DEV Community: Matthew McFadden

Introducing SurrealDB Studio

Matthew McFadden — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 18:31:32 +0000

Today we're excited to announce the release of SurrealDB Studio: the new app for working with your SurrealDB instances and Spectron contexts, and the most powerful way to interact with your data yet.

SurrealDB Studio takes over from Surrealist as the official app for SurrealDB, carrying on its mission to provide a full visual experience for working with your SurrealDB instances and Spectron contexts. Whether you are connecting to self hosted instances, or deploying managed cloud instances, SurrealDB Studio provides a clean and intuitive interface to accomplish anything.

While Studio has been built from scratch, it is designed to pick up where Surrealist left off. Your data will copied over automatically the first time you open studio.surrealdb.com or the SurrealDB Studio app.

Let's explore what SurrealDB Studio has to offer! 🎉

Have you used Surrealist?
You already know the basics of what SurrealDB Studio is built upon. Feel free to skip ahead to the highlights section to see what's new for you.

What is SurrealDB Studio?

SurrealDB Studio is the official app for working with everything in the SurrealDB ecosystem. From SurrealDB instances to Spectron contexts, SurrealDB Studio gives you a visual way to do everything you would otherwise do from a terminal, client SDK, or MCP server, such as running queries, reading and editing your records, storing and retrieving memories, and designing your schemas.

What you can do with it

Write and run queries in SurrealQL and view the results as a table, as a graph you can click your way through, or as a live stream of events that updates the moment your data changes.
Explore your data by browsing and filtering your records, following the links between them, and editing any record you find.
Design your schema as a diagram you can rearrange, then click any table to edit its fields, indexes, events, and permissions.
Manage access by setting up users and access methods at every level of your database.
Define functions, parameters, APIs, and analyzers
Manage your SurrealDB instances, from deploying a new one to watching its metrics, restoring a backup, and managing your billing.
Build and deploy Spectron contexts, including the memories and documents your agents are built on.

Try SurrealDB Studio in the browser, no setup required

SurrealDB Studio is the official dashboard of SurrealDB. You don't need a database to get started since it can run them for you in your browser. You can also load one of our sample datasets and start querying within seconds. There is nothing to install and nothing to configure, which makes it a great way to learn about SurrealDB and Spectron, or test an idea before building it.

On desktop, SurrealDB Studio can also start a local instance on your own machine at the press of a button, so you never have to open a terminal to get one running.

Who SurrealDB Studio is for

Whether you are writing your first SurrealQL query, building an agent on Spectron, or looking after an enterprise-scale fleet of production instances on behalf of a team, SurrealDB Studio is designed to be the single place you do it all from.

Feature highlights

All of your data in one place

In an age of AI agents and the increasing need for context, how you represent and interact with data matters more than ever. Most database tools lock you into fixed screens that can't adapt to your needs. SurrealDB Studio breaks that constraint. Every query, table, and schema resource opens in its own tab, letting you dynamically organize and visualize your data however works best for your work.

Each tab does one specific thing. One query, one table of records, one schema diagram. Open as many as you like, rename them, drag them into whatever order suits you, or split the screen up to four ways. Compare the results of two queries side by side, or keep your schema open while you write queries next to it. Click a record and it opens in a tab of its own next to your work, rather than a panel sliding over the top of it.

Your tabs stay where you put them, so you can close the app and pick up exactly where you left off when you return.

An editor that knows your schema

SurrealDB Studio's query editor reads your schema and knows exactly what is in your database. When you start typing, it suggests your tables and the fields inside them, your functions and parameters, as well as SurrealQL's built-in functions. Each suggestion comes with a short description of what it is and what it expects, so you don't need to have the docs open in another window. Hover over anything in your query to read more about it on the spot.

It also checks your work as you go. If you misspell a field, reference a table that doesn't exist, or compare two things that could never match, SurrealDB Studio underlines it the moment you type it instead of leaving you to discover it in an error message after you run the query.

Navigation that stays in context

When you first open SurrealDB Studio, you will land directly in an organisation. This gives you a one click method to access all of your instances, contexts, connections, and organisation settings with ease.

If you work across more than one organisation, the dropdown in the toolbar switches between them instantly and the whole app follows along. Instances, team settings, and billing all belong to whichever organisation you're currently in, so there's nothing to reconnect and no scrolling through a long list looking for the right database.

This change also means custom connections are now stored on an organisation, allowing them to be easy categorised across different projects. While they remain local for now, you will soon be able to easily share connections between team members, or keep them local if you desire.

Getting started

The quickest way to get started with using SurrealDB Studio is by using the web app at studio.surrealdb.com.

In case you would rather have SurrealDB Studio as a proper desktop app, you can download it for macOS, Windows, and Linux. The desktop version adds a few things the browser can't do, like running a local database for you, or easily working with multiple windows.

To get started, simple sign in with your SurrealDB account and you'll be ready to deploy and manage instances, query your Spectron context, and run your local databases.

What's next

Reaching version 1.0 is just the start. Here is some of what we have planned:

Full agent integration: Connect SurrealDB Studio with your agent of choice and drive the interface through MCP, generate visualisations on-demand, and push tabs directly in your chats.
Your configuration, every device: Sign in anywhere and find your connections, saved queries, and tab layout exactly as you left them, whether you're on your laptop, your desktop, or a browser on someone else's machine. No config files to copy around and no exports required.
Sharing with your team: Send someone a link to a query or a whole tab, instead of pasting SurrealQL into a chat window and hoping it survives.
Organisation connections: Automatically sharing connections to self hosted SurrealDB instances between your team members.
New kinds of tabs: Such as notebooks that mix notes, queries, and their results into one document, and dashboards that allow you to assemble your own charts.
Documentation without leaving the app: Open the documentation in a tab right beside what you're working on.

FAQ

What does this mean for Surrealist?

The Surrealist Desktop app will no longer receive feature updates going forward. While the majority of functionality in Surrealist is already available in SurrealDB Studio, there are still some minor features actively being ported over.

Your existing Surrealist data will be automatically migrated to SurrealDB Studio on launch, meaning you can continue where you left off seamlessly. While the Surrealist app will continue to work, cloud related functionality will be restricted to the SurrealDB Studio app at a future point in time, so we recommend migrating to Studio in due course.

Is SurrealDB Studio Desktop available on Linux based systems?

Absolutely! While we used to offer Surrealist Desktop for Linux, the user experience was poor for many users due to bad performance and frequent rendering issues. SurrealDB Studio eliminates these issues entirely by adopting a different technology and bringing Linux support up to par with Windows and MacOS.

Going forward the Linux app will receive the same level of support as our other desktop apps, and will continue to be a great tool for working with SurrealDB.

Do I need a SurrealDB account to use Studio?

In order to support the ongoing experience SurrealDB Studio has to offer, you'll need to sign in to your SurrealDB Account. This allows us to offer an intuitive unified workflow and makes collaboration seamless. Additionally Studio will continue to introduce additional collaborative features so you can share connections, queries, and tabs with your team members seamlessly.

We recognize that this isn't viable for every organization or use case. For this reason we're working on an alternative experience for Studio focus on self-hosted use which we'll have more to share about soon.

Let us know what you think

We'd love to hear your thoughts. Join us on Discord to ask questions, share what you're building, or tell us what you'd like to see next.

Get started for free today at studio.surrealdb.com.

Empower your agents with the new SurrealDB MCP

Matthew McFadden — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 14:12:49 +0000

Exactly a year ago we released SurrealMCP, a server you had to install and run in order to connect agents to your SurrealDB instance. Today, we're excited to announce the next evolution in agent intelligence with the new hosted SurrealDB MCP server.

With this new SurrealDB MCP server, all you need is to add one URL to your AI tool of choice, sign in with your SurrealDB account, and your assistant can work on your instances or contexts alongside you. Whether you want to deploy a new instance, spin up a new Spectron context, execute queries against your graph, or ask questions about your data, the new SurrealDB MCP server has you covered.

Let's dive into it! 🎉

Getting started

Adding the SurrealDB MCP to your agent

Previously, you would need to add an MCP configuration for every instance or context that you wanted to connect to, and there was no way to provision instances or contexts with an agent. With the new hosted SurrealDB MCP server, you can do all of this and much more by adding a single URL:

https://mcp.surrealdb.com

You can authorise the SurrealDB MCP Server either through signing in to your SurrealDB account, or for fine grained control, create a personal access token from the account portal. That is the whole setup. Once connected, your agent now has the ability to interact with your SurrealDB Cloud resources.

Looking to setup your agent? We have step-by-step guides for setting up with Claude and Cursor. For other configurations, please see our MCP docs.

Deploy and manage resources just by asking

Everything you would normally click through in the SurrealDB Studio dashboard is available in your conversations. Deploy a new instance or context, expand your resources as you grow, or upgrade to the latest version of SurrealDB. When deploying resources, the MCP server can put together a configuration, give you a cost estimation, and wait for your confirmation to kick off.

The same conversation can also cover the rest of the housekeeping such as inviting users to your organisation, managing their access level, checking your monthly spend, and updating your instances.

Ask questions about your data and build with ease

Note
Instance querying is only available on instances running SurrealDB 3.2.3 and above

The usual way to get an AI assistant to look at your database is to copy a schema or a query into a chat window, then paste the results back out again. SurrealDB MCP removes this loop. Simply ask a question in plain language and your assistant finds the right database, writes the query, runs it, and shows you both the query it wrote and what came back.

You don't have to describe the shape of your data first, because it can go and look. Ask how many orders you took last week grouped by status, and it will find the table, work out the fields, and write the aggregate itself. Ask what the customer table actually says, and it will describe the fields and indexes back to you. As a bonus, it's often faster than opening SurrealDB Studio to check for yourself.

It works the other way round too. While you're building something new, you can ask it to create a single table or an entire schema for an enterprise-level app.

Memory that outlasts the conversation

Every new chat normally starts from nothing. A decision your team made three weeks ago is gone unless someone remembers to paste it back in. My favorite feature of SurrealDB MCP is that you can interact directly with Spectron, our memory layer for AI agents, in order to keep a persistent brain related to your chats which can be shared with multiple users.

Simply ask your agent to save a memory or give it documents to read, and it will search through them by meaning rather than by keyword and store it for you. Then, ask your agent to retrieve something later:

Let us know what you think

We'd love to hear your thoughts! Join us on Discord to ask questions, share what you're building, or tell us what you'd like your assistant to be able to do next.

To learn even more about SurrealDB MCP, please check out our MCP docs.

What's new in Surrealist 3.9

Matthew McFadden — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 17:10:31 +0000

We're excited to announce the release of Surrealist 3.9! This version introduces a complete design overhaul, a new datasets browser and data manager, an improved record inspector, and much more. Let's dive into what's new 🎉

Highlights

Complete design overhaul

Surrealist 3.9 introduces the most significant visual refresh since Surrealist 2.0. From the new sidebar and topbar to the fully revamped light theme, the entire interface has been redesigned to feel fresher, cleaner, more consistent, and easier to navigate.

Namespace and database selection has been unified into a single selection menu, making it faster to switch context without the need to navigate separate menus. Additionally, the new search input makes it easy to find what you need, even in large deployments.

Connection and instance settings have also been completely redesigned, and the overview page now includes search for both connections and organisations. These changes make it easier to find what you are looking for no matter how many instances you manage.

New datasets browser and data manager

Working with imports and exports of your database and trying out new features with official SurrealDB demo datasets has never been easier! Surrealist 3.9 introduces a data manager and dedicated datasets browser to make managing bulk data in your database faster and more intuitive.

Additionally, it is now easier than ever to discover, browse, and apply official SurrealDB datasets to your database or Sandbox instance so that you can learn about and try new SurrealDB features in an interactive manner without needing to scroll through docs.

Improved record inspector

The record inspector has been significantly enhanced to give you a deeper view of your data. The new References and Live tabs make it easier to explore record relationships and monitor real-time changes, while the new actions menu gives you more control over how you interact with individual records.

These improvements make the record inspector a more capable tool for day-to-day data exploration whether you are tracing graph relationships, inspecting linked records, or watching live query results update in real time.

Full changelog

Improved designer view to use ALTER statements in 3.x instances
Overhauled Surrealist design
- Improved brand icons
- Redesigned light theme
- Redesigned sidebar and topbar
- Added a toggle sidebar button to the topbar
- Moved settings button to a menu item in the topbar when logged out and account menu when logged in
- Unified the namespace and database selectors into a single selection menu
- Completely redesigned connection and instance settings
- Implemented new search functionality for connections and organisations on the overview page
- Revamped and re-enabled API Docs view
Implemented a new datasets browser and data manager (#1224)
Improved the record inspector with new references and live tabs, and new actions
Implemented VIM mode setting (#106)
Implemented the ability to toggle tables in the designer (#372)
Implemented default namespace and database functionality for 3.x instances
Implemented namespace and database comment editor
Added namespace and database comments to selection menu and database settings page
Added search inputs to the namespace and database selection lists
Added designer view LOD settings for zoom-based table simplification (#1222)
Added pagination to the newsletter drawer
Fixed title bar overlapping drawers on Windows and Linux
Fixed authentication redirect on session expiry
Fixed Windows install art not showing for new installations
Fixed Surrealist mini not allowing datasets other than surreal-deal-store
Fixed an error where imports always showed success, even when they failed
Fixed 2.x sample data datasets being applied to 3.x databases
Fixed explorer returning no rows when sorting on empty columns (#1194)
Fixed interface and designer zoom not applying on all platforms (#1188)
Clean up stale graph connections after deleting edge tables (#1147)
Fixed an issue where clicking a table in designer view would cause a crash (#1238)
Fixed an issue causing large conection urls to cause UI overflow in connection cards (#1225)
Fixed broken documentation links (#1217)
Fixed passing URLs through desktop launcher (#1179)
Fixed Designer exports including lower LOD levels
Fixed designer not showing links for complex ids (#1063)
Fixed UUID records not resolving correctly in graph (#974)
Fixed clipboard writes failing in some browsers (#994)
Fixed GraphQL view authentication (#1101)

We hope you enjoy these new features and improvements! As always, we appreciate your feedback and suggestions for future releases. Join the SurrealDB Discord to engage with the community and receive support.

Get started for free today at app.surrealdb.com