How I Got Tired of Switching Between DBeaver, PuTTY, WinSCP, and SMTP Tools — So I Built One Desktop Workspace

Yasharka Bhattacharyya — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:32:02 +0000

Backend development has become incredibly fragmented.

A typical day for me looked something like this:

Open DBeaver to inspect a PostgreSQL database.
Open PuTTY to SSH into a server.
Open WinSCP to upload a file.
Open an S3 browser to verify objects.
Open an SMTP testing tool to debug emails.
Repeat this dozens of times throughout the day.

Every tool was good.

The workflow wasn't.

The Real Problem Isn't SQL

Most database tools focus on one thing:

Managing databases.

But backend developers rarely spend their day only writing SQL.

We also:

Deploy applications
Browse cloud storage
Upload files
Check email delivery
Manage Redis
Inspect MongoDB
Jump between staging and production servers

The result?

Five to ten desktop applications open at the same time.

Context Switching Is Expensive

Switching applications doesn't sound like a big deal until you do it 100 times a day.

Every switch means:

Different keyboard shortcuts
Different authentication
Different UI
Different window
Different mental context

The cost isn't opening another application.

It's losing focus.

Why Isn't There One Workspace?

That question kept bothering me.

Why do we have universal IDEs...

...but not a universal infrastructure workspace?

Instead of building another SQL editor, I wanted something that combined the tools I already used every day.

What I Ended Up Building

The result became Nexoxa Bridge.

Instead of focusing only on databases, it combines multiple developer workflows into one desktop application.

Current features include:

PostgreSQL
MySQL
MongoDB
Redis
LibSQL
SSH dashboards
S3 browser
SFTP
SMTP tools
Monaco SQL editor
AI Copilot (Bring Your Own API Key)

Everything stays local.

Credentials are encrypted on your own machine.

No database URLs are uploaded to our servers.

Why BYOK?

One design decision I cared about was avoiding vendor lock-in.

Rather than charging for AI usage or routing prompts through our infrastructure, the application lets developers use their own API keys.

That means:

You control your AI provider.
You control your costs.
Your prompts don't go through our servers.

I think that's a better model for developer tools.

Building It Wasn't the Hard Part

The engineering was challenging.

But explaining the product has actually been harder.

When someone hears "database tool," they immediately compare it to DBeaver or DataGrip.

That's fair.

But the goal isn't replacing one SQL client.

The goal is reducing the number of applications backend developers have to juggle every day.

I'd Love Feedback

I'm still actively building Nexoxa Bridge, and I'd really appreciate feedback from other developers.

A few questions I'd love to hear your thoughts on:

What's your current backend workflow?
Which desktop tools do you use most?
What's the biggest pain point in your daily development setup?
Would you prefer one integrated workspace, or separate specialized tools?

I'm especially interested in hearing from backend developers, DevOps engineers, and DBAs.

If you're curious, you can check out the project here:

👉 https://asteron.nexoxa.com

It's currently available for Windows, and I'm continuously improving it based on developer feedback.

DEV Community: Yasharka Bhattacharyya

How I Got Tired of Switching Between DBeaver, PuTTY, WinSCP, and SMTP Tools — So I Built One Desktop Workspace