, and failover across TencentDB.
- Automatic failover
- Query routing
- Load balancing
6.9/10★★★☆☆Visit Tencent Cloud -
Best forSecure Cloud SQL connection access
A focused open-source proxy for IAM-authorized, encrypted Cloud SQL connections.
- Automatic failover
6.8/10★★★☆☆Visit Google Cloud -
Best forManaged databases with optional proxy pooling
A broad managed database service with optional connection pooling through AWS RDS Proxy.
6.7/10★★★☆☆Visit Amazon RDS -
Best forPostgreSQL query optimization proxying
A focused PostgreSQL proxy for query rewriting, caching, regression checks, and telemetry.
6.6/10★★★☆☆Visit QueryMesh -
Best forFree MySQL database infrastructure
A free, capable MySQL foundation when database infrastructure matters more than proxy specialization.
6.5/10★★★☆☆Visit MySQL -
Best forDistributed MySQL-compatible database workloads
A broad distributed database platform for MySQL-compatible workloads, not a dedicated proxy.
6.4/10★★★☆☆Visit OceanBase -
Best forDatabase change-data replication
A self-hosted CDC tool for replicating TiDB changes across databases, streams, and storage.
6.3/10★★★☆☆Visit TiCDC -
Best forHosted collaborative database notebooks
A hosted Oracle notebook environment with collaboration and scheduling, not a database proxy.
6.2/10★★★☆☆Visit Oracle -
Best forFree cross-platform video editing
Avidemux fits straightforward video processing, not timeline-based or multitrack editing.
6.1/10★★★☆☆Visit Avidemux
No tools match those filters.
Compare at a glance
| # | Tool | Free plan | Paid from | Deployment model | Connection pooling | Query routing | Load balancing | Supported databases | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heimdall Database Proxy | Yes | Both | Yes | Yes | Yes | MySQL, PostgreSQL, Amazon RDS, Oracle, SQL Server, MariaDB, DB2, Greenplum, Redshift | 9.4 | |
| 2 | ProxySQL | Yes | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | Yes | MySQL protocol, PostgreSQL protocol, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Percona Server for MySQL, ClickHouse | 9.2 |
| 3 | ShardingSphere-Proxy | Yes | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | Yes | MySQL, PostgreSQL, openGauss, Firebird | 9.0 |
| 4 | TurbineProxy | Yes | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | Yes | MySQL, PostgreSQL | 8.8 |
| 5 | HeliosProxy | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | Yes | PostgreSQL-compatible databases | 8.7 | |
| 6 | MariaDB MaxScale | No | Both | Yes | Yes | Yes | MariaDB Server, MySQL-compatible servers, ColumnStore, Enterprise Cluster, MongoDB protocol | 8.6 | |
| 7 | Cloudflare Hyperdrive | Yes | Managed | Yes | PostgreSQL 9.0–17.x; MySQL 5.7–8.x; MariaDB; PostgreSQL- and MySQL-compatible providers | 8.5 | |||
| 8 | PgDog | Yes | Free | Both | Yes | Yes | Yes | PostgreSQL | 8.4 |
| 9 | Pgpool-II | Yes | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | Yes | PostgreSQL | 8.3 |
| 10 | PgCat | Yes | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | Yes | PostgreSQL | 8.2 |
| 11 | DBLE | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | Yes | MySQL, ClickHouse | 8.1 | |
| 12 | ApsaraDB RDS Database Proxy | Yes | Managed | Yes | Yes | Yes | MySQL | 8.0 | |
| 13 | Odyssey | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | Yes | PostgreSQL | 7.9 | |
| 14 | Supavisor | Free | Both | Yes | Yes | Yes | PostgreSQL | 7.8 | |
| 15 | PgBouncer | Yes | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | No | Yes | PostgreSQL | 7.7 |
| 16 | PgDoorman | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | No | Yes | PostgreSQL 10+ | 7.6 | |
| 17 | kingshard | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | Yes | MySQL | 7.5 | |
| 18 | Gaea | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | Yes | MySQL | 7.4 | |
| 19 | Cetus | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | MySQL | 7.3 | ||
| 20 | SPQR | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | PostgreSQL | 7.2 | ||
| 21 | Mycat2 | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | Yes | MySQL, JDBC | 7.1 | |
| 22 | pgagroal | Yes | Free | Self-hosted | Yes | PostgreSQL | 7.0 | ||
| 23 | TencentDB for MySQL Database Proxy | No | Managed | Yes | Yes | Yes | MySQL 5.7 and MySQL 8.0; TencentDB for MySQL read-only analysis engine | 6.9 | |
| 24 | Cloud SQL Auth Proxy | Free | Self-hosted | No | MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server | 6.8 | |||
| 25 | Amazon RDS | No | Both | 6.7 | |||||
| 26 | QueryMesh | Free | Self-hosted | Postgres | 6.6 | ||||
| 27 | MySQL | Yes | Both | 6.5 | |||||
| 28 | OceanBase Database | Yes | Both | 6.4 | |||||
| 29 | TiCDC | Free | Self-hosted | 6.3 | |||||
| 30 | Oracle Machine Learning Notebooks | No | 6.2 | ||||||
| 31 | Avidemux | Yes | Free | 6.1 |
Head-to-head All 28 comparisons →
- Heimdall Database Proxy vs ProxySQL
- Heimdall Database Proxy vs ShardingSphere-Proxy
- Heimdall Database Proxy vs TurbineProxy
- Heimdall Database Proxy vs HeliosProxy
- Heimdall Database Proxy vs MariaDB MaxScale
- Heimdall Database Proxy vs Cloudflare Hyperdrive
- Heimdall Database Proxy vs PgDog
- ProxySQL vs ShardingSphere-Proxy
- ProxySQL vs TurbineProxy
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How we rank database proxy software
Every tool on this page was researched by iTechGuides Editors from its official website — pricing pages, plan tables and product documentation. We rank on how well each one does this category's core job, what the free or entry plan includes, and where it falls short. Where we have enough verified facts, the score out of 10 is a rubric — job fit, value and how much we could verify — shown with its breakdown on every tool's page; a tool we have not verified enough to score yet shows its rank without a number. Scores are re-checked when a product changes its plans. Read the full editorial policy, or submit a tool we missed.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Last updated · How we research and update