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PuLuShen
PuLuShen

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I Built a Free SSMS Extension Because SQL Prompt Is Too Expensive

#sqlserver #ssms #sql #dba

A few years ago I was writing T-SQL in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) every day — stored procedures, views, ad-hoc queries. SSMS ships with IntelliSense, but anyone who has used it for more than a week knows the pain: completions stop working after an alias, the cache doesn't refresh after a schema change, and EXEC parameter hints are basically non-existent.

I tried SQL Prompt. It was genuinely good. It was also $210 per user per year. For a solo developer or a small team, that's hard to justify — especially when you need to convince a manager to approve the purchase.

So I went looking for a free alternative. I didn't find one that fit, so I forked one and built it.

MSSQL Tool is a free, open-source (Apache-2.0) SSMS 22 extension with a full Chinese/English UI. It covers the core SQL Prompt workflows — completion, formatting, query history, result export — without the license fee.

This post is about what it does, what it doesn't do, and why I built it on top of an existing project instead of starting from scratch.

Why not just use SQL Prompt?

SQL Prompt is a mature product and it does things MSSQL Tool doesn't: code refactoring, static analysis, TFS integration. If those matter to you, buy SQL Prompt.

But for a lot of developers, the daily workflow is narrower: write a query, format it, run it, export the result, find it again tomorrow. MSSQL Tool covers that loop for free.

The other factor was language. Most free SSMS extensions are English-only. For teams where English isn't everyone's first language, that's a real barrier — not because developers can't read English, but because a Chinese UI lowers the friction of adopting a new tool across a team. That became the core motivation for this fork.

The foundation: Axial SQL Tools

MSSQL Tool is a fork of Axial SQL Tools, an open-source SSMS extension maintained since 2016. It's a solid, community-tested codebase — which is exactly why I didn't start from zero.

Starting from scratch would have meant reimplementing completion, formatting, settings, and packaging before writing a single line of differentiated functionality. Forking let me focus on what I actually wanted to change:

  • Rewriting the completion engine
  • Expanding formatting options
  • Building a proper settings/localization layer
  • Adding connection color tagging and a few workflow features

If you're already using Axial SQL Tools, MSSQL Tool is an enhanced branch, not a replacement. There's overlap, and that's fine.

What it actually does

SQL editing

  • Context-aware completion — databases, schemas, tables, views, columns, stored procedures, functions, and parameters, with type icons and filtering. More stable than the native IntelliSense in cross-database queries and alias-heavy code.
  • F12 go-to-definition — select an object name and press F12 to open its definition or local SQL file.
  • T-SQL formatting — built on Microsoft's ScriptDOM library, with customizable rules.
  • Expand SELECT * — turns the asterisk into an explicit column list.
  • Query templates and snippets — save frequently used queries for reuse.

Result handling

  • Export to Excel — write query results directly to an Excel file.
  • Email results — send query results by email without manually exporting and attaching.
  • Script results as a temp table — convert a result grid into a temp table with generated INSERT statements.
  • Copy as multiple formats — INSERT, CSV, JSON, XML, or HTML.

Monitoring and workflow

  • Query history — automatically logs executed queries for later retrieval.
  • Server health panel — a consolidated view of database status.
  • Execution time in the status bar — millisecond-level timing.
  • Transaction and Always Encrypted warnings — status bar alerts when there are uncommitted transactions or Always Encrypted is enabled.
  • Connection color tagging — different colors for different servers and databases, which is surprisingly useful when you're one wrong tab away from running DELETE on production.
  • Bilingual UI — follows the SSMS language setting (Chinese/English).

What it doesn't do (yet)

I want to be honest about this, because overselling an extension leads to bad reviews and worse feedback.

Not covered: code refactoring, static analysis, TFS integration. These are SQL Prompt's strengths and MSSQL Tool doesn't try to match them.

Experimental: Google Sheets export and GitHub script sync are in the codebase but still under active development. They're marked as experimental in the README and I don't recommend relying on them yet. If you try them and they break, that's expected — please open an issue with details.

SSMS 22 only: older SSMS versions haven't been fully validated.

Comparison at a glance

Feature MSSQL Tool SQL Prompt
SQL completion ✅ ✅
T-SQL formatting ✅ (ScriptDOM) ✅
F12 go-to-definition ✅ ✅
Query history ✅ ✅
Export to Excel ✅ ✅
Email results ✅ ✅
Chinese UI ✅ ❌
Code refactoring / static analysis ❌ ✅
TFS integration ❌ ✅
Price Free (Apache-2.0) $210/user/year

How to install

Option 1 — SSMS Gallery (recommended)

  1. Open the Gallery page: https://ssmsgallery.azurewebsites.net/extension/MSSQLTool/
  2. Download the .vsix file and run the VSIX Installer.
  3. Select your SSMS 22 extensions directory and restart SSMS.

Option 2 — GitHub Releases

  1. Go to https://github.com/PuLuShen/MSSQLTOOL/releases
  2. Download the latest ZIP, extract it, and run the installer script.
  3. Restart SSMS.

After installation, you can enable "auto-install updates when SSMS closes" in the extension settings.

Why I'm posting this on Dev.to

I'm not here to sell anything — the extension is free and the code is open. I'm posting because I want feedback from people who actually use SSMS for a living.

If you try it and something doesn't work, open an issue on GitHub. If you think the feature set is missing something important, tell me. If you've solved the "SQL Prompt is too expensive" problem differently, I'd genuinely like to hear how.

GitHub: https://github.com/PuLuShen/MSSQLTOOL
SSMS Gallery: https://ssmsgallery.azurewebsites.net/extension/MSSQLTool/

If you find it useful, a star on GitHub helps more people find it.

MSSQL Tool is a fork of Axial SQL Tools, licensed under Apache-2.0. The fork adds localization, an enhanced completion engine, connection color tagging, and workflow features.

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