"What were our top 10 customers last quarter by revenue, as a bar chart?"
DB-GPT translates that to SQL, runs it against your database, and renders the chart. No SQL knowledge required. Fully local. MIT licensed. 17K GitHub stars — almost no English content.
What is DB-GPT?
DB-GPT is an open-source framework that puts a natural language interface on top of your databases. You connect PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, or others — then ask questions in plain English. It generates the SQL, executes it, and can visualize results automatically.
Think Metabase meets AI, but fully self-hosted and free.
Supported Databases
PostgreSQL · MySQL · MariaDB · SQLite · ClickHouse · DuckDB · Spark SQL
Setup
Clone the repo, copy .env.example to .env, add your database connection string, then docker compose up -d. Open localhost:5670 → admin / admin → Settings → Database → Add → paste connection string.
Full docker-compose: chinese-ai-tools-english-guide/tools/db-gpt
Example Queries
Once your database is connected:
- "Show total sales by month for the last 12 months as a bar chart"
- "Which products have inventory below 10 units?"
- "Top 5 customers by order value with their email addresses"
- "Average order fulfillment time grouped by warehouse"
DB-GPT generates SQL for each, runs it, returns results. Charts render automatically in the UI.
Connecting Ollama
Settings → LLM Provider → Ollama → Base URL: http://ollama:11434/v1 → Model: llama3
For best SQL accuracy use sqlcoder — fine-tuned specifically for SQL generation. Pull it with docker exec -it ollama ollama pull sqlcoder.
DB-GPT vs Vanna.ai
Both let you query databases with natural language:
| DB-GPT | Vanna.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Built-in UI | ✅ Full app | Minimal |
| Charts | ✅ Built-in | ❌ External |
| Visual pipeline | ✅ AWEL | ❌ |
| Self-hosted | ✅ | ✅ |
DB-GPT if you want a complete self-contained app. Vanna.ai if you're embedding the capability programmatically into your own product.
n8n Automation
A ready-to-import workflow JSON is in the repo (integration/n8n-workflows/db-gpt-query.json). POST {question, db_name} → returns {answer, sql, data}.
Full Guide
→ chinese-ai-tools-english-guide
Previous articles in this series:
- 5 Chinese AI tools the West is ignoring
- WeKnora — Tencent's RAG framework
- MaxKB — simplest self-hosted RAG
Your data never leaves your machine. No API keys, no cloud, no SQL knowledge needed.